These are from my favorite sequence in Fantasia, "The Nutcracker Suite". The music is sublime and so are the moods and colors and animation.http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?cat=18&paged=2
I got these from Michael Sporn's site:
There was a rebirth of clever color styling in the 90s.I loved a lot of the color in The Powerpuff Girls and some of the other cartoons that followed.
These are by Lou Romano:
http://louromano.blogspot.com/
Before the 90s, modern animation backgrounds were pretty sad.
I've tried to post some color theories on my blog and they might be helpful to artists who already have an instinctual color sense, but many artists who have great technique might just be missing the color gene. They could apply the theories and still come out with beautifully rendered mud. Romano here, has a rare gift - taste.
Lorelay Bove:http://lorelaybove.blogspot.com/
Here is an amazing new talent.
This is the kind of thoughtful and emotional color that I always crave in my own cartoons and sometimes get it.
I detect some influence from "Once Upon A Wintertime" and "Johnny Appleseed".
Each of these paintings has an overall color idea and the individual colors all fit into a hierarchy of the whole.
Has anyone else noticed that the girls tend to be better at color than guys?There are exceptions of course, like Romano, but I know that most of the modern color stuff I’ve liked and posted has been done by girls.
I have a couple theories:Guys tend to be more conservative by nature and like to do things the responsible traditional way - or the "cool" trendy way. ("Cool" and conservative are 2 sides of the same coin.)
If the traditional way happens to be pink, purple and blue, men go against their instincts and paint cartoons in the colors that cartoons are supposed to be.
Girls on the other hand, trust their senses more and work from the heart. They are truer to their natural tastes. If their eyes or ears tell them something is pleasurable, they try to translate the sensory pleasure through their art, rather than following what is "supposed to be" or is the current trend. Young guys try to be cool, older guys follow tradition; we are sheep.
Like, I doubt girls would be capable of inventing rap, nor keep it alive for 30 years without men who extend unnatural trends far beyond their due.
Girls also have their eye on fashion, and the range of colors in fashions is infinitely broader than the range in most cartoons. When I hire new painters I always suggest they start collecting Italian Vogue and other high fashion magazines to get ideas from. They usually look at me like I’m crazy! “Someone will think I’m gay!!” Then they proceed to start pouring pink and purple out of the tubes like real men.
MAURICE NOBLE AND EYVIND EARLE TOGETHER
The Asifa Archive continues to dig up beautiful and rare cartoon art and illustrations, and there is a great article from a John Sutherland film that you have to see.
Maurice Noble and Eyvind Earle are 2 superhuman craftsman and we all look up to them.
I find both their styles to be kind of cold, even though I admire the skill involved. Go check it out!
http://www.animationarchive.org/labels/maurice%20noble.html
