A beautiful storyboard by John Musker (one director of Princess and the Frog,  Aladdin, the little Mermaid) in tribute to legendary story artist Joe Ranft, who would have been 50 years old last week, had he not been killed in a car crash in 2005. Joe epitomised the ’story man’, working behind the scenes to bring soul and structure to the story. I wish I could have worked with him.

“Joe was really a major part of Pixar’s soul,” says Pete Docter, director of Monsters, Inc. “He was one of the key players who made all the films what they are.”

Telling anecdotes from Joe’s colorful life, some of these sketches blow me away. So immediate and powerful.

As a film maker (in my little niche) I’ve realised that I don’t care for the finished film as much as the experience of making it with good people. Then I read what Joe had written on his office door, and I really wish I’d worked with him:

‘The journey is the reward.’

Happy Friday. All is quiet, and it really is bedtime- but there’s a niggling need to draw- surprising, considering I do it all day…

There will be more atwork from Death from Above coming up, both comic and animation pre-prod. So look out for it. All I’ve got to do is figure out an ending…

We were pretty wary of some heavy rains this weekend. Well hey, I’m british, so rain is nuthin’. But my Israeli friends are delicate flowers, so we opted for a nice cafe on Rothschild Boulevard, Tel aviv’s most groovy, Bauhausy, and pleasingly human-scaled boulevard. Sketched there. Drank belgian beer on an empty stomach so sketches got wobbly. Then grabbed a gourmet burger at Moses, down the road. Nice, and simple.

A Drawing of the road:

And some of our fellow cafe dwellers. One couple did not like being sketched one bit, and went off in a huff…

This Girl had an interesting bottom lip. Glad she didn’t ask to see my sketchbook.

Saw these guys strolling down the road ( it’s purim over here…. therefore a lot of fancy dress parties). Got to love the Middle East.

I wound up at the pool, and thought I’d draw these old boys chewing the cud in the hot tub:

A drawing for a talented friend whose birthday party I missed. L’Chaim, Yoni!

I do endless hundreds of these. I guess I’m a tinkerer, searching for something… Have a good weekend, folks.

Page two gets ink and colour. I’m still finding my feet with technique, and how I want colours and strokes to work with this particular project.  We’ll see how I end up! 4 more to go.