A Full Heart at the End

So yesterday was my last caricature show at Lipscomb. And even though this year has been full of many “lasts,” this one hit me different. The caricature show is one of my favorite events of every year (four years strong!) and as I stand on the far side of my final show, I can’t help but look back with a full heart. The show and the Life Drawing Club have meant so much to me, and I hope to celebrate them richly, before passing them on into the capable hands of the underclassmen.

If it sounds like I’m talking about death, it’s because I am, in a way. Maybe it’s just the timing of this post (Holy Saturday), but I think there’s more here. This year will bring a fitting end to my time at college, and a way of life I’ve practiced for four years. Of course, I expect to see these people and places again, maybe even daily in the coming fall. But my home will be somewhere else, and I will be someone different. And as seniors leave and freshman come, there will be less and less faces at Lipscomb I recognize. It’s already happening now - at every meal, I’m lucky to see even one person in the cafeteria that I know. All year I have used the metaphor of the elves from Lord of the Rings to describe my predicament: although I have dear friends here in Middle Earth, the sea is calling and I dare not tarry longer than I ought. And we’re getting scarily close to the Grey Havens, my friends.

What hit me most was seeing Madi’s wonderful caricatures of the only four seniors to graduate this spring from our program. I could have sworn there were more, and yet here we are. Four graduates who have made it to the end.

Going to college is not a given. And I’m realizing now that graduating from college is not a given either. It’s taken late nights, scrambles for funding, more endurance than we could have thought possible, and yet, we’re here, together.

And that’s why I rejoice. This caricature show was amazing - lively crowd, great drawings, and the first time I’ve seen Jon Densk since the outbreak. It may be the end, but boy is it a happy one. Not all schools are open like Lipscomb, not all hearts are so merry, and not all friends will draw you sporting bright pink or slapping your knees in your apparently iconic laughing pose. 

So as tradition, here’s the caricatures I drew, and those drawn of me. Enjoy!

josie, good friend and bringer of thunder

eric stars, a fantastic teacher and production manager

brandon, always interested in how you are doing, in a genuine way

kaedan, the only person I know who can really rock a raccoon hat

full page of caricatures from rachel, I'm the one in yellow

so nice I had to post this twice (madi's)

me and (my long lost sibling???) josie - who also drew this

gratefully yours,

-dh

Lipscomb Animation Caricature Show 2019

Caricature time! 

Call me a little biased, but I love the Lipscomb Caricature Show! I started it last year after learning how Disney does one every April, which generates a lot of good artwork and seems very fun! (Check Bobby Pontillas' stuff if you don't believe me). Our show is fairly similar - before spring finals get too rough, students in the animation department take time draw each other (mostly in friendly and non-offensive ways) and then we pin all the art up in the animation lab. It's kind of like an end of year party for the animation majors and everyone enjoys seeing themselves in a friend's style!

I really dove into my caricatures this year and used them as an avenue to explore new styles that I wanted to try, mainly Ieafy, David Depasquale, and Nick Kole's digital watercolor work. And I did them all on Procreate so that I could get a better grip of the software and make some new brushes in the process (where the free Procreate brushes at???) I still really like working on the Ipad - I feel like I can do most anything I can do on Photoshop with it, although sketching is still a little clunky. I still can't sketch as well digitally as I do on paper, no matter the platform. I loved working in Ieafy's style, studying her use of color, and building texture through layers with an untextured brush. Here's an Ieafy-styled one to start things off:

I had to do a caricature of Naomi Bethel, one of the first animation students I met from Lipscomb and a constant friend throughout my time here! So sad that she is leaving all too soon (MAY!!!) but happy that she will be out in LA gettin' a job and paving the way for the rest of us!

Madi Williams - animation freshman and world traveler. Do not accept her odds, do not challenge her to odds, or you will regret it and/or have to jump over an actual fire.

And here the tone changes entirely - in my personal ink work I sometimes like to try David Depasquale's angular, monochrome style, which helped to depict the regal, strong lady that is Audrey Witherspoon. 

Professor Pepper! The reason why I will always be a big fan of gestural drawings and pieces.

Asher Styers feat. long boi and the hundreds of other cats he knows, draws, and loves.

A minimalist Sam Abner

Head Animation Professor Tom Bancroft. Keep fighting the good fight, Tom.

My fellow animation students put a lot of work into their caricatures and made this show the best yet! We also had donuts this year, which may have helped. I love this show because it's a dual celebration of the people in our program, and the talent they have!

I was surprised to find myself as a popular subject of caricatures! And since I think they are great drawings, and I'm more than a little egotistical, I wanted to share them all here.

Madi Williams

Jon Densk 

Naomi Bethel

Natalie Martin

Robert

Hayley Mullins and Rachel Winsor

Asher Styers

Hope you enjoyed this small selection of the show!

-dh

In Which Daniel Meets Ron and John, Hold the Ron, Double the John.

We had a special guest on Lipscomb’s campus last weekend – John Musker! John’s one member of Disney’s dynamic directing duo, along with Ron Clements. Together they’ve made some great films, including one of my personal favorites, The Princess and the Frog (Jazz? Animal characters? That one really cool shot at the beginning of “When We’re Human”? Yes Please!) Since I was familiar with his movies, I was excited to hear more about the man himself (I don’t think I had ever seen a Musker drawing before his visit). In his talk on Friday evening, John spent the most time discussing his early years at CalArts and in the Disney Training Program. He had some particularly wild stories about Tim Burton that are worth asking about if you get the chance. He took a pretty humble view of his own films, and only talked about The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, and Moana with a great level of detail. Most of what I’d heard about Ron and John involves their several-year-long quest to make Treasure Planet, but Musker didn’t linger too long on that point. In fact, though Musker did admit that poor marketing and release dates often hurt the success of his films, he didn’t seem especially bitter or regretful. Every time he talked he spoke with an amazing sense of humble confidence – he had  all the authority of a Disney legend, but was also warm and encouraging.

His talk was punctuated with caricatures of his fellow Disney crew members, filling me with a distinct sense that I should be drawing more pictures of my own friends (except for Sam Abner, who I somehow end up drawing at an alarming rate – sorry Sam). Fortunately, John led a workshop on caricature the next day. One note of clarification – when John says caricature, he doesn’t mean merely the style being drawn at theme parks or boardwalks, but capturing a likeness through exaggeration and stylization. There’s so many ways to caricature, and much of character design involves the skill. Most of John’s principles of caricature (pose/gesture, expression, contrast, and simplification) are also principles of regular character design.

After the talk, John gave us an in-class assignment wherein we had to draw three caricatures based on three words he gave us. The words were all slightly different levels of a similar idea (such as warm, hot, & scalding or take, grab, & snatch). The challenge was to communicate each word distinctly. We only had 30 minutes to draw all of them, so the focus was much more on the statement of the image than the actual quality of drawing (thank goodness). I was pretty nervous anyways at the thought of Musker seeing my work, which did not help the line quality at all. Feel free to guess what my words were in the comments below – the caricatures are here:

 I didn’t pin my drawings on the wall in the proper order (whoops) but after a brief period of confusion, Musker did say that he liked my third drawing and pointed out that my second drawing was actually a decent (unintended) caricature of John Pomeroy. The challenge was pretty fun, and something that I would like to do again in my free time! (Once I get some free time, that is.)

I didn’t really give myself a chance to talk to Musker aside from having him sign my animation board. I just don’t quite know what to say whenever I talk to someone like that. I’m a total fan, but I don’t want to be “just another fan”, so I end up kinda doing nothing. It’s something I need to work on and figure out before the next Disney legend comes to campus, and definitely before CTN. There’s got to be some way to engage genuinely that lasts longer than “Thanks for coming today! Sign this?” Got any ideas for me, Internet? If so, send them my way!

Until next time,

dh