Last week the world lost someone who you might not know by name, but you definitely know a good chunk of his work. Ollie Johnston (on the left) was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, the last surviving of Walt Disney’s original animators. Ollie and his best friend, Frank Thomas, were two of Walt’s Nine Old Men, who breathed a life into characters that even today’s animators are floored by. Frank and Ollie did a lot of the most famous scenes of Disney movies from the 1930s to the early 1980s: Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti; Pinocchio’s nose growing; pretty much any scene with Captain Hook or Mr. Smee. Their body of work is humongous, and it is some of the most recognizable art across the world. Ollie was a master of the ability to give a simple pencil drawing a serious personality with the illusion of life and was one of my personal heroes for sure.

Here’s some more of the final drawing for the raccoon picture.

Ain’t no party crazy like a raccoon party, Jack. Here’s the start of the finished drawing – most of the work today was focused on the hunter.

The corners of the pictures are dark because the camera took them like that, and also because they look fancy and put a lot of emphasis on the high class status of this website.

Here’s a color comp of the new version of the raccoon picture. Brown means frontier!

The other day I watched a four foot tall turkey walk down the middle of the street while I ate breakfast. Since then my drawing skills have gone straight down the toilet. I spent two hours drawing this, and it’s not even close to looking how I want it. All it is is a dog to guide people who were looking for my pet portraits website and went to bobbynelson.com by mistake.

I don’t even like the way it looks, but I have to put up something, right? Right? Alright.

I’m pretty sure if I find the turkey all of my troubles will go away.