Part 2: Getting Started as a Concept Artist & Illustrator

But first, above is a cool event we’ll be participating in this weekend. Come celebrate children’s books, and reading, and children and — well, what else is there? There’s more info at our Facebook page. By the way, “Día de los Niños” is a wonderful celebration every April. I’m an Illustrator Ambassador (he said modestly). Find out more here: What is Día, anyway?

And an explanation: Oh Dear and Gentle Readers, apologies for disappearing for a while. Been traveling, drumming up freelance business. And I needed a break. Blogging is quite a commitment, as any of you keeping a blog know.

But here we are. Where were we? Oh, yeah. . . .

My next step as a commercial artist was Sullivan Bluth Studio in Dublin, Ireland —

After a year or so as  freelancer at Calabash Animation in Chicago, it happened that Sullivan Bluth Studio in Ireland was recruiting new animation artists to work on “All Dogs Go To Heaven”. I got the call, along with several other Academy graduates. They needed layout artist trainees in Dublin. 

Always game, I thought, “Why not?” So I worked in their Layout Department for the summer, explored Dublin, and took long meditative walks with a furry herd of elk through Phoenix Park, the largest enclosed park in any European capital. At the Studio, I learned tons about layout drawing and design and got to use even more of my film school training. (Oh yeah, my undergraduate degree is in Film. A knowledge of live action filmmaking techniques is really useful, and will give you an edge. Especially now, with 3-D computer animation, more like live action than 2-D, which the inimitable concept artist Maurice Noble argued was a graphic art, not merely filmic.)

While I was at Bluth, I heard Disney was producing “Beauty and the Beast,” one of my favorite fairy tales, so I set my sights on them. With Bluth on my resume, getting into Disney was easier, though still highly competitive. In LA, working at Disney and other studios, I was learning even more about Layout.

Layout Drawing (by me!), “Beauty and the Beast,” Maurice drives to the Faire. (copyright Walt Disney Animation Studios)

Layout, “Beauty and the Beast,” Belle’s Castle (copyright Walt Disney Animation Studios)

Specializing in Layout was necessary and felt right at that point, in order to keep working. But specializing has its traps.

More about those traps next time — and how I resolved them and moved into Visual Development and Illustration.