The story of a designer, or how they drew Ratatouille ...
Sometimes studios make for themselves the discovery that the best talents are sitting right under their noses. This happened to Jason Dymer, a 33-year-old designer who is now the art director of the Pixar studio characters and one of the four character designers for the Disney-Pixar joint creation Ratatouille.
Initially Dimer was not an artist of Pixar, he began his journey from the very bottom of the service ladder. “I thought that I would make a good artist,” says Diemer: “I always dreamed of becoming an artist and therefore I went to UC Davis because there were the best teachers there.”
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When he found himself in a class full of techies, he immediately transferred to the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland (now “California College of the Arts”), not far from Jason Mill Valley's hometown.
After graduating from college, Diemer began working as a freelancer. He did not go hungry, but was having trouble paying bills. “I had to borrow money for school,” says Jason. "My loan cost me $ 500 a month."
So, when Jimmy Highward, his skateboard partner and animator at Pixar, told him that the studio was hiring handymen in offices, Jason immediately agreed. “It was right after Toy Story.” I heard about Pixar, I even saw their short cartoons at animation festivals, but I didn’t even think to link the future with this studio. I thought that I would just be helping to move the furniture ... ”
Well, that was what he was doing. He moved furniture, made sandwiches, photocopied, sat on the table and ran through the corridors with folders filled with sketches for Pixar's new creations, Monsters, Inc., and The Life of Beetles. And in his free time he made sketches.
“I can’t do without a second without drawing something on a piece of paper,” says Dimer. “When I made copies on the copier, I left one sheet on the lid. And while the device was passing another copy through itself, I made another stroke on my sketch. ” Jason drew even on cups: “I just loved drawing comic book heroes on cups”.
One day studio worker Bob Pauli noticed one of the silhouettes drawn by Jason on a cup in the office. At that time, Pauli was developing characters for Toy Story and was the art director of Insect Life. Subsequently, he became the designer of Monster Corporations and Wheelbarrows. Bob asked Jason to show his other works.
So ended the career of a porter, clerk and handyman Dimer. He was transferred to the art and decoration service, where he worked for the Monster Corporation on what Pixar calls "debugging models." Dimer explains: “After the character is created, you need to make the final touches, add life to the hero, his habits, draw a character from all sides.”
By the time Monsters Inc. was released in 2001, Dymer was already appointed character designer for the cartoon “Finding Nemo,” in the credits he was designated as “designer of secondary characters”. For Nemo, he painted gulls, Nigel's pelican, fish in an aquarium, and several fish in the background.
Many artists from “Quest for Nemo” were called to “Ratatouille”, including Dimer. In addition, Dimer and his friend Greg Digstra worked with director Gary Ridstrom on the short film “ Lifted,” which won an Oscar in 2007, and deservedly so.
When character designers Diemer, Digstra and Don Lee, as well as freelance artist Carter Goodridge, began working on Ratatuem, Jan Pinkawa, who took Oscar for the short film “ Geri's Game” , became the director. After the project was three years old, the director was appointed Brad Bird. Bird even rewrote a little script and only slightly changed some characters.
“Most of the characters were created when Jan was the director,” says Dimer. "He knows a lot about it."
In Pixar, the birth of a character begins with a pencil sketch. Sometimes the artist knows what his character will look like, sometimes he is aware of only minor features of his personality. For example, when Pinkava described the character Linguini to Diemer, the cook through whom Rati rats embodied his culinary masterpieces, he told him that the guy must be an ordinary teenager. Pinkava advised to use as a prototype of Don Knott and Lou Romano, an artist from Pixar (by the way, he took Annie (award) for the design of the "The Incredibles"). Naturally, the voice character of the character Bird invited Romano.
Pinkawa also used the actors to make it clear to the artists what a particular character should look like. “We looked at photos and videos of real people, and after that we began to draw. Draw, draw, and draw again, ”says Dimer.
As already mentioned, the character designer makes thousands of pencil sketches before creating characters like the characters “Ratatouille”: 20 main characters (10 people and 10 rats) and about 50 minor ones. “We drew some thousands of times,” says Dimer. "And some are just one."
Linguini was just one of those who drew a thousand times. “For some reason he was always thin, maybe because he didn’t really know how to cook?” Dimer laughs. “But he had long hair and short hair, a big nose and a small nose. Changed not only the appearance, but also manners, habits and behavior. We decided how cartoon the hero would be, how real his appearance should be. ”
The end of the first part;) To be continued, stay tuned for our updates.
Initially Dimer was not an artist of Pixar, he began his journey from the very bottom of the service ladder. “I thought that I would make a good artist,” says Diemer: “I always dreamed of becoming an artist and therefore I went to UC Davis because there were the best teachers there.”
')
When he found himself in a class full of techies, he immediately transferred to the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland (now “California College of the Arts”), not far from Jason Mill Valley's hometown.
After graduating from college, Diemer began working as a freelancer. He did not go hungry, but was having trouble paying bills. “I had to borrow money for school,” says Jason. "My loan cost me $ 500 a month."
So, when Jimmy Highward, his skateboard partner and animator at Pixar, told him that the studio was hiring handymen in offices, Jason immediately agreed. “It was right after Toy Story.” I heard about Pixar, I even saw their short cartoons at animation festivals, but I didn’t even think to link the future with this studio. I thought that I would just be helping to move the furniture ... ”
Well, that was what he was doing. He moved furniture, made sandwiches, photocopied, sat on the table and ran through the corridors with folders filled with sketches for Pixar's new creations, Monsters, Inc., and The Life of Beetles. And in his free time he made sketches.
“I can’t do without a second without drawing something on a piece of paper,” says Dimer. “When I made copies on the copier, I left one sheet on the lid. And while the device was passing another copy through itself, I made another stroke on my sketch. ” Jason drew even on cups: “I just loved drawing comic book heroes on cups”.
One day studio worker Bob Pauli noticed one of the silhouettes drawn by Jason on a cup in the office. At that time, Pauli was developing characters for Toy Story and was the art director of Insect Life. Subsequently, he became the designer of Monster Corporations and Wheelbarrows. Bob asked Jason to show his other works.
So ended the career of a porter, clerk and handyman Dimer. He was transferred to the art and decoration service, where he worked for the Monster Corporation on what Pixar calls "debugging models." Dimer explains: “After the character is created, you need to make the final touches, add life to the hero, his habits, draw a character from all sides.”
By the time Monsters Inc. was released in 2001, Dymer was already appointed character designer for the cartoon “Finding Nemo,” in the credits he was designated as “designer of secondary characters”. For Nemo, he painted gulls, Nigel's pelican, fish in an aquarium, and several fish in the background.
Many artists from “Quest for Nemo” were called to “Ratatouille”, including Dimer. In addition, Dimer and his friend Greg Digstra worked with director Gary Ridstrom on the short film “ Lifted,” which won an Oscar in 2007, and deservedly so.
When character designers Diemer, Digstra and Don Lee, as well as freelance artist Carter Goodridge, began working on Ratatuem, Jan Pinkawa, who took Oscar for the short film “ Geri's Game” , became the director. After the project was three years old, the director was appointed Brad Bird. Bird even rewrote a little script and only slightly changed some characters.
“Most of the characters were created when Jan was the director,” says Dimer. "He knows a lot about it."
In Pixar, the birth of a character begins with a pencil sketch. Sometimes the artist knows what his character will look like, sometimes he is aware of only minor features of his personality. For example, when Pinkava described the character Linguini to Diemer, the cook through whom Rati rats embodied his culinary masterpieces, he told him that the guy must be an ordinary teenager. Pinkava advised to use as a prototype of Don Knott and Lou Romano, an artist from Pixar (by the way, he took Annie (award) for the design of the "The Incredibles"). Naturally, the voice character of the character Bird invited Romano.
Pinkawa also used the actors to make it clear to the artists what a particular character should look like. “We looked at photos and videos of real people, and after that we began to draw. Draw, draw, and draw again, ”says Dimer.
As already mentioned, the character designer makes thousands of pencil sketches before creating characters like the characters “Ratatouille”: 20 main characters (10 people and 10 rats) and about 50 minor ones. “We drew some thousands of times,” says Dimer. "And some are just one."
Linguini was just one of those who drew a thousand times. “For some reason he was always thin, maybe because he didn’t really know how to cook?” Dimer laughs. “But he had long hair and short hair, a big nose and a small nose. Changed not only the appearance, but also manners, habits and behavior. We decided how cartoon the hero would be, how real his appearance should be. ”
The end of the first part;) To be continued, stay tuned for our updates.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/15690/
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