Disney XD
In 2014, Disney’s XD channel reached out to a few artists to create short intersticial promo animations (“bumpers”). I have a great respect for Walt Disney having read more than one biography on the man. The bumper had to be 15 second long and end on the Disney XD logo. I wanted to do something narrative, so I came up with a group of mountain characters hanging out. I presented the idea to the team, and they liked it, so they told me which key frames they’d need. In the tradition of Walt, I sat down and painted the pieces by hand (which none of the other artists did). I mailed the paintings to Disney, they scanned them in, and then their animators made it all move properly. Meanwhile, I chose the music for the piece; something fast with a very good ending. In the end, this little animation was played a whole lot, around the world. I couldn’t have been happier working with the team there; they really wanted this animation to be the best it could be.
In 2016, I got a call from one of the team I had worked with and he asked if would be interested in doing a poster for them. Disney XD had decided that Summer 2016 would be a “melty” summer and they knew just the right person to call. The XD channel has it’s own set of cartoons and I was told which characters they’d like to see included. I rarely draw type, but with the capital XD letters, it was just really natural to render them in great detail with the cartoon characters playing supporting roles. As usual, I drew the artwork by hand, and then colored it on the computer (using colors from the summer’s style guide). Remarkably, this is the first promotional poster like this to be silkscreened, and they chose a very well respected printer in Los Angeles. They printed them on nice rag paper, which deckled edges. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and honored to work with the Disney company again. The prints were never sold; half were given away at San Diego Comic Con, and half were given to friends and clients of XD.
