Oscar Grillo Update: Hagar The Horrible

Animated beer commercials, from the mid 1980s. Plus that lovely animated and wonderfully designed "Winetasters" clip from the 1990s.

My Personal Tribute To Oscar Grillo

Please find Oscar's blog right over here, for his facebook site please follow this link.

Draw!

Looking at this classic Daffy Duck model sheet always makes me fired up for drawing!

© Warner Bros. World rights reserved.

John Starduck Short Film

Quite recently, I started developmental work on the short subject film project John Starduck©. Cheers to Reno Armanet from France and LA based Tigobo Animation Studios for setting the duck running. Let's see, I'm sure this will be fun, cross your fingers :) Please find some older early rough pieces here below.

I'm going for a coffee run. Anything you want?

How to make Vietnamese Coffee, indeed inspiring.

How To Make Vietnamese Coffee from High Beam Media on Vimeo.

Woodstock Skeleton

By Michael Paulus.

Jack Davis Marx Toys Cover Art

What a find! This is a Marx Toys catalogue from 1975 with a knock-out cover wrapper by Jack Davis!

via Retronaut

Update: here's the corresponding commercial from 1975, showing the life-action versions of the characters:

Another Recreated BG Pan Beauty

Bad Ol' Putty Tat (1949)

via Animation Backgrounds 2

Background Pan Inspiration

This is a recreated background piece from the Tex Avery cartoon Northwest Hounded Dog (1946).

via Animation Backgrounds 2

Boyhood Daze

Boyhood Daze (1957) is one of my all time favorite Chuck Jones cartoons. Except for the insanely political incorrect daydream jungle-sequence, of course. Well, the Fifties were not a time of political correctness, in fact anything but.

I rewatched it today and found out that this little gem has a lot of in it what my own work drives, too. I indeed forgot how much this very film had an influence on my own work. Besides, the uber-layout-man Maurice Noble did a beautiful job on the backgrounds, the air combat part is a masterpiece by itself. Or the beautifully presented light in the boy's room, just smashingly beauteous.

All images © Warner Bros. All rights reserved. Via suspended

Lil' Red

Lovely style! via onanimation.com

Facial Expressions Caused By Extreme Wind

Rides And References

Apropos references and/or inspiration, here's a beautiful Amazing Stories cover illustration by Ray Kaifus, from the early 1960s:

via McClaverty

Joseph Danilowatz And Fritz Lang

I just discovered that one of my favorite artists, Joseph Danilowatz, was a main influence (visually) and close adviser to Fritz Lang, the director of 'Metropolis'. Which means, that Danilowatz influenced - in further consequence - the cinema of our time and people like Ridley Scott, George Lucas etc.

This piece by Danilowatz here below was made by the way years before Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Update: Here's is an interesting interview from 1975 William Friedkin had with Fritz Lang, enjoy.

Another Set of Rough Sketches

This time digitally drawn ones, a Motorbird in a Motorsuit and a Motorbird controlled creature. Both are early concept sketches for the PIXEL 7 battle sujet which will come with a new knack this year.

And this here is a Motorbird jet bike reference sheet from 2010, sort of semi-coloured, not really cleaned up. I already posted this here on the blog, but in a slightly different version:

Saturday Morning Set of Rough Sketches

This is how I usually start my process.

Loose Cover Illustration From 1905

Here's a lovely loose cover illustration by another uber-talented Viennese artist, Leo Kober (1876-1931), coeval with Josef Danilowatz. Both Kober and Danilowatz worked by the way for Die Muskete, a humoristic Austrian journal from the early 20th century.