Toby Shelton

Toby Shelton's cintiq sketch revisiting his design for the title character in the Disney series "Darkwing Duck" and his story panels from "How To Train Your Dragon" and "Princess and the Frog" from his blog. CLICK to enlarge.

In an industry full of talented people and myriad styles the work of story artist Toby Shelton remains unique.

His facility with line is something else--form, weight and gesture beautifully employed. The guy can draw. But to leave it at his technical skill would be missing more than half the picture. It's the sincere appeal of his characters, their acting and his cinematic staging that give his stuff its impact, as well as an intangible something that's just terrifically likeable. Recent credits of his include "Megamind", "Princess and the Frog" and "How To Train Your Dragon".

In another life (as he puts it in his blog's profile) Toby worked for Disney feature animation as an animator, and in 1985 was one of the first to work at Disney's new Television Animation division, where his superb designs for "Rescue Rangers" and "Darkwing Duck" became well known and were traded freely, even by artists who'd never met him. He's posted some of that original character design work on his blog. For the requirements of this era in television in particular, sheets like these leap off the quality meter.





Everywhere he's worked has benefited immensely from his skill, and the influence and inspiration he provides to other artists is palpable. He's a thoughtful artist and a generous one.

Toby Shelton: Stuff I Did--be sure to visit it often.



A Toby Shelton rough story panel from Disney's "Princess and the Frog"-borrowed from a post by the great Paul Briggs on Paul's blog.

Toby's exploratory sketch of Mama Odie from Princess and the Frog. His design remained through the story process and animation.

Sunday, June 20: win rare art by Fred Moore. Or Glen Keane. Or Marc Davis. Or 100 other geniuses of animation.

UPDATED 6/22 For the record: the auction raised over 70,000 to help Pres and his family defray the tremendous costs of his fight with leukemia.



This is a drawing by Fred Moore-probably a study for a presentation painting. It's one of a kind and it's beautiful-and it can be yours.
It'll be auctioned live tomorrow and even if you're many miles away, you can email the auction organizers today and arrange for an absentee bid to be placed for you. It's part of one of the most impressive auctions of great animation art in quite some time, and it's for a good cause.

UPDATED TO ADD: The L.A. Times had a nice article covering the auction here


Good cause? That's an understatement.


Patrick's painting of Pres and his wife Jeannine as Bonnie & Clyde, from Patrick's blog
I've never met Pres Romanillos, but thanks to my friend Patrick Mate I know several things about him, including these: he and his wife Jeannine have an awesome pride of cats, he's an excellent animator, and he's an awful lot of fun to take on road trips to the Comic Con. Also, anyone that Patrick draws with such affection and gusto must be quite a guy.

This is also borne out by the amazing organization of "Pres Aid", the auction tomorrow that Pres' friends and colleagues in animation have put together to help defray the costs of Pres' battle with leukemia.
There are far, far too many pieces for me to feature them all here, but clicking on the link above will take you to the blog set up to display most of them and explain more about the event.

In addition, some additional, choice art that wont be auctioned in the live event on June 20th has been listed on Ebay-I managed to win a beautiful, unsigned Marc Davis giclee of his personal watercolor work. Those listings, which are ongoing, are accessible here.

But back to June 2oth: here's a sampling of the stuff that'll wind up with a happy new home tomorrow:

Carlos Grangel studies for Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride"; Carlos' original paintings--like Nico Marlet's and many of the other current artists in the auction--is virtually never available for anyone to buy anywhere. This is an extremely rare opportunity to own one. This particular piece was exhibited in recent the MOMA show devoted to Tim Burton's career.


A limited edition print-one of only 22 made-of a personal painting by Marc Davis, signed by Marc and donated to the auction by Alice Davis. Pres and his wife were good friends of the Davis'. I want this painting. Bid against me and make me earn it

This fantastic painting of Messrs Hitchcock and Scorsese by Patrick is going to be in the auction tomorrow. He's one of the very best caricaturists I know, in addition to his visdev and animation work.

Beautiful piece of character design(of Gobber) from Nico Marlet, done for "How To Train Your Dragon". Nico's famous work is more beautiful in person than any scan can show-true of all the scans I have here. You can bid on it tomorrow.

An original pastel by the terrific illustrator-much beloved of animatio artists--the late Earl Oliver Hurst.

THE DETAILS:
Live Auction to benefit Disney and Dreamworks animator Pres Romanillos
Sunday, June 20, at the Animation Guild
1105 N. Hollywood Way (just north of Magnolia)
Burbank, CA 91505. Registration at 1pm, auction to follow at 2 til it's done (about 4pm)

From Kevin Koch's Pres-Aid site: "The building will open at noon, and we anticipate registering people at 1 pm and starting the bidding at 2 pm. We're working with our friend Howard Lowery, the expert on animation auctions, and we're deeply grateful for his participation. Absentee bidding will be available for those who cannot be in Burbank that day, and we anticipate being able to handle phone bidding on a limited basis."