Art Side of Life

Recently I was interviewed for the program Art Side of Life. In the interview I talk about some of my influences... as well as the ups and downs of my career thus far.

Comics Alliance Reviews The Noble Approach

As the first anniversary of The Noble Approach: Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design draws near... great reviews are still coming in for the book! This time from Patrick A. Reed of Comics Alliance.

Read the post  HERE! 

F

It's hard to believe that it's been exactly twenty years since I finished my undergraduate degree. My final film project was called "F," and explored the Asian American experience of the early 20th century. Hopefully one day I will be able to transfer the project to digital format.

Above: Exploratory ink sketches from the film... inspired by artists such as Lynd Ward, and Rockwell Kent. It was "F" that led to a job with Chuck Jones, and Maurice Noble. Unknown to me, Maurice was also a huge fan of woodcut artists from the 1930's... and had been looking to train young artists that had influences outside of animation.

all images copyright Tod Polson

The Noble Approach FLIP interview

A great interview for Alex Williams of FLIP! regarding the making of Maurice Noble's design book " The Noble Approach." To check it out ... please click HERE.

Above: A few Maurice Noble images from the article.

"The Noble Approach; Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design" is available for pre-order at Amazon.com

The Chuck Jones Show Opener

Years ago I art directed the opening of the "Chuck Jones Show" for Cartoon Network. The design style idea was to show the development of a cartoon from initial sketch to finished full color cartoon.

We had accidentally put the pencil in Chuck Jones left hand... and he was of course... right handed. Director, George Evelyn told us... "Chuck will never notice." Well... Chuck DID notice when he saw the animation. We ended up flipping the animation in parts, which sort of changed the composition.

My apologies for the quality of the video, it's something I found online recently... my copy lost to the ages. I will update this if I am able to find a better copy.

Aaron Sorensen directed the animation, with George Evelyn in the directors chair.