From the publisher: From Snow White to Shrek, from Fred Flintstone to SpongeBob SquarePants, the design of a character conveys personality before a single word of dialogue is spoken. Designing Characters with Personality shows artists how to create a distinctive character, then place that character in context within a script, establish hierarchy, and maximize the impact of pose and expression. Practical exercises help readers put everything together to make their new characters sparkle. Lessons from the author, who designed the dragon Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy) in Disney's Mulan--plus big-name experts in film, TV, video games, and graphic novels--make a complex subject accessible to every artist. Introduction by Glen Keane. Tom Bancroft has over 25 years of experience in the animation industry, much of which was for Walt Disney Feature animation where he was an animator on 4 animated shorts and 8 feature films, including “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin”, “Pocahontas”, “Mulan”, and “Brother Bear”. He has been nominated for Annie and Rueben division awards, spoken at the Kennedy Center and awarded an entry into the Chicago Children’s Film Festival. Bancroft left Disney in 2000 to follow his heart and help Big Idea Productions, creators of the popular “VeggieTales” animated series, create their first feature film, “Jonah: A Veggietales Movie”. While there he also Directed/ co-created the popular 2D animated video series “Larryboy Adventures”. All total, Bancroft has 8 Episodic Animated TV/DVD shows he has directed for Big Idea and Christian Broadcasting Networks. His popular character design instruction books, “Creating Characters with Personality” and “Character Mentor” have become the most recognized books on designing characters for animation, video games, comic books, and cartooning and are required textbooks at many art schools around the world. Because of the popularity of these books, Bancroft has been hired to design hundreds of characters for Film, TV, and video game productions as well as speak at art schools and animation studios around the country as well as in Italy, Canada, and Costa Rica. Additionally, Bancroft has illustrated over 50 children’s books, is creator and President of the art instruction website TaughtByAPro.com, co-creator of a daily sketching prompt app (SketchBite), co-host of the most popular Animation podcast on iTunes (“The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast”), and is Artist in Residence for the Animation undergraduate program he developed for Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN, where he lives with his family.
