My favorite project this year was creating the corporate holiday greeting card for Warner Bros. Studios Animation. Warners currently owns the Hanna-Barbera film catalog and I was beyond thrilled when they asked me for an original design featuring the classic H-B characters.
There are so many good characters to choose from so, naturally, I chose the earliest ones and placed the style in the late '50s/early '60s. Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi, and Boo-Boo Bear are constructing a paper tableau using the very tools I used to create the actual scene.
On the flip-side, Quick Draw McGraw and his sidekick Baba Louie are assisting from behind the scenes.
This was so much fun to work on, and required some tricky staging to pull off the illusion that the flimsy paper characters were actually supporting the scissors and x-acto knife.
Magilla Gorilla dangles a real vintage ornament (from our own Christmas tree at home) while the mice Pixie and Dixie leap around. Incidentally, I hope everyone out there reading this is familiar with all these great Hanna-Barbera characters. We don't see them very much today—except perhaps for Yogi Bear—which is quite a shame. I spent countless hours of my kidhood enjoying the TV antics of these characters, and it was a dream come true to be able to revisit with them for a short while as they skipped across my workbench.
Keivn, that is absolutely gorgeous, and as you mentioned with characters that you just don't see any longer! I may work for Warner's competition, but I really wish I could get a card from them about now!
ReplyDeleteI haven't even heard the names Ruff and Ready for decades. This is just beautiful.
ReplyDeletewhen i received my card in the mail from the WB animation department, i was immediately shocked they would do something so cool, only to turn it over and of course! kevin!
ReplyDeletecongrats on another great job!
So luscious to look at. Really fantastic. Good for you with the whole world opening up thing, too. Can't wait to see more!
ReplyDeleteVery cool. That's the kind of card a recipient would want to display EVERY year.
ReplyDeleteKEVIN, I have worked in animation for 50 years, the last 26 years at WB Animation.What a surprise to get this beautiful card and see all my childhood friends. I grew up on Huck, Yogi, and Quick Draw ever afternoon on ch.11 in L.A. I learned were the studio was from a neighbors father and started a 5 year dumpster diving career from 1959 to 1964.I had cels and BG'S from every production during those years. first encounter with Mr. Barbera was in 1959 I was in the dumpster on a sat. morning when all of a sudden I heerd " GET OUT OF THAT TRASH CAN YOU KNOTHEAD' it was Mr. B. himself. I went on to animate and direct for him many years later. I had a blast every second I worked there.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kevin for bringing these characters back in such a beautiful way.
So amazing!!! ❤️❤️❤️
ReplyDeleteIs there anything more wonderful than a cut out paper illustration!? And yours are simply phenomenal. Thank you so much for carrying the torch for this esoteric art form. I can't get enough of it!
ReplyDeleteHa ha, Mr Magoo! We used to go dumpster diving in the Hanna-Barbera trash can back in the 1970's! I turned up drawings and cels from Josie & the Pussycats, Scooby Doo and Yogi's Ark Lark. Never got in trouble for it, nyah nyah nyah!
Oh hey there, Mr Karswell! How have you been?