Disney, you maniacal studio, you’ve captured me again.
Blame the fact that as a thirty-nine year old man, the brilliance of the last two animated offerings from Disney made more of an impression on me than most of the recent Pixar movies have (I know, I know… with Lasseter basically pulling double duty as the overseer of both studios’ outputs, there is a mixing of worlds, and both Tangled and Frozen seemed more like what I expected from Pixar, and Brave and so some degree, Monsters University sort of underwhelmed me…) I’m hoping that someone can come in and fill that void that the great Joe Ranft left. That man was the story telling giant of our generation if anything can be said about how well the stories in all the Pixar films prior to his death during the production of Cars were something really special.
(On left) John Lasseter is an avid toy collector and the movies Cars and it's sequel Cars 2 were huge passions of his. (Top right) Joe Ranft and one of the characters he voiced in Cars, was once called by Lasseter "the best storyteller at Pixar". (Bottom right) Pete Doctor, Andrew Stanton, Lasseter, and Ranft during a discussion about Toy Story 2 mere months before Joe's untimely passing.
In just the last few days, I have been finding myself reviewing works I am creating, the ones involving my storytelling,… my writing abilities and I want to push further into what these stories mean to me. What more these characters I am working on have to say, why they say these things,… what is the ultimate point of the story.
It’s almost too easy to get sucked into the visual aspect of characters, and believe me, that is one thing that has happened in the two latest additions to the ongoing wood panel series I am working on.
"Elsa" from Frozen, 6x6" wood panel. The two images on the left side show the preliminary graphite and pen inking that I do prior to the marker and watercolour work I apply.
There is something to be said about a picture being worth a thousand words, but sometimes there are words that need to be written, spoken, and allowed to blossom in an inflection, an accent, or a humorous way that perhaps images are not completely able to convey at that point. Joe Ranft had a saying above his office door at Pixar … “THE JOURNEY IS THE REWARD” and he had this faith in the skills of the team at Pixar and what they were doing. They’d continue to hone and then plus the story until everyone was pleased with the results.
“We joked that storyboarding was really story reboarding and on ‘Cars,’ it had become story salvage. I thought we’d break a record of horrible sequences with ‘Cars,’ ” Lasseter said. “We were lost in a maze but Joe knew if you just kept walking eventually you’ll get out of the maze.”
That’s what some of my current storytelling in my personal projects feels like at this moment, like a maze that I was dropped into. I cannot restart the story at this point unless I really want to undo a lot of time and labor spent,… I mean it’s an option, but I want it to be my last resort. Joe Ranft had a saying above his office door at Pixar … “THE JOURNEY IS THE REWARD” and he had this faith in the skills of the team at Pixar and what they were doing. They’d continue to hone and then plus the story until everyone was pleased with the results.
"Stitch" from the movie Lilo and Stitch. This was one of the character requests that I got recently via e-mail from a nice kid that stopped by my booth last year at Strangefolk. I was really lucky and had so many people compliment my work since then (many thanks to any of you reading this update that met me at that show for saying my work was so Disney like. 
)
And so maybe that’s where I am at with some of my comic stories which I have not yet finished. Deadlines for projects are one thing especially for clients. You got to be on time and over deliver to be reliable and requested again. But maybe, for the stuff I am creating, I am not taking the right approach… maybe I need to let more of my inner kid out more often.
That is instead of keeping him in storage with my toy collections…
I think I can give Lasseter a run for his money.
One thing that currently I am in the midst of working on is a new studio space that I can use for ease of art creation and to finally display the myriad collections of movie props, toys, music, books, and literally hundreds of other items. That’s not bragging, I could open a museum in pop culture history with what resides in my basement awaiting a display case.
But there is more to all of that in that last picture than you might imagine. I am not (contrary to what that image shows) the kind of collector that leaves his stuff on blister cards or in boxes by choice. I always had a thing in my head as a kid that someday I’d be able to grow up to have a place of my own, even within a home of my own, that could be where my youth and inner child could be allowed to breath and roam free daily. Not as a form of escapism, but more of one that allows my mind to flow, to expand and think about historical and mythical worlds that have been and have yet to be.
I will not kid you. Being a freelance artist can be downright scary. In two parts. Freelance. And Artist. But I would not change a thing if I could except to add more hours to a day to get things done in. The challenges we face, the one lifetime we have on this earth,… they make us who we are, they form the legacies we leave behind.
Till next time, ask your inner child how they’ve been and what they think of where you are and who you are today. 
– Mario, the Artisan Rogue