Dane Armour

I believe stories can inspire the world, a single person, or even a thought. This is a compendium of the stories that have inspired me and the stories that I ambition to tell.

[danearmour]

[coversdaily]

[horrorsoflife]

Artist Mike Del Mundo

[disneyconceptsandstuff]

Costume Designs from Atlantis by Mike Mignola

[disneyconceptsandstuff]

Storyboards from Mulan by Chris Sanders

[xxbluandorangexx]

Random art advice;

draw what makes you happy

work with your anxiety not against it

if working in a sketchbook makes you anxious, draw on printer paper or index cards

that way if that shit starts pissing you off you can literally toss it across the room

if one medium is giving you trouble try another

take a break from digital to work traditionally or vice versa 

draw from reference

trace over reference with the intention of internalizing shapes 

take what you love about other’s work and incorporate it into your own

if you need to work but are having trouble focusing, set a repeating timer

dick around for ten minutes and then work for ten minutes

if the timer goes off and you still feel like working, keep working

be kind to yourself

draw when you can as much as you can

do NOT beat yourself up for not being able to work

working in pen or marker can help you overcome fear of permanent mistakes

it can also help you work quicker and looser

do your undersketch in blue pen/marker and go over it in black

make corrections with whiteout or white gel pen

when you want to draw but don’t know what to work on, start by drawing circles or other shapes

fill a page with nonsense doodles

warm up your wrists

do the bean exercise

just fill a page with beans

draw what makes you happy

[nicole-stafford]

a lot of words.

I have received a lot of asks recently about how to get into CalArts and how to get into Gobelins.  I’ll probably try and sum up my feels on these kind of asks in one post and then steer away from answering these questions in the future.  My acceptance to Gobelins was purely through the exchange so I can’t offer much advice on getting in from the ground floor but, I’d direct you to the CRFA FAQ tumblr if you want to ask questions there: http://gobelins.tumblr.com/

I’m not going to go down a checklist that you can find on the CalArts website but offer some more broad advice.  I think getting into art school and succeeding there has a lot to do with your own motivations and your willingness to try new things.  Start by focusing on your work and pushing yourself hard to be better just for yourself.  Know exactly what you cannot do and then try and learn how to do it, through repetition and experimentation.  Draw a lot.  Experiment a lot.  Challenge your drawing sensibility.  Draw from life (which could mean a lot of things): parking it in front of a thousand still lifes with a bazillion different mediums, going to formal life drawing classes and regularly moving between knowing exactly where all the fat pockets, muscles, and bones go to drawing people with the shape language of a toddler, sitting at the park and drawing the people, sitting at the zoo and drawing the fluffy beings, sitting at your kitchen table and drawing how it feels to be there.  Stuff like this is all superbly valuable.  Put yourself into design situations that you’ve never tried before and see what happens.  Loosen up.  Don’t confine your range.  Experiment.  Set different limitations on your art each time.  Regularly vary your color palettes, line weights, mediums, length of time to complete, subject matter etc. etc.  And use these limitations to say something.

Absorb everything: photography, live-action movies, classical painting, literature,  great speakers, poetry, life experience.  But don’t regurgitate it.  Do exactly what you can’t do until you can do it.  And keep growing.  If you do all of this, you should have 5 zillion drawings, of which, you can choose the couple dozen that you are most proud of.  Submit a portfolio that shows your voice, your knowledge, your variety, and your willingness to expand and that’s all you can really hope for.

Realize that art school is only one form of facilitating your artistic growth.  

If you get in, be warned, it’s still up to you to be better, the school doesn’t do it for you.   And if you don’t get in, take heart, it’s still up to you to be better, the school doesn’t do it for you.

<3

Here are some recent creative inspirations of mine if you are interested:

~ Mr. Bradbury always leaves my feeling inspired:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-r7ABrMYU

~ Mr. Wilde has some interesting views on art in The Decay of Lying and The Critic as an Artist I and II

~ The Bones Brigade: An Autobiography (thanks abby)

~ The breadth of Mr. Picasso.  Not just the famous paintings but those damn sculptures too.

~ Mr. Joaquín Sorolla

~ Mr. W. B. Yeats

~ Mr. Alfred Sisley

~ Ms. Gypsee Yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bfTgy26wOU

~ This short Dokuro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2BocgaLk0#t=602

~ Mr. Edouard Vuillard

~ Everything the great Tavi Gevinson has ever touched. Love her interview in The Great Discontent.

~ and here’s my likes blog too if you are interested: http://nicole-likes.tumblr.com/

[mobble]

> “realism is too much work, it isn’t fun, I choose not to do it”

> coming from cartoon artist who doesn’t get out of their comfort zone much 

> look at archive, art has barely improved over 2 years

[danearmour]

Note to self

[wannabeanimator]

Peter Pan (1953) | reference and final animation (x)

[danearmour]

As a kid I produced these ad nauseum. The flattened and distorted perspective of children's books being an obvious inspiration, I also remember finding it incredibly rewarding to cram so many ideas into one scene. This drawing is a throwback to that desire and makes me wonder how successfully this style can be used to tell story. This is the story of my humble afternoon. #drawing #illustration #story #storytime #80skid #experimental #style #artist #inprogress #instaart #lovetheprocess #daneinprogress #la #larivee

[brandonwuart]

Hey guys my fourth year film is now online!

Sorry for the repost, apparently I needed to  link through vimeo to get a thumbnail.

[danearmour]

This is a beautiful film by Brandon Wu that elegantly touches on the theme of Man Vs Nature, a theme that comes up a lot in my own ideas. Incredible stuff.

[danearmour]

Heidi Grant Halvorson: The Incredible Benefits of a "Get Better" Mindset from 99U on Vimeo. This speech succinctly puts in to words the transition I’ve been making over the last year. Everything I’ve learnt and all the progress I’ve made have only been possible due to shifting my mindset which is unsurprisingly the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It ebbs and flows, just like everything else, but this journey has been incredibly liberating and I highly recommend everyone watch this and then consider where their own mindset stands.

[mickeyandcompany]

Pixar’s 22 rules to phenomenal storytelling (click in the pictures to zoom)

[thewebcomicsreview]

I think I’ve posted this here before, but it all remains good advice.

[anonymousmethod]

“Well, it’s not enough to be talented. There’s a lot of talent out there, but it’s owned by lazy, stupid, or essentially boring people. You can’t just be talented: You have to be terribly smart and energetic and ruthless. You also have to become necessary to people, by working hard and well and bringing more than your bones and your skin to the project. Don’t just show up. Transform the work, yourself, and everybody around you. Be needed. Be interesting. Be something no one else can be–and consistently.”

Katharine Hepburn/Interview with James Grissom/1990 (via anonymousmethod)

[pbcbstudios-deactivated20200417]

Monster - Sequence 23 - Thumbnails

Note : No spoiler - I went into this and added Yokai’s mask to cover up his identity if you haven’t seen the film.

These are my thumbnails before I boarded the sequence. Maybe one day I’ll try and post my boards.

We had an editorial meeting on this sequence and it originally didn’t have Baymax pursuing Yokai. It went right away to the team jumping in to fight off Baymax and Yokai escaping but John Lasseter challenged us to push it more and make Baymax feel like a serious and scary threat.

 This is one of those moments where it has to get done insanely quickly and a team comes together. We discussed it in editorial - development was done in layout and animation and then I jumped in and storyboarded the whole thing over a weekend based on the development. Layout reworked it and then Zach Parrish and his team did a beautiful job and brought it to life. Patrick Osborne had just finished Feast and he jumped in to help out animate too. What makes this sequence really AMAZING is the decision by Chris Williams, Don Hall, and composer Henry Jackman to drop out all the sound and let the score carry it. It’s incredible and as hard as it is for me to watch it’s one of the more impactful sequences in the film.

It’s an amazing and extremely troubling sequence because here’s our character that we’ve developed and love so much and in the blink of an eye he’s turned into a monster. It broke my heart boarding it which is why I knew it was right for the film. Hiro had violated not only Baymax’s protocol but my love for him as well. A very intense moment.

[danearmour]

Easily one of the most emotionally intense sequences I saw in 2014. Boarded by the amazing Paul Briggs.

[grizandnorm]

While working towards drawing figures for boards, should we focus on knowing anatomy more first or doing gesture?

There’s no absolute answer on this one, but I would say that gesture drawing will get you to your goal first. Not to say that anatomy isn’t important, but gesture drawing will force you to draw quickly and simply, no matter what you draw. A sense of urgency is important when it comes to storyboarding, so aiming at drawing simple shapes and clear acting will help you in the storyboarding process.-n

[danearmour]

Great advice by GrizAAndNorm

[danearmour]

Nautilus Boy contemplating the point of the toilet dunk. For #inktober

[danearmour]

'Phantom Limb' by Alex Grigg

In the aftermath of an accident a young couple learn to deal with phantom pains.

alexgrigg.com/ | alexxgrigg.tumblr.com/ | twitter.com/joyybox | mightynice.com.au/

Making of - medium.com/@joyybox/1eef3f6d085f

Incredibly beautiful short film that does an amazing job of telling a subtle and private story.