James Lopez is a former Disney animator and an instructor at CalArts. He did not survive last year’s purge of hand drawn animators from Walt Disney Animation. But maybe there’s hope that one day Disney will bring that art form back in house.
In the meantime, Lopez is working on his own to keep the tradition and skill of hand drawn animation alive. One of his projects will be near and dear to every Disneyland fan’s heart – an animated recreation of the yesterland attraction ‘America Sings.’
We previously highlighted the near finished version of sequence one from Lopez. He just shared sequence 2 & 3, both storyboard work-in-progress, from his ‘America Sings’ project. The end goal will be an animated recreation of the much beloved Disneyland attraction.
Sequence 2:
Be sure to visit his Vimeo channel, Lopez has also added a lot of small animation samples and tests from both the ‘America Sing’s project and some other projects he’s been working on.
He’s been working on it in bits and pieces for over 10 years. I hope that Disney considers bringing him back to finish it up quickly and release this project to fans. Perhaps at next year’s D23 expo for Disneyland’s 60th. Wouldn’t that be great?
This is amazing!! I hope he is able to finish. And I dearly hope Disney brings back hand drawn
His work is quite good. I am sorry to see the full-motion squash and stretch hand-drawn 2D animation fall by the wayside. It is the fundamental legacy of Disney. Maybe I’m an old fogey, but I have always preferred the hand-drawn look. I teach college and I made a reference to Gyro Gearloose and Horace Horsecollar yesterday. Out of 25 students, only one recognized these characters. So sad.
My favorite ride of all time. I still play the soundtrack and sing along with it with my whole family.
I do with Disney brought this ride back.
And I love what Lopez is doing! Hope the film gets finished!
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