Influences
Ivan Mestrovic (1883-1962)
Self Portrait, 1931
I always envy the ability of a great sculptor to create a riveting piece from a single figure or a small, tightly composed group. No background, no color. Just masses composed one next to the other. Few sculptors have ever done this with the kind of imposing presence that Ivan Mestrovic brought to [...]
Life Drawing: an Essential or an Extra?
Observational drawings of a preschool girl at a research session by Tim Rauch.
As kids, one of me and Tim’s earliest animation heroes was Glen Keane. Tim wrote him a letter and included a photocopy of some of Keane’s Aladdin thumbnails asking for an autograph. The photocopy was returned with Glen Keane’s signature and a form [...]
“Q&A” showing at Annecy
Rauch Bros. work inspired by W. H. Johnson
As mentioned here last week, the above image is from a new Rauch Brothers project for which we are using William H. Johnson’s work as our visual inspiration. Looking forward to diving in on this one!
A little festival news. As noted before on our Twitter page, “Q&A” will [...]
William H. Johnson
William H. Johnson
For the visual aesthetic of one of our upcoming projects, Rauch Bros. is looking at the work of William H. Johnson.
Born in Florence, South Carolina in 1901, Johnson took off for Harlem in 1918 and immediately became involved in the community of artists that was beginning to bloom at that time. He was [...]
Looking Outside Animation
Ask just about any animator which director was responsible for the 1955 cartoon above and they’ll probably be able to tell you.
Ask that same animator to name the 2001-2003 United States Poet Laureate pictured right and you’ll probably get a blank stare.
The point here isn’t about how much poetry animators are reading. The point [...]
Peter Lord’s “Going Equipped”
Mike and I were first turned on to animation by Disney films, but it wasn’t until we saw a collection of Aardman Animation’s short films that we said, “This is IT!” We nearly wore out a VHS tape that had “Creature Comforts”, “Next”, “War Story” and most importantly for me, “Going Equipped” (1987).
“Going Equipped” was [...]
Designing Our New Film
Concept art from the next Rauch Brothers film
In designing our new film, a humorous but sincere conversation between mother and son, I looked to the two films posted below and the beautiful artwork in Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff’s Babar. The first film comes from Russia’s Soyuzmultfilm studio, the second from Rembrandt Films, and [...]
Letter to Brett
early storyboard drawing from “Germans in the Woods”
About a month back I had the opportunity to meet Brett Thompson, the energetic and extremely friendly president of ASIFA Atlanta. I was able to show Brett our film “Germans in the Woods” and began exchanging emails Having just finished the film, it was a great opportunity to share [...]
