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Dragons

The Dragons are sad…

Nov 23rd, 2011
by rodney.
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Word has come out of Ireland that Anne McCaffrey, one of the grande dames of science fiction writing, passed away on November 21st after suffering a stroke at her home. She was 85. Ms. McCaffrey was of course best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series, likely the first science fiction stories to treat dragons as serious characters. Not to mention telepathic dragons who shared everything, even their love lives, with their human riders! But furry fans should also know Ms. McCaffrey for her Decision at Doona series, which featured humans interacting with the cat-like Hrubban species. On a personal note, your humble ed-otter had the honor of visiting Ms. McCaffrey at her home in County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1996. One of the great ones has left us. Read her obituary here from the Los Angeles Times.

image c. 2011 by Michael Whelan

Offerings from Arcana

Nov 9th, 2011
by rodney.
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Arcana Studio has several paperback graphic novels of interest to Furry Fandom coming up soon. Dragons vs. Dinosaurs by Chris Eric Peterson is a fantasy adventure (of course!) featuring, well, dragons battling dinosaurs! With a title like that, who needs to be worried about the plot? It’s coming in early January. Lethal Instinct (by Soares, Thompson, Jadson, and Borges) tells the story of a werewolf police detective — who discovers that he’s not the only shape-shifter in town — and his new competition is attacking politicians. The moon also rises next January. Finally, in a completely different and less violent vein, there’s A Cat Named Haiku by Mark Poulton and Dexter Weeks. It follows the adventures of a mischievous cat told completely in, you guessed it, haiku poetry. It’s available now. You can read more about these titles on Amazon here, here, and here respectively.

image c. 2011 Arcana Studio

Training Dragons on TV

Nov 3rd, 2011
by rodney.
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Here’s a scoop that we stumbled across recently: Dreamworks Animation is not only hard at work on a sequel to 2010’s Ursa Major Award-winning film How to Train Your Dragon, but they are also working on a TV series to be aired on Cartoon Network beginning in late 2012. ScreenRant.com have been following the story closely, and they recently featured an article that includes an interview with executive producer Tim Johnson from BadTaste.it. According to Mr. Johnson, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (the working title) will be released in the latter part of 2013. Dean Deblois, co-director of the original film, will this time serve as sole writer and director for the sequel. Original co-director Chris Sanders will be on as an executive producer, along with original producer Bonnie Arnold. Most of the original voice cast will return for the sequel, including Jay Baruchel, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, TJ Miller, and Kristen Wiig. It’s unclear right now if any of them will also be involved in the TV series. Also unclear at this point is what the plot of either the TV series or the sequel film will be like, although Tim Johnson has said that the TV series will likely be a bit more mature, perhaps even darker, than the current Dreamworks TV spin-off series, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness.

image c. 2011 Dreamworks Animation

 

More Art Instruction

Oct 8th, 2011
by rodney.
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There never seems to be enough of these, and frankly that’s just fine with us! The Explorer’s Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures is a new hardcover art instruction book, written and illustrated by Emily Fiegenschuh. She holds a degree from Ringling College of Art & Design, and in the past she’s illustrated numerous Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks for Wizards of the Coast. Now her new book (published by F + W Media) guides the would-be fantasy artist through not only rendering fantastic creatures of myth, legend, and nightmare, but also breathing life into the finished pictures. According to the publisher’s notes, the book includes: “25 step-by-step demonstrations for creating a bevy of beasts that roam air, land and sea; important basics of drawing, proportion and perspective to help you bring believability to your creatures; instruction for adding living, breating color to finished sketches; and expert tips on finding inspiration, developing personalities, designing costumes and more”. It’s on the shelves now.

image c. 2011 Emily Fiegenschuh

Never Enough Dragons

Oct 6th, 2011
by rodney.
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Catching onto what seems to be a growing trend (we know, we know: When wasn’t it?), Vanguard Productions now brings us Art of the Dragon in paperback this November. Here, we’ll let them tell you about it: “Vanguard presents every dragon lover’s dream come true, Art of the Dragon: The Definitive Collection of Contemporary Dragon Paintings. This concise yet comprehensive survey by Visions of Never author Patrick Wilshire and How to Draw Chiller Monsters, Werewolves, Vampires, and Zombies author J. David Spurlock presents and examines the ultimate collection of contemporary dragon paintings and provides insights about the foremost dragon-painting fantasy artists including Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, Keith Parkinson, Todd Lockwood, Donato Giancola, John Howe, Bob Eggleton, Don Maitz, Stephen Hickman, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Greg Hildebrandt, and record-breaking Hugo Award winner Michael Whelan, who also provides the cover to this long-awaited and breath-taking compendium. This book is dedicated to the memory of the late, great fantasy artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones who passed away May 19, 2011.” There’s more information about the book on Amazon. If you don’t know who some of these artists are, you should! Go on and Google them right now.

The Art of Dragons

Sep 13th, 2011
by rodney.
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We don’t need to tell folks around here that dragons — talking, magical, and otherwise — have held a fascination that is unique for centuries. Now editors Pamela Wissman and Sarah Laichas have gathered together 43 international artists to give their interpretations of these fantastic creatures, and put the results together in a full-color book called Dragon World. It’s available now in hardcover from Impact Books. It features more than 120 illustrations, from whimsical to magical to scarey, as well as interviews with the artists discussing their take on dragon legends. Check out the reviews at SF Book.com and Amazon.

image c. 2011 Impact Books

How to Train Your Live Dragon

Aug 15th, 2011
by rodney.
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Word has come out that a new stage show based on Dreamworks Animation’s award-winning How to Train Your Dragon film will be coming to Melbourne, Australia next March. The show features brand new characters, a brand new plot, and most interesting of all, full-sized free-walking audio-animatronic dragons. Here’s a quote from The Brisbane Times: “(There will be) at least 24 dragons for a show that will include acrobats and aerial artists, projections and flying creatures. The five-tier set will be backed by a 60-metre screen and the action will unfold on 1000 square metres of stage studded with projectors to provide an immersive experience”.  There’s already a YouTube video of a press presentation that was recently held to advertise the show. It shows one of the dragons (a Deadly Nadder, in this case) interacting with a human.

 

Dragons and Pandas coming to TV

Mar 27th, 2011
by rodney.
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Not long after announcing that the sequel to the wildly popular film How to Train Your Dragon will be released to theaters in 2013, Dreamworks Animation let it be known that a brand new How to Train Your Dragon weekly TV series will be premiering on Cartoon Network in 2012. IGN has a lot of information about the new series up on line. Although we’ve been told that the TV series will feature the same characters in the same world as the feature film, it’s not been announced if any of the cast or crew from the feature will be working on the new series. And speaking of television: Don’t forget that sometime this fall, the much-delayed Kung Fu Panda TV series Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness is set to premier on Nickelodeon.

And Speaking of Awards…

Feb 6th, 2011
by rodney.
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Saturday the 5th of February it was time once again for the annual Annie Awards, presented by the International Animated Film Society (ASIFA) for the best in animation. This year, of course, was the year of controversy for the Annies, now that Disney/Pixar have pulled their sponsorship and official participation in the awards due to what they feel are flawed and lop-sided voting practices. Specifically, they’ve accused the Annies of being overly weighted toward Dreamworks Animation productions. Probably because there is a very large percentage of ASIFA that includes Dreamworks employees as members. Probably because at one point Dreamworks was offering to subsidize its employees’ membership in ASIFA, while Disney and Pixar were not. So, it probably didn’t sit well at all with Disney and Pixar that Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon swept the Annie Awards this year, much like Kung Fu Panda did a couple of years ago. In fact, this year, the Kung Fu Panda Holiday TV special also swept the Annie Awards in the television categories. Here’s a recap from Variety: “DreamWorks Animation ended up with 15 Annie Awards, 10 for How to Train Your Dragon and five for its television production Kung Fu Panda Holiday. In addition to best picture, Dragon picked up nods for helmers Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, animated effects, character animation, character design, music, production design, storyboarding, voice acting for Jay Baruchel [Hiccup], and writing. Kung Fu Panda Holiday was named the top TV production and racked up trophies for character animation, direction, production design, and voice acting for James Hong [Mr. Ping].” Other awards from the evening  (ones that Furry Fans might notice) included T.U.F.F. Puppy winning two awards for storyboards and character design (in a TV production). Ryan Page won the first ever Annie Award for “Character Animation in a Live Action Production” for his work on Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The evening also featured lifetime achievement awards (the Windsor McCay Award) for director Brad Bird (who joked in a video clip about his move from directing animation to live action), veteran animator Eric Goldberg, and creator Matt Groening (who joked live about the fact he’s spent 23 years in animation and only done two things: The Simpsons and Futurama). You can read more about the Annie Awards — and soon, see pictures from the show — on their web site.

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