Product Description

Animation designer Tom Bancroft brings his knowledge and experience to this fun and accessible book on character design. From Snow White to Shrek, from Fred Flintstone to Sponge Bob Squarepants, it is the design that communicates a character's personality even before a single word of dialogue is spoken. Bancroft, who designed the character Mushu, voiced by Eddie Murphy, in the Disney animated feature film, "Mulan," begins the book with time-tested design concepts, then explains how to work with a script, about character hierarchy (treating important characters, and lesser characters differently), how to maximize a pose and expressions, and ultimately, how to finish a character that sparkles. At the end of each chapter are exercises to help the reader hone his skills. Bancroft also explains how these lessons can be applied to different industries: film, TV, video games, and graphic novels. The book will include practical advice from professionals in each of these industries, including Mark Henn (director of animation, Disney's "The Little Mermaid"), Peter DeSeve (character designer, "Ice Age"), J. Scott Campbell (Wildstorm/DC Comics), Rob Corley (feature animator, "The Lion King", "Aladdin", "Lilo and Stitch"), Butch Hartman (creator, "Fairly Oddparents"), Jack Davis (MAD magazine), and Bill Amend (cartoonist, "Fox Trot". The introduction is written by Glen Keane (Walt Disney).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #72329 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

About the Author
TOM BANCROFT has worked in traditional animation for 15 years, spending most of that time at Disney Feature Animation, where he was supervising animator for the character Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy), in the movie "Mulan." He has also worked for Big Idea Productions on the popular "Veggietales" series as a character designer, CG animator, storyboard artist, and director. His most recent work was on Disney's feature film, Brother Bear.

Customer Reviews

Interesting stuff.
The specific purpose of this book is to demonstrate how the use of different shapes and construction can produce characters with different personalities. To that end it is superb. Running alongside the chapters to do this (facial spacing, body shape etc) is an ongoing assignment given to cartoon professionals to produce a lead character with a specific personality. The results are interesting as each is very different yet displays the character traits specified. The book goes on to show the design process for the entire cast from sidekick, to sweetheart, to thug, to villain. The book hasn't improved my drawing (I think it assumes you have some talent already) but has highlighted why some of my computer characters look out of places alongside others.
Overall delivers very well the narrow brief it describes.