Shannon Tindle

YUKI!

2011-02-27T11:53:00.001-08:00

My good buddy Kevin Dart invited me to participate in his upcoming Yuki 7 book. He and his lovely wife Elizabeth are putting it together and it already looks amazing. There are a lot of killer artists involved, including my wife Megan!

Ghost Stories

2011-01-31T17:36:00.001-08:00

Here are a couple of pieces I created for the recent Moonshine book. I likes ghost stories.

Christmas Inspiration

2010-12-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

Most of the time, when artists talk about their inspirations, they mention other artists. In the world of animation, the names and artwork of artists like Milt Kahl, Mary Blair and Tom Oreb are often cited and deservingly so. Their work has had an incredible impact on our craft and provided many hours of inspiration for me. I could also add several illustrators and contemporaries whose art excites and moves me to better my own work every day. However, I only know the work of these people. I don't what their character was or how they treated other people. I can only admire their art.

I usually don't get too personal on this blog, but something big happened yesterday and I want to brag a bit.

After over 30 years supporting his family as an electrician, my Dad found out the plant that he worked for was closing down. He could've found another factory job, but instead decided to go back to school. Yesterday, he graduated at the top of his class from the University of Louisville Nursing School. This first award was given to to recognize the student with the highest GPA. This alone is quite an achievement, and speaks to my dad's intelligence and persistence. However, he was also recognized by both the students and the faculty with two additional awards. These awards were voted on by both groups and are given to recognize a student and colleague with incredible character.

When these awards were announced a huge cheer went up amongst the faculty and students. I was overjoyed to see such a response to a man I have loved and respected my whole life.

After the ceremony, one student after another came forward to congratulate my dad. I could see in each of their faces, the incredible regard they held for my dad. This is true inspiration.

I can say the same of all my family and friends. My mother's big heart, my brother's boundless energy and my wife's support (and incredible artwork) have all lifted me to higher things.

To all of you who have inspired my through the years, thank you. Anything good about me is because of you. May you each be blessed with the inspiration you have provided me.

To my dad, congratulations you earned everything the hard way and I am incredibly proud to be your son.

And to you, my family and friends thanks and Merry Christmas!

40s vampire

2010-10-24T15:16:00.001-07:00

A piece for Halloween!

How to Train Your Dragon

2010-04-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

So, late last year I had the privilege of doing some work on How to Train Your Dragon. Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois had just come onto the film and wanted to redesign Toothless, Hiccup and the Green Death. At the time, they were pretty open to anything, even suggesting that the Green Death might not be a dragon.

I also did some color/tonal passes on a couple of sequences from the film. The compositions are based on the extremely talented Tron Mai's boards; a heckuva a story artist with a REALLY cool name;)

Thanks for letting me be a small part of this amazing film guys!

ULTRAMAN!!!

2010-03-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been AWHILE. I'm a HUGE Ultraman fan and this has been a labor of love.

Hope y'all dig it!

(BTW there will be a lot more stuff comin' soon.)

Moraline

2009-10-08T23:29:00.001-07:00

Here's some more Coraline stuff.

Ghosts

2009-09-17T23:51:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's been awhile. I've been REAL busy and unfortunately can't post most of the stuff I'm working on.

However, I've been asked to contribute to a little side project and this is a sketch for one of the ideas I'm kickin' around.

Velcome...

2009-05-19T08:12:00.000-07:00

I LOVE the classic Universal Monsters and am thinking about doing something with those characters. Here's the first piece.

Sharks and Gorillas!

2009-05-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

Last week was one of the best weeks ever! I went to a killer party last Saturday hosted by two of the coolest guys in the world (thanks Jeff and Darren!). On Sunday, I nerded out with some fellow monster enthusiasts and met a great new friend, Michael Roddy. Michael is the producer of the new JAWS documentary, The Shark is Still Working. This is, by far the most comprehensive documentary on one of my favorite films of all time. If you love JAWS or are just a film fan in general , PLEASE check it out. Trust me you'll love it.

Now after the sharks and monsters, you'd think I'd be in nerd overload. Well, you'd be wrong:) Thanks to Michael, I got to visit the legendary home of two of the sweetest people in the world, Bob and Kathy Burns. Bob has one of the most amazing collections of movie props ever. He has everything from Buster Crabbe's Flash Gordon costume to the Queen alien head. However, the most amazing pieces in his collection are the original armatures for King King and Mighty Joe Young!!! As I approached the pedestal they were sitting on, Kathy started giving me instructions on how to HOLD them. When I looked at her stunned, she simply said," What's the point of having them if you can't PLAY with them. The photo above shows how I felt about this incredible honor.

While seeing the collection was cool, spending time with Bob and Kathy was even cooler!

After all of that, I capped the week off watching Star Trek with my mom and dad. Yep, this has pretty much been the best week ever!

Go see CORALINE!!!

2009-02-01T22:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't believe it's finally coming out. I moved to Portland on Jan.9, 2006 to work on Coraline. I loved Portland, I loved the crew and I am so proud that I got to work on this film.

Here's some stuff I did while I was there.

The blonde gal above is based on a woman I saw in downtown Portland. She came stomping out of a halfway house and was so furious she spit really hard on the sidewalk.

Now go see the movie. It comes out this Friday!!!

ULTRAMAN!!!!

2008-11-30T18:42:00.000-08:00

Well hello all! I've been EXTREMELY busy, but figured I'd post some sketches I did for a dream project I'm working on.

I'm doing a poster for a company in Asia featuring one of my favorite characters of all time. These are studies I did to explore color, composition and style. The final piece will have Ultra fighting one of his giant monster foes.

Tom Oreb deserves some love!

2008-10-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

So I picked up the Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray yesterday and it is MINDBLOWING! The images and colors are absolutely beautiful. The transfer is flawless. However, there's one huge oversight on the disc that I want to bring attention to.

There's a pretty cool documentary on the dvd about the history of the film. They show tons of cool artwork and photos, including color film of Tom Oreb himself hangin' out with some animators. The thing that got my dander up was that they don't mention Mr.Oreb's name once. Oh, they show his artwork and talk about the evolution of the film's style; but they give all the design credit to Eyvind Earle. Now don't get me wrong, I love Eyvind Earle's work, but you can't really talk about the design of Sleeping Beauty without mentioning Tom Oreb. However, this is exactly what the producer's of this documentary did.

I get to hear how Mary Costa "painted" with her voice. I get to hear about how they used live action reference. I get a discourse on how Walt gave absolute design authority to Eyvind Earle, because he felt the studio had missed something by not staying faithful to a designer's work. The example used was Mary Blair. I love me some Mary Blair, but it seems like they wedged her into this documentary just to talk about her work, AGAIN. As far as I know, she had nothing to do with this film.

On the other hand, Tom Oreb, the guy who is responsible for the character styling of the film, get's no mention, no discussion... nothing. Also, they've omitted much of his work from the gallery section of the disc. The previous dvd has tons of model sheets and designs created by Mr.Oreb. Why they wouldn't keep this artwork for this disc I have no idea.

Anyway, I had to get on my soapbox a little bit. I'm glad that Disney released this disc, but it's really awful that they don't even mention Tom.

Tom, wherever you are, cheers to you man! Thanks for the beautiful work and the inspiration.

My wife and United Airlines

2008-08-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

Between January and March, I was a pretty lonely guy. My wife Megan, moved to Ojai for a bit to work on Jamie Caliri's latest United Airlines commercial, Heart.

Thankfully, it isn't lame and I guess my lonely nights were somewhat justified.

Congrats babe! I'm only a nepotist for you;)

Click above image to see the coolness!

Puppets!

2008-07-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

I've been insanely busy with work, but now that it's slowing down a bit, I thought I'd post something really cool.

I was walking around Comic Con this past weekend, and to my utter shock the Neca toy booth had the Coraline puppets on display!

Finally, people can see how amazing the fabrication crew on this film is (actually the whole crew is amazing)!

Anyway, thanks to these guys, I got to see my designs turned into amazingly, beautiful puppets. As anyone whose worked in animation knows, it's very rare that you get to a see design you created, make it faithfully into the final film. So, cheers to the puppet crew and to Henry Selick for giving me so much freedom.

Speaking of the amazing crew Shane Prigmore did the final Coraline design (based on Dan Krall's early drawings), Other Mother, as well as all the beautiful expressions for the replacements heads. Dan Krall designed the ghost boy.

I designed the blue guy, Mr.Bobinski.

Seaweed!!!!

2008-07-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

Now you may think that this is a shameless plug for a friend; and you'd be right. However, anything I say about Ben's book is absolutely true. He's been working his butt off for 6 years to bring this to the light of day and I think everyone is going to be really happy when they see the finished product.

So, drop what you'e doing, head on over to his new website, and buy as many copies as possible; 'cause Ben actually deserves to be rich.

Fox revisited

2008-01-31T00:16:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was invited to Macworld to do a demo for the guys at Axiotron, the fine makers of the Modbook. I was trying to figure something to use and decided to revisit the fox I posted a while back.

I'll be posting a step by step for this piece on Axiotron's forum.

CORALINE STUFF!!!

2007-12-25T20:21:00.000-08:00

So, Laika has finally posted some animation from Coraline. There are a lot of amazingly talented people working their butts off on this film and I can't wait to see more. Check it out!

Searle assignment

2007-12-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

As mentioned before, all the character designers at work have been teaching a workshop at the studio. For the final assignment we wanted to give the class a more real world assignment. We asked them to imagine that Dreamworks was developing three new properties (Flash Gordon, Conan or Three Musketeers) and that the fictional director wanted the property to be styled after Ronald Searle.

As with all the assignments, the instructors participate as well. Here's mine.

Bill Sykes

2007-11-09T09:42:00.001-08:00

This is a piece I did for a design class I'm involved with at Dreamworks.

WATCH CHOWDER!!!!

2007-11-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the premiere of a new cartoon on Cartoon Network called CHOWDER. It was created by the ultra talented Carl Greenblatt. My wife Megan, has been working on the show and I"ve had a chance to see a couple of the episodes. Luckily, it's a really great show and I didn't have to lie to Carl and tell him how great it was just 'cause he's my wife's boss.

There's been a lot of criticism leveled at Cartoon Network lately for some of their programming decisions; and while I agree with a lot of it, they got this one right. So, tune in at 7:30pm tonight (and every Friday night) if you want to truly see a great new original, funny and beautiful cartoon!

Good luck Carl!

...more stuff from Gilroy

2007-09-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of BG's from Project Gilroy. Chris Tsirgiotis, our bg designer, did the first couple of drawings in pencil, including this first image of Ricky's house (the kid in our cartoon). Chris decided later that he wanted to try and do the drawings in Photoshop. The second image of the barn was one of the first things he did in Photoshop! It was great because it allowed us to get a full tonal BG. Then, we handed these off to the amazingly talented RD, who painted them up beautifully! Again, we couldn't have asked for a better crew on this show.

To see more visit Shane Prigmore's blog!

Shots from the set of Gilroy

2007-08-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few frame grabs from our cartoon. I'll be posting a couple of these every week for the next couple of weeks. A big thanks goes out to everyone involved: Jackie, Dave Brain, Millet, Dave Lee, RD, Chris, Roger, Ilya, the crew at Hacienda, Shaun, Megan and my two co-creators Shane and Andy. All of the people mentioned as well as many more helped make this look better than we could have on our own.

If you want to see a couple more images, check Shane's blog out!

Project Gilroy... COMPLETE!!!

2007-08-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

So, our long journey is over and our Cartoon Network pilot is complete! Here's a flyer I did for the private studio screening.

Criminal

2007-08-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

I do find the occasional moment to draw non work related stuff.

Miss Dandridge

2007-05-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

I got inspired.

Marley and Tim

2007-03-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here are the other two drawings from the Christmas Carol assignment.

I'm Back...

2007-03-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

So, It's been real busy around here. I won't bore you with the details. Anyway, Shane Prigmore and I recently did a guest lecture at CalArts. The students are deep into their films, but were encouraged to do a new assignment for their portfolios. We know they're really busy, so encourage them to do the assignment, we told them we would do the assignment as well. So here's Scrooge.

Yarrow and Carrie

2006-12-16T00:12:00.000-08:00

Yarrow and Carrie Cheney are two amazing artists that just made an amazing short called THE VERY FIRST NOEL. You can check it out on Directv or buy it at Amazon, Wal Mart etc. I don't ordinarily endorse too many things on my blog, but this short is REALLY worth checking out. Please support these guys so they can make another cool project! You can check out their blog through the link on the right.

Oh... and they're really great people as well.

Holidaze!

2006-11-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

Hello, I know it's been awhile, but as usual, there are only so many hours in the day. This is a cd cover I did for my good friend Tom Knott's annual Christmas compilation album. Hope you like.

A drawing... for fun?

2006-09-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

I actually had a free night last night and instead of playing Star Wars Lego II all night, I decided to do a drawing just for fun. No deadlines, no studio notes... just fun.

More from Gilroy...

2006-09-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, but...

2006-09-08T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've been buried under my full time job and an animatic I'm producing with some friends for a short we're doing at Cartoon Network. It's called Project Gilroy and here's a sneak peak from the storyboard.

Imagine some cool Bernard Herrman sci fi music over the image.

The Law

2006-07-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a cop I recently designed for Foster's.

?

2006-07-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Normally, I don't like to go on huge rants on my blog ( I save that for work), but I was watching Inside the Actor's Studio the other night and my blood began to boil. James Lipton was gushing about the superhuman talents of an actor, in this case Robert Downey Jr., and he went through each and every film that Mr. Downey had graced his talent with (except Back to School). Eventually he came to A SCANNER DARKLY and after educating the audience on what rotoscope was, Mr. Lipton said this:

"In theory, if you rotoscope a really good performance by a really good actor, it ought to be much more effective than an animated performance that's been drawn or computer generated to match a voice."

Now... Mr. Lipton normally takes great pride in making sweeping statements with no evidence to support those statements, but this one seemed more like an attempt to push an agenda. Animators, in Lipton's estimation, are worse performers than even a second rate copy of an actor's performance.

Below, I have two images and I'll let you be the judge.

Foster's sketch

2006-07-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I work loose and sometimes I just go for it and do full color. Here's a combination of both.

Phelps and Perkins

2006-06-23T17:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of designs I did for a show we have in development at Cartoon Network. When I say we, I'm referring to my extremly talented buddies Shane Prigmore and Andy Schuhler. We're working on the animatic right now.

A Car

2006-05-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a car drawing I just did for Foster's ( I love freelance!). 70's funny cars are awesome! I've also included a photo of a real funny car so you can get psyched!

P.S.
I can't get the image to publish without artifacting!

Andre stuff

2006-04-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

I was one of the many artists who tackled designs for the Andre show at Cartoon Network. They really liked the stuff, and then decided to go in a different direction. The Andre character on the left is based on two different designs by Craig McCracken, the one on the right is all mine. I rushed this piece out for a blurb that was supposed to appear in Variety, but I never saw it. Oh well, maybe I'll get a call to work on that new Paris Hilton show.

Life after LEGEND!

2006-03-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

Hello! I'm back! Here's a piece I did for the Unicorn Show at Gallery Nucleus. It's my ponderance on what a unicorn would do after the movie Legend and the death of Trapper Keepers. The opening is this Saturday night so please stop by and check it out. I hear the stuff that will be displayed is amazing. Please don't judge the show by my meager entry!

Man, I've been busy!

2006-01-15T22:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't posted in a while... because I'm moving to PORTLAND! Yup, myself and some friends are working at Laika Entertainment on Henry Selick's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's CORALINE. I've been at the studio a week and all I can say is that Laika has some geniuses working up there! Anyway, until I get time do that drawing of Hawk from Buck Roger's for Ben Balistreri, here's some stuff I did for Foster's. I had a great time on that show and I'll miss it.

Foster's Monster sketches

2005-12-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

Here are some prelim sketches for an upcoming episode of Foster's.

ALIENS!!!

2005-12-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

I did this piece for a show I have in development with my good buddies Shane Prigmore and Andy Schuhler. It's at Cartoon Network and we'll be starting production on the short any day now...

Japanese Munsters

2005-12-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

I love me some Kaiju!

Papaw

2005-12-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

In Kentucky, my land of origin, we refer to grandfathers as papaw. Here's a drawing of mine.

Yaddle

2005-12-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

This one's for my good friend Ben Balistreri. I asked him to do a drawing of Arnold as Mr.Freeze and he asked me to draw Yaddle. As I was sketching, I couldn't help but think that more Jedi would have survived had Yaddle not disappeared from the Jedi council after Episode 1.

Superman

2005-12-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

Marlon Brando has a line in Donner's Superman film that concerns Kal-El's reponsibility to man. I can't remember the exact line, but for some reason it gave me the idea of Superman schlepping some Buddhist monks around in snow covered mountains. It's a little less glamorous than saving a bus full of children, but I think it's definitely more entertaining.

Thanks Amid!

2005-11-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

I appreciate the plug for my blog. So, here's one back. Everybody go buy Amid's book. It's gonna be awesome.

More Foster's

2005-11-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

Here's some more crowd stuff from the Goo episode.

Some personal drawings

2005-11-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

I did these two pieces for fun. I wanted to play with some different styles. The snake was drawn on Canson paper and the warrior is marker on laser paper.

Payin' Bills

2005-11-26T22:05:00.000-08:00

Here's some stuff from an episode of Foster's. I did these for the GO GOO GO episode and I had to create huge crowds. Normally, that's when I pull out the Post Its and start scribblin' away.

... and one more!

2005-11-25T22:09:00.000-08:00

Girl Sketches

2005-11-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple more development sketches.

Fun with Painter

2005-11-24T21:49:00.000-08:00

I took an old sketch and attempted to render it in Painter.

Inspiration!

2005-11-24T19:27:00.000-08:00

Just a little Thanskgiving inspiration.

Airhead surrounded by Airheads

2005-11-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

So, I'm watching American Idol this morning... Oh Snap, that's not American Idol, it's the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! Except it's been hijacked by every 17 year old girl who can hold a mike! Give me Super Grover pleeeeaaassee!

Fat Baby

2005-11-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

If you don't know what a fat baby is, watch Maury Povich some time. His show is awkwardly inspiring.

More girl sketches

2005-11-23T20:23:00.000-08:00

I did these sketches and the ones posted earlier as inspirational sketches for a feature that will remain unnamed. Drawin' is fun!

Goofy bird drawings

2005-11-23T20:12:00.000-08:00

idea sketches

2005-11-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

Into the future!

2005-11-23T19:49:00.000-08:00

Well, hello. Shannon Tindle here. Since I'm a pioneering kind of guy, I thought I'd be one of the first animation designer's to start a blog. Oh, wait, everybody else has already done it. Well,welcome anyway. I'll try and post some cartoon drawins' soon!