On 1 April 2008, Ty Carter takes a phone call from “Pixar.” The American is in his first year studying animation at Brigham Young University (BYU) in the city of Provo, Utah. He quickly decides that the caller is a fellow student trying to prank him.
Ty is looking for a summer internship, but so far has received nothing but rejection letters. Now he’s supposed to believe Pixar is calling to talk about a paid internship with free accommodation in California? Yeah, okay. Ty pranks the caller right back.
Ty: “You’re going to ask who my favourite Pixar character is, right?”
The caller: “Excuse me?”
Ty: “It’s Shrek!” The conversation continues like this for a little while, back and forth, until, finally, excruciatingly, Ty figures out the caller is really a Pixar recruiter.
“Needless to say,” Ty says now, “I didn’t get it. I butchered that one.”
AN IDEAS PERSON
It’s 2016, and Ty is about to start work on a new animated film. He’s now a visual development artist at Blue Sky Studios. He starts work early in the development stage of a film, coming up with paintings that convey the movie’s big idea, usually a specific character in a key scene.
This story is from the May 2020 edition of ImagineFX.
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This story is from the May 2020 edition of ImagineFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Jan Wessbecher
Dominic Carter talks to the visual artist about creating his own comic and why sketchbooks are great for creative experiments
Kyounghwan Kim
The Korean character concept artist speaks to Dominic Carter about staying open to ideas and the value of drawing regularly
Slawek Fedorczuk
Dominic Carter talks to the concept artist about what keeps him motivated and the advantages of using physical sketchbooks.
Raquel M. Varela
Raquel is inspired by magic, fantasy and fairy tales. She loves designing female characters from distant worlds. \"My greatest reference is Loish's art, thanks to her I learned to draw the movement and fluidity I like to convey.\"
Estrela Lourenço
Estrela is a children's book author and illustrator. Her work is influenced by her background in character animation and storyboards for clients such as Cartoon Network, and she channels comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes.
Daria Widermanska
Daria, also known as Anako, has been drawing for as long as she can remember. Inspired by Disney and classic anime, she loves creating new characters and often finds that a single sketch can spark a unique story.
Allen Douglas
Allen has been painting professionally since 1994 for the publishing and gaming industries. Inspired by folklore, he distorts the size, relationships and environments of animals, and calls his paintings 'unusual wildlife'.
Thaddeus Robeck
Thaddeus has been drawing from the moment he could hold a pencil, but it was the 2020 lockdowns that gave him the time to focus on honing his skills.
DRAW FASCINATING SYMBOLIC ARTWORK
Learn how JULIÁN DE LA MOTA creates a composition from his imagination with a focus on crafting figures, volumetric modelling, and light and shadow
First Impressions
The artist talks about his journey into the mythological world
