An Influence and Examples

Whenever someone asks me who my favorite artist is I kinda blank out. I don't have one. I have a lot who I admire, but not one in particular that I can honestly say is my favorite. For this blog assignment I have to put an illustrator who inspires me and has influenced my work. So I went on a mental journey to trace someone who has influenced me. I've always claimed that I wanted to be an artist when I "grew up", and that came from my mother's side of the family, particularly my grandfather, who is a painter. But there's something else that heavily influenced my younger self onto the track of drawing. And that's cartoons.

To this day I'd prefer watching an animated movie to an Oscar winning live action flick. Some of my favorite movies of all time are animated (such as Titan A.E., Spirited Away, and Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame). So in picking one "influence" I thought about particular movies that captivated me when I was younger, and who I still admire today. And so, random passerby, I present Don Bluth. http://www.donbluth.com/

Bluth worked with Disney on Sleeping Beauty (he was uncredited for it however) Robin Hood, the Rescuers, and more before leaving Disney to form his own rival animation studio, taking other Disney animators with him. His first feature-length movie was The Secret of NIMH. Other early work of his is Dragon's Lair (an arcade game) An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Rock-a-Doodle. One of the things that fascinates me about Bluth's work is his ability to humanize animal faces, to the point of which it is difficult to think of the character as a mouse, or a fox. The range of human expressions that his animal characters show amazes me.



Bluth's other movies featuring human characters (or human-like) loses none of it's charm for me. Thumblina was a favorite of mine when I was younger, and his next big hit was Anastasia which grossed 140 million worldwide. Titan A.E. followed (and is my favorite of his work) but soon after FOX studio cut their animation studio that made both films, even though the studio was one of the only Disney competitors worth watching (in my opinion) at the time.



PCA&D had a school trip to New York (for the communication arts majors) and at a discount Asian book store called Book Off I found "The Art Of Anastasia" which I bought despite my budget plan. It is full of character sketches by Bluth, which I love to look at, and feel jealous of. The man is too freakin' talented.

Some Titan A.E. Images. <3



I hope to see more movies from Bluth soon...*crosses fingers*