CrocPond: The Dream Job that Lasted for a Moment

Lately, I’ve been reminiscing about old projects from the course my career. One project for which I had the highest hopes was the ill-fated world of CrocPond. Originally, it was intended to be a direct-to-DVD film series aimed at teaching life lessons to children. But as all too often happens in this industry, the project ran out of funding and was eventually abandoned. (I will refrain from commenting on specific events, controversies or conspiracy theories surrounding the demise of the project or the closure of FatCat Animation – I have no dog in those fights. For this blog, I just want to focus on the artwork).

In early 2005, I was contacted by someone from FatCat Animation, a studio founded by Len Simon in Tempe, Arizona. Initially, the job involved cleanup animation on the Curious George movie, but when I enquired about layout work, they said they would need to send me a test. Not long after, a package arrived by FedEx. Inside was the test: a couple of penciled line drawings for which I was asked to provide tonal renderings. I had seen no other CrocPond material, and I was given no reference or direction for the lighting – I just had to invent the lighting myself. So, I put my whole heart into it, and the result was the pencil rendering you see here, as well as the one at the top of this blog post. Needless to say, this test got me the job.

As I child, I loved the animated film Secret of NIMH, as well as the laser disc video game, Dragon’s Lair, both created by Don Bluth Entertainment (or its various incarnations). Fatcat was staffed with artists who had worked for Fox Animation Studios, which in turn, had absorbed talent from Bluth. While CrocPond was stylistically distinct from NIMH, I couldn’t help but feel excited to be working with people who had some connection to one of my favorite childhood films. In my mind, CrocPond was an opportunity to create environments which had the kind of atmospheric, mysterious, magical quality that reminded me of Secret of NIMH. For me, it was the dream job. I was very disheartened when the project came to an end.

I worked at FatCat Animation from about mid-2005 to mid-2006, the first part of that time doing cleanup animation on Curious George, the rest of that time spent drawing backgrounds for CrocPond and Rindin the Puffer. This was still the age of traditional pencil-on-paper animation, and so all of the drawings here were created with graphite pencils, kneaded eraser, and blending stubs. For many of these scenes, I was provided a rough layout (usually just a line drawing with no tone - so I had to invent the value pattern and lighting myself).

For others - such as the next two drawings here - I designed and rendered the background, so both the composition and finish are my own.

The last two drawings (below) depict the “House of Knowledge”. The exterior was initially designed by the amazingly talented Filipino artist, George Villaflor. George gave me a line drawing of the exterior, and a very rough line drawing suggesting the interior (for which I was to provide the finished renderings). Another artist had made a drawing of the interior, but from a different camera angle, and not all of the room was visible in his scene. So I had to design the rest of the room and match the desired camera angle. The script called for a room crowded with objects from every continent, representing every culture around the world. This assignment had my name all over it – a job perfectly suited to my tastes, skills, and artistic ambitions. I spent days researching reference material for everything that needed to be drawn. It was very time consuming, but I genuinely enjoyed the work.

While I am disappointed that Crocpond never reached the screen, I have fond memories from my time working on it. It was a moment in my career when imagination, craftsmanship, and opportunity aligned – however briefly – and I am grateful to have been a part of it.

By the way, I recently found some clips from FatCat Animation on YouTube (thanks to WorkOfZen for posting these!) This one provides a sense of what CrocPond might have been, if the funding had not dried up. 

Brazilian Jaguar Drawing Step-By-Step

More than a year ago, I drew the Brazilian Jaguar in graphite on illustration board, in preparation for painting. This was one of my last pencil drawings from the time leading up to my cornea transplant surgeries, as my vision was degrading to the point where I needed to wear heavy magnifying glasses to even see my drawing. Eventually, I decided it was too difficult to see even with the magnifiers, so I ended up painting the jaguar in Photoshop. But I did photograph the original graphite drawing in stages, so here is a breakdown of my drawing process step-by-step. I should mention that I used several reference photos of jaguars (including photos I took at the Sacramento Zoo), but the final drawing is not based on any one photo.  

Step 1: Lay-in

I started with the basic layout of the head, focusing on rhythms and alignments. You probably notice the light lines from my previous attempt to draw the jaguar - the head was not quite centered and the drawing wasn't working so me, so I erased it out and drew right over the previous attempt. Actually, I made a number of attempts before arriving at the final version.

Step 2: Alignments, Proportions, Structure

After the initial lay-in, I take time to carefully check proportions and alignments, before hammering out the structures and refining the line work. This is the time to correct any mistakes before taking the drawing too far. If everything is more or less working at this stage, I will develop the structures of head (hammering out the precise shapes of eyes, nose, mouth, ears).  

Step 3: Redrawing/Refinement

If the underlying structure of the head is working, I will further refine the line work. My lines get progressively darker as I tighten down the drawing.  

Step 4: Adding Detail

If I have a solid foundation to build on (proportions, alignments, underlying structure are all in place), I can begin to add detail. In this case, I was not concerned with copying the jaguar spots from photo reference; I tried to design spots so as to create interesting/appealing patterns.

Step 6: Refinement

Periodically, I will take time to check and recheck my proportions and alignments. If everything is more or less working, I will keep developing the structures of the head and refining the drawing. Notice that my lines are getting darker as the drawing develops. 

Step 7: Adding Tone

Finally we get to the part where I start adding tone. Typically, I spend a lot of time on the previous stages because I feel that tonal rendering is wasted energy is you don't build on a solid foundation. If the understructure is working, then the tones should fall in to place.

Step 8: Developing Tonal Range

At this point, I am using darker pencils (6B or even 9B lead) to push the darks as dark as graphite will allow. Also, I try to finesse the line work so that the drawing will look like as polished as I can make it (like a finished illustration, only in graphite).  

Step 9: Adding a Background

Now that I'm satisfied with the drawing of the jaguar head, I need to address the background. Initially, I tried several sketches with different background designs. including many more plant shapes. However, I felt that too many plants around the jaguar head were starting to remind me of the mane of a lion, so I drew fewer plants and added a large rectangular shape to help tie the composition together. I wanted the plants and the ears of the jaguar to overlap the edges of the rectangle, because I have always loved the effect of illustrations that break out of the borders - as if they were escaping the surface of the canvas or paper. 

Step 10: Developing the Background 

I did apply some workable spray fixative to the jaguar head to help preserve my drawing as I work on the background. Nevertheless, I do my best not to smudge the jaguar as I develop the background.  

Step 11: Refinement

At this stage, the drawing is approaching completion. Out of habit, I keep stopping to check my proportions, alignments, etc., making sure the previous steps in the drawing are working before I proceed with the rendering. When I feel the drawing is working, I will use blending stumps and tissue paper to gently blend the graphite. A kneaded eraser helps to adjust and edges, lighten any values that need to be lightened, and generally cleanup the drawing. 

As a final step, I break out the electric eraser to lighten the highlights in the eyes and on the nose. The final rendered stage can be seen up at the top of this blog post.

Eventually, I did paint the Brazilian Jaguar in photoshop. As my vision heals, I may make another attempt at painting the Jaguar in traditional media. Also, I am developing many more animal illustrations which I hope to post here in the future.