5DM034: character animator (Glen Keane)

For my chosen character developer, my favourite is the work of animator Glen Keane.

Aswell as being an author and illustrator, he is well-known for his artist animation style portrayed through certain characters he has worked on and developed in Disney films from 70s to the present day.

 His famous creations include Tarzan, Rapunzel, Ariel, Aladdin, Pocahontas and the Beast. From his life time contributions and achievements, he has won awards including 'outstanding Individual achievement in the field of animation' (Annie Award, 1992) and a Winsor McCay Award (2008)

What I find fascinating about his work is that he is able to make his animation mark and personal drawing signature in both 2d and 3d elements. What I love the most is how he can take animation styles and create them to be more personal artistic expression. Furthermore, he's the sort of animator and artist that can keep pushing the boundaries to blend and produce a new artistic style within this medium. This would include the harmonious collaboration of hand-drawn and computer animated elements in 2012's 'Paperman', presented in the form of a black and white romantic story which would still be used in his future work; and in his new short 'Duet', he represents the full short's animation with organic drawings without the colour fill-ins but displayed in a negative and organic quality to show a different energy to this type of animated presentation.

What I've learned from an interview, he was more interested in being a painter when he was younger inspired by his father's artwork but he changed his motive over time when he attended the school of film graphics. From then on he started to love animation but wanted to blend his artistic knowledge into this movement by adding shading and textures to objects he was animating. But to achieve this sort of work he imagined, he made sure he knew the fundamental cracks of drawing through studying anatomy. 

Once he started animating, he wanted to keep the classical drawing element in all the work he does. This was by researching and being inspired by historical artists. From the creation of Ariel, he described about being inspired by french artist Francois Boucher through the Rococo art movement which focused on bringing more light hearted, asymmetrical design, curvaceous forms, graceful lines and combining drawing and colour within the paintings. This sort of advantage is what glen touched on and adapted into the creation of Ariel to generate a soft feel to the character. This sort of approach is how he research and developed his characters in other films. In my opinion, combined with the personalities created as well as the soft, simplistic, curvy tone of drawing style, you connect with the characters straight away and figure what sort of person they are from their visual displays.

What's more creative in his character development is when he finds his inspiration is from personal sources like his daughter's free style artistic personality becoming the traits needed to create Rapunzel; researching places like African jungles for the characteristics of Tarzan from the landmarks and environments and even taking drawing references for Pocahontas from her actual descendants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Keane
http://www.skwigly.co.uk/glen-keane-interview/
http://theartofglenkeane.blogspot.co.uk/