Aaron Blaise – creatureteacher.com
While looking for examples of good cartoon animators on youtube I came across Aaron Blaise an artist who literally stopped me in my tracks because of his exceptional talent. Aaron Blaise worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation for 21 years and was part of the animation teams for several disney classics. These include Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan and was co-director on Brother Bear which received an Oscar nomination for best animated feature film.
He left Disney and helped set up Tradition Studios in Florida working on the ‘Legend of Tombo’ about a little African Elephant. Unfortunatly the project fell into financial difficulties and Aaron found himself unemployed. To his credit Aaron Blaise has revived his painting career and launched a fantastic website creatureteacher.com.
On the site he demonstrates and teaches animal and concept art bringing to life some amazing fantasy creatures. He has some excellent tutorials on animation, Photoshop, plus ‘How to Draw’ downloads with brush and texture sets available at very reasonable and realistic prices.
I highly recommend that you pay a visit to see the the work of Aaron Blaise – in particular his gallery section on the web site just to see what amazing things can be created on graphics tablets using Photoshop. His tutorials on visualising creatures in cloud formations are quite astonishing and provide a great way of getting ideas by simply staring up at the sky. Clouds are constantly changing shapes that can provide some inspirational ideas for any cartoonist. He takes this method to a different level and it is quite unbelievable how he converts a simple idea into an amazing work of art!