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Jean Gillmore began her animation career in the traditional 2-D world, working on network animated television shows (Hanna-Barbera, Marvel Productions) as a show model designer and/or supervisor for several seasons.  She made the jump to theatrical animated features in 1989, where she worked 10 years as a staff visual development artist for Walt Disney Feature Animation. Her contributions to the Disney Renaissance era of feature animated films is huge and her credits list is long.  If you look behind the animation you will find that most of the characters from that era were designed by Jean Gillmore.

More recent work has seen Jean illustrating books, creating orthographics of characters and costumes for CG direct-to-video projects and even designing a set for a (critically-acclaimed) one-woman theater piece, “The Dance of the Lemons”.  Most recently in animation, however, she has worked as a CG COSTUMER for an animated feature development project at Blue Sky Studios on the east coast.

Over her long career, she has also worked in the development of various puppet show costumes and sets, toy design, and with the merchandise/ publishing concerns of retail venues (Walt Disney Consumer Products). Jean works in a variety of media with numerous applications, and is always open to breaking new creative ground.

Enjoy a rare interview with this ecclectic, bright and extremely talented lady.

To see more work by Jean Gillmore please visit her website at: http://www.jeangillmore.com

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Phil Nibbelink has been drawing his whole life. He studied art at Western Washington State University and film in Rome Italy’s Il Instituto di Stato per la Cinematografia. After attending the Disney Animation Program at California Institute of the Arts, Phil joined Disney Studios to animate on The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and Basil the Great Mouse Detective, Oliver and Company and Roger Rabbit. In 1989 he teamed up with Steven Spielberg to direct American Tail, We’re Back and Casper. Phil went on to start his own company where he wrote, directed and animated 3 features, Puss in Boots, Leif Ericson, and his third feature Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss, won him a 1st place and ‘Best-in-Show’ award at the Best-in-the-SouthWest film festival. Phil had too much fun teaming up with his old college roommate David Greenblatt to create the graphic novel Ultima Thula.

Enjoy listening to this great talent discussing about a time when we were Drawn2gether and you can meet him at the CTN Animation Expo (CTN-X) on Nov 20-22, 2009

You can see more of Phil Nibbelink’s  work and contact him directly at:

Creative Talent Network and   www.philnibbelink.com

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SUSAN MC KINSEY GOLDBERG is a renowned animation Art Director and Designer whose work has graced numerous feature films and theme park attractions in the United States, England, and Hong Kong. Her interest in the medium of animation reflects her encyclopedic knowledge of many other artistic disciplines, including Japanese art and textile design, children’s book illustration, costume design, wildlife painting and drawing, and graphic design for film and print.

In school, Susan won many local painting awards and competitions. Her interest in the animal kingdom (both artistic and conservation-oriented) led her to the Florida chapter of the National Audubon Society, where she served as Editor of their magazine. During her college years she received a scholarship and attended the fledgling Character Animation program at California Institute of the Arts. There she was taught first-hand by several of the great Disney animation artists, including director Jack Hannah, designer and story artist T. Hee, layout artist Ken O’ Connor, concept artist Elmer Plummer, and designer Bill Moore, who was among the first to notice Susan’s flair for design and color. This was followed soon by a stint in New York, working as a Background Artist for legendary MGM animator Jack Zander at his popular commercial production house, Zander’s Animation Parlour. It was during this time that she met her future husband Eric, on holiday from working in London, and since their marriage they have often had the enjoyable opportunity to work as a team on a variety of animation projects. (more…)

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Born and raised in Southern California, STEVEN E. GORDON has been a professional in the animation industry since 1977.  He was hired while still in High School by Ralph Bakshi Productions to work on the feature film “Lord of the Rings”. It wasn’t long before Steve was given more responsibility and by 1982 he was Animation Director and Key Animator on the Bakshi / Frazetta feature “Fire and Ice”.  Steve’s next job was a five year stint at Disney Pictures animating on “The Black Cauldron” and other films. For the next 12 years he worked on and off with Rich Animation on a series of direct-to-videos, pioneering character layout - the industry standard, and was Animation Director / Character Designer / Key Animator on “The Swan Princess. He then continued Directing and Character Design on the highly rated “X-Men: Evolution” TV series for Kids WB where he not only directed on the first two seasons, but also did every single character design himself for all four seasons with only the help of a clean-up artist. He then went to Dreamworks and worked in the story dept. and received a credit for his work on the huge Hit Shrek 2. After Dreamworks he went to work for Marvel/Lionsgate Productions as a director and a character designer on the Ultimate Avengers. He also directed a direct-to-video for Stan Lee and co-directed the direct-to-video sequel to “Happily N’ever After” for Lionsgate and is currently a director of the new series Wolverine and the X-Men.

Here is a rare interview with one of the top 5 animators in animation today who has worked with every TV and feature animation studio that is in Southern California.