some location concepts

posted below are few location concept pieces that i did for an multi-episode animation tv show.

Taste of Africa

A memorial to a fun project that got cut short prematurely...

 

Posted here were few location concepts that I did for the project

Ice Age 3

Ice Age 3 was one of the hottest hits this summer. The movie was beautifully done.
Posted here are few pre-production color concept pieces that I did for IA3 before I left Blue Sky.

old studff again - two color concept paintings for Horton

A friend asked me if I ever worked on Horton, which made a big buzz this past spring. It's a highly stylized and great looking movie. Gangs at BSS did a remarkable job on this beautiful film.
Those were the only two paintings I did for Horton, while I was working on visdev of some other projects. They are all digital... based on layout drawings by Kyle M. - a crazily incredible talent.
One was used as a billboard poster of the movie...

an email from an architect/artist

Few days ago, I got this email from an artist who I never meet. I was greatly humbled by what he said. I wanted to post it here to share with you, hoping that my peers will be as proud as I do for their great work on those films. Anyway, this is one of the ultimate drives for me to work harder and do better.

Dear Xiangyuan Jie,

Thank you for your work in Lilo and Stitch. I saw a link to your work via www.startdrawing.org .

Originally, my wife and myself are both from Hawaii. My wife's father is an anthurium farmer which are those weird plastic looking heartshaped flowers that you have in your Lilo and Stitch sidewalk sketch. The movie made us homesick for the lush greenery of Hawaii.

Your mastery of watercolors and oil paintings are inspiring. I have enjoyed all of your movies with my children. There is something special that is contained in the "old fashioned" Disney movies, something that is lost in the slick 3d movies that are now produced. We are trying our best to raise our children so that they love to draw and paint.
I am glad to have found you through the internet highway of artist. I will bookmark you and return to your works for inspiration. And I hope to see more of your work in future movies.

Sincerely,

Kris Yokoo
Architect / Artist
Chicagoland

more old stuff - Brother Bear

Before the completion of Lilo & Stitch, I moved over to work on Brother Bear - the last traditional animated movie that I worked at Disney. I worked as a background stylist from early development all the way through the production - trying hard to adapt oil painting style - sort of painterly plein airish - to the BG production. - the rest is history.

some old stuff - Lilo and Stitch

One of the fun projects that I worked with my peers at WDFA was Lilo & Stitch. Here I post few colorkeys, concept paintings and production BGs that I did for the movie. All the pieces were traditional watercolors except some keys.
The directors set the bar so high - trying to make a movie visually like the Disney's classics - like Snow White , Pinocchio and such. Everyone was kind of freaked out a little bit in the beginning - since watercolor is not the most forgiving medium to handle. I guess we did it all right- it' turned out to be one of the most beautiful Disney movies in the end IMO.

ICE AGE2

ICE AGE2 -THE MELTDOWN

In the spring of 2004, after WDFA shuting down the studio at O town, I moved away from the swamp headed north to work at BSS in NY as a color guy on Ice Age2- my first ever 3D film that I was involved. It's a very fun project. Also a group of pretty cool and talented artists/pixel monkeys to work with - that was fun , too
I posted here some visdev paintings, color scripts and keys, also few color studies of characters for production. They are all digital paintings - no more smelly paints and messy brushes - thou I missed those a lot.