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Fur technology makes Zootopia’s bunnies believable

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Screenshot 2016-03-04 13.16.03

Engadget has an interesting article up about creating fur for Zootopia. Apparently the amount of fur each character has climbs easily into the millions!

To make the animals look realistic, Disney’s trusty team of engineers introduced iGroom, a fur-controlling tool that had never been used before. The software helped shape about 2.5 million hairs on the leading bunny and about the same on the fox. A giraffe in the movie walks around with 9 million hairs, while a gerbil has about 480,000 (even the rodent in the movie beats Elsa’s 400,000 strands in Frozen).

You can read the entire article here.

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David Stephan

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is David Stephan and I am currently a story artist for live action and animation. My real passion is writing and trying to get my own projects made. I started B Positive Fims with another writer/artist (after our blood type) We are working with producer Max Howard on a film project and have interest from the studios on a horror film.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Maybe not crazy but I washed dishes, pumped gas, worked construction just get by through college. Once I got started in the film business I haven’t had to look outside for work but the last couple of years have tempted me to seek other opportunities.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am proud of my career at Disney. I was lucky enough to be part of Disney Feature Animation and the 14 year arc from Black Cauldron through Lion King.  I also was part of Sam Raimi’s first Spiderman. It was such an unknown. I credit that film’s success with the glut of super hero movies today. But I would have to say story boarding “Simple Plan” is my most rewarding. It was my first live action film and learned so much about film making.
How did you become interested in animation?
I kinda fell into it. I was graduating from highschool and I really wanted to be a painter and go to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. My highschoolart teacher Ms Venebles was very encouraging me to go into art as a career. Coming from a working class family I was going against the grain. My Dad wanted me to get a “trade”.  On my way to OCA I stopped at Sheridan College outside Toronto to interview with the Illustration faculty but they were unavailable but the Animation course director agreed to see me. Knowing nothing about animation, he showed me a clip of student samples. I was blown away by the level of animation. I was hooked. I can make my drawing come alive. I never made it to OCA. I registered that day in the Sheridan College Classical Animation program. At the time it was a little know program, now Sherdian College Animation and its graduates are know all around the world equal to Cal Arts program.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am originally from London Ontario Canada. My goal from the beginning was to go and work at Disney in California. At the time in the early 80’s it was impossible to get a green card and almost impossible to get into Disney Feature. It didn’t stop my determination. My first job was with Steven Lisberger in Boston which was relocating to Venice California. It was a show for NBC called Animal Oymplics. It was my first professional experience as animators Bill Koyers assistant. I was thrilled. After that show ended I Continue reading

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Chris O’Hara

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Chris O’Hara and I’m an animator at Boulder Media.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
My father is a stonemason so I spent many of my teen years working with him during the summer. It was tough work but I’m glad I did it because it really makes me appreciate how lucky I am now to be working in animation.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
The best show I’ve worked on has been “The Amazing World of Gumball” which I animated between 2010-2011. It was a really fun and well written Cartoon Network show and was great to work on. It was good to see rewarded with an Annie award recently, along with several other awards.
How did you become interested in animation?
Like most animators I’ve been drawing obsessively since I was a child and I always knew I’d enter an artistic profession, it was just a matter of finding the right one. Initially I was Continue reading

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Ivan Aguirre

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Ivan Aguirre. I am a Background Painter at Titmouse. Currently working on Disney’s new television series Motorcity.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
After high school I worked a job in construction. It was a lot of hard work, but at the same time very rewarding. I enjoyed the freedom in working with my hands, and being outdoors. By the end of the day I always came home tired, but felt accomplished. I learned quickly that it wasn’t for me, and decided to go to school and study animation and design. I continued to work construction part time while I could while I finished my degree.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am proud and very exited to be working on Motorcity! The design team is top-notch, and we are all very proud and exited for everyone to see it ones it airs. Its one of the coolest television series I have seen. Last summer I got to work on some title designs for NBC’s Up All Night. It was a lot of fun because the style and art direction was based of some of my personal Illustrations. In animation usually you are forced to design in an already set style. Also for most of last year I got to design for MTV’s Good Vibes. It was one of my first experiences in working on a primetime-animated show, and was given a lot responsibility. Our crew was very small, and I got to design a huge range of stuff. It helped me become a better designer.
How did you become interested in animation?
Since I could remember I loved to draw. I have always been a fan of Art and Illustration. I always pictured myself going that route. As a kid, I enjoyed cartoons very much, but Continue reading
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Chris Bailey

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Chris Bailey, Animation Director.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Hah..great question. I have asked that of colleagues in the past. I think the craziest job, or furthest job from animation was working in a steel warehouse for my dad the summer before attending Cal Arts. I loaded steel I-beams onto trucks, drove a huge forklift, learned to weld and use a cutting torch. I caught myself on fire twice! In the warehouse were rows of 20′ and 40′ I-beams stacked to the ceiling. We’d leap from stack to stack looking for the right ones to fill orders and they’d sometimes rock back and forth threatening to fall. I felt like Daredevil.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’ve been pretty lucky and worked on some great projects. It’s hard to pick, but if I were to list a few highlights, I would start with the Marvel Productions Logo. It featured a chrome Spider-Man doing a flip and landing on the big MP. I was at the beginning of my career and thrilled to animate Spider-Man, even if it was only for one little shot. Next up is The Little Mermaid. It was a great film and broke animation out of the animated film ghetto and into a mainstream audience. I was a little fish swimming in a big pond and trying to learn as much as I could… Runaway Brain with Mickey Mouse for letting me play with the corporate icon and the resulting Oscar nod, Disney’s Mighty Joe Young for it’s groundbreaking CG animation, X-Men II because it’s such a great movie I’m a huge Marvel Comics fan, Kim Possible because it was as much fun to make as it was to watch and finally, the Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem 3D Ride because the minions are so damned funny and I love theme park rides.  The Pepfar (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) Shorts for WB were interesting too. The shorts were done to advertise an educational action videogame for Kenya’s youth centers. I got to travel to Washington and pitch the boards to the State Department. Unlike in Hollywood where the costume of a director is shorts and t-shirt, I was pitching cartoon storyboards in a formal conference room wearing a suit! Ha!  The Judy short in particular was a way to experiment with Kim Possible style animation and design in 3D. It was boarded by one of my favorite Kim board artists and Batman comics artist, Dave Bullock.
http://www.animationinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Judy-v2-112508.mov

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I grew up in Portland Oregon and went to Reynolds High School. I always liked comic books and wanted to draw them since I was 10 years old. Later in High School, I read an article in The Comics Journal that mentioned Continue reading

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Lynda Nettleship-Carraher

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Lynda Nettleship-Carraher and currently I am a mother of 3; ages 5,4 and 2.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I never had any crazy jobs just boring. I would use a temp agency to get work and all they had was office jobs and the only thing I am capable of doing in an office is answering the phones. Very boring.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
The first job I loved working on was The Wild Thornberrys. I enjoyed drawing in the show’s style and I learned so much about all the places the family would travel to when we would do the research for the backgrounds. My other favorite was Continue reading