Patrick Mate

 

Patrick Mate is an extraordinary artist, who works in the animation industry. He has worked for a variety of studios and is mostly known for his outstanding skills as a storyboard artist and character designer. The image above is his recent tribute to The Jungle Book. 

Patrick is also a master caricaturist. He painted these portraits of British character actress extraordinaire Margaret Rutherford, who played Miss Marple in four MGM movies during the early 1960s. I absolutely adore those films, my favorite being "Murder at the Gallop" from 1963. Amazon Prime offers pristine HD versions of all four movies.

 

What a great caricature of the one and only Greta Thunberg, as she tries to get her important message across with the help of a friend.

For much more on Patrick's outstanding work, go to his blog:

http://patrickmate.blogspot.com

Merry Christmas

 

The exhibition "Walt Disney's The Jungle Book, Making a Masterpiece" is still open at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco until January 8. Treat yourself!

The exhibit's catalogue/book is just one click away.

Skywalker

 

What can I tell you? We just spent the most amazing week at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. This was all about final sound for MUSHKA. And boy...what an experience. These artists take your film to an entire new level. Through sound they plus your storytelling and add environmental atmosphere. I am in awe, these guys are magicians. 

And of course you get the Skywalker tour through the expansive property. It is still sinking in...but we are DONE with MUSHKA. And I enjoy finding out that the Skywalker crew loved working on our film.

French Magazine

If you live in France you can pick up this magazine, which celebrates the "Renaissance" of Disney Animation. My friend Matthieu Saghezchi interviewed me for this edition, he also created three stunning illustrations for the interior.

Check it out!

Hibernating

 

At the beginning of the 2013 documentary "Growing up With Nine Old Men" film maker Ted Thomas pulls this sketch out of a cabinet. He doesn't give an explanation for the image or who the artist might be. Looking back at the drawing now, I am 89.573 % sure that Milt Kahl drew this during production of Bambi. You remember the scene from the film with Thumper's line about hibernating.

Bambi is a caricature of animator Frank Thomas, Thumper is Milt, and Flower is drawn as Marc Davis, who drew most scenes with that character. 

Perhaps Frank and Milt had caught Marc taking long naps after lunch.

By the way, the entire documentary has been uploaded in HD on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NY0tu69G8k&t=670s