Animation: Working with Pictures
Ideas in motion
Tom is up top on the left while I (Nick) am on the right in the above picture. Since I began watching the Peanuts specials on television as a child I became wild about cartoon animation and the relation to crayons and coloring books. Eventually after taking some 2-dimensional design classes and analytical drawing in my first year in college I began applying it to my character designs throughout the passing years. I attempted to produce my own work on stationery which never really took off. Aside from that I created three weeks of a story of my own comicstrip. My landlord Joe Baglini saw a sample of my work and he noted that the art would pop off the page. Well, it seems that my acting was popping out through my drawing. I really took care about my work before I put it down. Then I would get crazy on pushing out some ideas. I registered my Nick Furlano Studio around 2000-2001 and so I use it only for my animation designs. I have yet to complete a full project. At the present I do not have the luxury to pursue an animated cartoon. -----Nick Furlano 2009 Feb.
I will let Nick explain (above) or express much on this subject and the evolution of creative or the artistic expressionism involved in animation. It actually was more of a focused discipline of my twin brother Nick that first got me involved in drawing characters and or animated characters. From the help of our mother! Indeed, was it not for my love for Woody Woodpecker, Yosemite Sam and other 'friends' in coloring book form for little tykes the frenzy of spending hours days on end drawing would never have started to begin with. Though occasional times spent with mother she would paint and do crafts and teach us and involve us in her own leisure. We used to dabble in craft kits experimenting with different materials. One in particular was small tiles with epoxy making ashtrays. That was not only useful but earthy. Painting on woodblocks, cutting out and pasting together paper,yarn,felt,egg cartons,cloth,wood and stone. I mean those truly are the beginnings of the use of some of the basic outline of tools in getting your mind to connect with the other activities such as gardening, sports, fishing,playing with the Punch and Judy Theater we had,even the yard with pear and apple trees and the list goes on. Not to mention having pet turtles, kittens, dogs and frogs as part of the practicum of development. I even used to take the soil and new laid tar from the road in front of the house and go back on the patio and pretend/believe that I was really making 'meatballs'. My mom Rose took a photo of me and I took a bite of the concoction and began crying! Dad always brought us to the airport to watch the small aircraft and he made us homemade slingshots from the tree in our own yard. We visited farms, museums and the circus ... Eventually you have an idea that with doing things daily and making ongoing observations creativity kicks into becoming an act and has to be carried out by certain processes of focus and choice. And then you just express it like a kid. Don't ever lose your curiosity. Find a way to feed that curiosity, that is the only way to stay alive!
(below): Character creations of cartoonist Thomas Dean Furlano 1975-1983.
My own creation back in the late 1970's Jed the Hillbilly in Reflections.Done on my first Oxberry animation disk, placed on the top of a jigsawed Sears draftsman table.
Okay, now this is Irving Wisecrow the tiny who implements much of the angst and raises havoc for poor old Jedediah Hicksum the Hillbilly, just above him while he is glancing down at his reflection in the water. This whole sketch was an early a.m. sketch of feeling that came out at the top of my head. Both were part of the original self-same sketch.
As you can see by name that this is Oscar Crowbate, companion in corn crimes with Irving Wisecrow the tiny in parallel to the largeness of Oscar. Together they terrorize the farmer.
Irving Wisecrow in delight.
Jedediah Hicksum the Hillbilly farmer.
Background Design for Character Animation
Originally designed as Irving's tree-house.(Guache finish). Plan was to pan across and go close in on his well lit window with a dissolve into his residence. Later on or before with a vehicle driving into and from the distance of the country mountain, as well as Irving flying out to his desired destination.
Character Development: Sketches of Inspiration
At age 19 both of us twin boys left Rhode Island to do volunteer work. While I was stationed out of San Bernardino, California; Nick was stationed out of San Diego, California. Soon after I was inspired to create two timeless hombres, one a tall thin mexican by the name of Cortez.
I am sorry! I just love these two guys from Mexico very much. This is Juarez, and yes he certainly is the stoutest of the two with a firmer gut!
Now look here closely and you will see a path of action from a cold-eyed observer's expression to a fanatical heart-beating spirited action.
..."Don't miss him! We just gotta have him! Yum-yum, yum,yum!", shouts loudly Juarez to Cortez. {But why would he be yelling so?}
"I'll get him Juarez!, with mixed agility acts his tall friend.
"Why it is a Rhode Island Red!" Boy, look at that bird swing!
Cortez, goes for the chicken. In case of point this is a true bonafide Rhode Island Red in a clean-up sketch form I transformed obviously more upscale from the other ratty looking bird.
Back to Jedediah Hicksum as a full-finished toonized character, is the same as one shown earlier but he has refined with use of a Wacom Tablet.
A well-loved sketch in black ballpoint of our corn-popping duo crows. Thinking they're going to be making a killing on farmer Jed Hicksum's cornfield in
Santa Clarita Valley?
Originally I thought of this as a white albino crow cousin of the boys, but it can just be considered a clean-up of Oscar the big boy in flight to pass over fields of gold...I mean the golden kernel loved most by our two friends: CORN.
Actually this complete drawing is by myself Thomas Dean Furlano, though as this was part of our senior project in our special art curriculum, which allowed us 3 periods at the end of each school day to be accredited at animation studies overseen by the beloved late Jonathan Hutchins and Ms. Janet Causi of Narragansett High School. It was the ending signature of our 'pencil tests' and also colored cutout animations, done on Super 8mm film. In that year of 1980 we created a complete animation storyboard on 3 by 5 index cards, created an animation camera stand the summer before school started, working around the clock on figuring how to animate Nick Furlano's 1st Cartoon called: The Fish. In which the hero Simon a Seal goes on his trek following a fish which leads him into another dimension. Each drawing was hand painted by Nick. We would cut the character's outline, then make sure the bottom pegged portion of the paper that was connected to the character would be flattened by the plate glass for exposure. I felt like I was helping Walt Disney and felt that pioneering spirit of animation that was for us very real to our experience of efforts and focus. I would come up with certain ideas for the way to draw shots for the circus tents and host of animals and clowns in a particular way or style and then my brother had his particular style and camera angle point of view, which I wholly admired. Personally I wanted once we got the right equipment and the correct funding to produce the cartoons over again since they never got quite finished/completed the way we would have liked. This is probably along the lines of what George Lucas stated in his own words about Star Wars, saying," films are never completed, they're only abandoned." Certainly, we did our studies of animation with focus of Hollywood in our heart. I could never feel drawing flow in myself for a constant. But I can draw as these pages show and be very creative. In Barstow, I met Ruben Apodaca, (February 1982) who took great pride in expressing to me that he and his wife were creators of the Smurfs. I had presented to him a drawing that was free-flowing animation done by Nick from a letter, a gorilla Nick had drawn with a blue ballpoint pen. The form was clear and had no problem. Ruben said to me, "That is the kind of drawing we are looking for!" I don't think Nick knows still how well-received he was by that complement to his work was by a professional master. Because I was the one who had met the Mr. Apodaca. He wanted to help us back then . He had a copy of the Kit Laybourne book to give me. Yet, I already had the book. The business partner I was with that day did not respect this meeting before we left the office. I was about to see the couple's home studio and spend time with them. It would have been something which would have helped my career after my volunteered service. When I returned back to the office the volunteer didn't realize 'he' was famous and would have spent the day with the artist. It was too bad his attitude was not courteous before the meeting because I would have made some strong network with them. The Apodaca's also gave instruction over at the Barstow City College back then in the 1980's.
Sometimes Oscar is truly my favorite bird, because he is quieter and has a certain air of observation. Maybe because he is taller and can see things about which perhaps Irving has no suggestion about.
This is a small production of the drawing which I used for the end of our Animation Production on Super 8mm of our senior project. The film was with the presentation our 'Final Exam'. This 'slide' if you will call it- I believe from the full picture, we went forward into, "THE END", with an iris out in glorious black and white. I still would like to do these guys walking around without knowing what they are doing, Irving then rolling out the paper, afterwards Oscar hammering away on the fence, to Irving back again using his big pencil writing out the stencil, finally the camera, pulling back to see what the whole thing is about. The reaction of our two bird-friends would then be watching us the viewer, next they turning back towards the sign. Finally the camera would come tracking into the words, "THE END", and iris out as done originally. So that would in itself be a cartoon to animate. Using the right angles and closeups to interest the audience in watching them to reveal the aesthetic gag is all about timing and letting the audience see only what will get them itching inside of themselves to say, "What are they doing"? That is the way Tex Avery would do it to get the next best laugh. I should know I did a 10th grade English report for Mrs. Brown and she was surprised how I got an A+. Well, I had at that time no interest in the Merchant of Venice or A Farewell to Arms, Tex Avery...well, he was also one of my true heroes.[Mrs. Brown flunked me in English]! The Furlano Brothers had been interviewed by a young lady reporter of The Narragansett Times, and that started more interviews Deseret News, a New England cartoonist magazine, meeting Mel Blanc one of our hero's at University of Rhode Island Edwards Auditorium in Kingston, won honorable mentions in a Milton Caniff Cartoonist Contest besides other art awards...and job considerations from even an eccentric retired man wanting us to redo a 'turn of the century' book of comics, full of prejudices for the Black people. We could not see ourselves do that. ~Tom Furlano~
Seaweed Circus was my own creation after getting rejected from a previous version of my work.
There are some basics that United Features Syndicate shared with me on the requirements on comic strip presentation. After being rejected on a prior version I only accomplished a handful. Presently my work is at a halt.
Here is my character Simon the Seal. ©1999, 2009 Nick Furlano
--Nick--