***This article was re-typed from Disney Adventures Magazine Issue June 1994. Other than this statement, it is in it's original form. This article was not written by Aimee Major and she takes credit for nothing except the typos and spelling errors. The article was written by Debbie Beyer, Samantha Boner, H. Brooke Primero, and Kim Lockhart. Please do not abuse this article, it is here for the education and commentary of animation students. Thankyou.****

Wouldn't it be a perfect world if you could get paid for drawing cartoons? Some people do. And they tell us it's just like it sounds -- a dream job. Count us in! We found out what it's like to draw all those fun characters and how to get started in the world of animation. You might say Ron Husband is the Dr. Frankenstein of the art wolrd. "My job is to make drawings come to life," says Ron, a character animator for Walt Disney Feature Animation. With a wave of his pencil, Ron can make silverware dance, Chihuahuas chuckle and people fly.

Ron has animated for Disney films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. He makes characters like the evil Jafar seem so real you forget they're just drawings. "I have to make the characters totally believeable in their expressions and movements," says Ron. "Warthogs don't talk, but good animation makes you forget that becuase it seems so real."

So how does he do it? For The Lion King, Ron went to the zoo to check out warthogs and meerkats (mongooses), so he could get the right vibe for characters Pumbaa and Timon. ANd Disney brought full-grown lions, cubs and exotic African birds into the studio so the animators could get a closer look. "I watch for details like how lions stretch their necks or pop out their claws, and how birds flap their wings. THen I mix that with human emotions," Ron explains.

If you sneak up on Ron in his office, you'll probably catch him making wacky faces in the mirror next to his desk. But he's not just goofing off -- it's part of the job.

"An animator is really an actor with a pencil," he syas. "I make faces like happy, sad, silly or scared, and notice what my eyebrows or cheeks are doing. I think, Hmm, how would a meerkat scrunch up his face in disgust? THen I do it in the mirror to see every little move my face makes."

The computer comes in handy for some special effects, but Ron says most of his work involves a pencil. "The computer is a tool, but it doesn't replace the animator, becuase you can't program feelings into a computer," he says.

So Ron goes through bazillions of pencils. He may do stacks of drawings just to make one hippo cry, becuase every tiny move and teardrop has to be a separate sketch. He says "multiple-character scenes" are the toughest --- when a bunch of characters are all doing different things at the same time. It took more that 48 drawings just to create a two-second fight scene in The Lion King between Pumbaa, Simba and a pack of hyenas.

Ron has developed his talent over the years in the Disney Feature Animation Training Program and on the job. But he says it all comes back to the pencil and paper. "As a child I drew everything I saw, all of life's experiences. The most important thing is being able to draw real life -- not cartoons, but people and animals in motion. And I take a tablet with me everywhere I go. Just never stop drawing."

Sari Gennis fell in love with animation when she was 4 years old. "My parents took me to see Fantasia," she says. "I thought it was so amazing, I knew that was what I wanted to do."

Little did Sari know that years later she'd be a Disney effects animator working on Fantasia Continued. "This is a dream come true," says Sari. "When I got the call, I screamed! I was totally charged."

Sari's a wiz with special effects. She's been called the "sparkle girl" becuase her specialty is drawing pixie dust. But with her trusty colored pencils, Sari can create everything from a jungle waterfall to the sparks from a firefly's wings. "An effects animator creates the scene, sets the stage," she says. "We animate everything except the character. We do shadows, water, fire, smoke -- extras that are important in making the scene real."

Fantasia Continued is set to music, so Sari has to make every explosion or splash of water move to the beat. "I listen to the music while I'm working and go by feeling, mapping out when each droplet should fall with the rhythm," she says.

Sari is knee-deep in water lately, watching videos, clipping magazine pictures and hanging out at the beach to really get a grip on how H20 flows. "Water is one of the toughest things to draw, becuase when it splashes, millions of drops move at different speeds and go in different directions," she says. "They all look the same, so it's hard to keep track of where each one is going."

It can take a month to create effects for a 10-second scene. Sari does most of her work freehand, but effects animators also need to be computer masters. "The really exciting thing about this movie is we're combining classic(hand-drawn) and computer animation, mixing the old with the new to look like nothing you've ever seen before," she explains. On Fantasia COntinued, Sari gets to exercise every animating muscle. "I realize how important it was that I drew all the time as a child -- alot of people and animals, everything," she says. In high school she made her first animated film set to music. She then went on to a special arts college, California Institute of the Arts, and got some cool jobs doing special effects for commercials and Star Trek: The Movie. But Sari says the work she does now is her biggest adventure so far.

"I love my job becuase it's incredible to see a drawing come to life," says Sari. "There's no feeling like that in the world -- it's truly creating life."

If you dream of drawing cartoons for real one day, check out this advice from Disney animators. With planning and practice, it's not an impossible dream.

Draw a little every day. Learning to draw well takes practice, just like learning to play a sport or a musical instrument. Carry a sketchbook wherever you go. Use a pencil or a fine-point felt pen.

Take as many art classes as you can (especially drawing classes). Let your teacher know you're interested in becoming an animator. Go to an art college for major training.

Being able to copy cartoon characters isn't important. Instead, draw everything that moves: birds, trees, your family, your foot. Glen Keane became a Disney animator by showing some quick sketches he did at the beach and the L.A. Zoo --- There wasn't a cartoon in the bunch.

Draw lots of people and animals as realistically as you can. Make some quick sketches of them moving in different ways. Once you can draw them perfectly, it's easier to give them unique characteristics.

Story Sketch Artists make rough drawings of the film script in a a series of panels that looks like a big comic strip.

Computer Animators must have all the drawing skills of a regular animator, plus computer knowledge to animate characters using a computer.

Layout Artist are like set designers on live-action movies. They stage every scene and camera angle with drawings.

Background Painters Take the layout artist's drawings and paint them in color.

Effects Animators draw everything that moves that isn't a character -- rain, fire, water, grass and even shadows.

Animators have their own slang:

Morgue: where old drawings go to rest.

Flip: looking through a series of drawings really fast to see how the character moves.

A Take: When the character takes a second, surprised as if to say, "Huh?"

Thumbnail Sketch: No, you don't draw on your thumb. It's a small quick pencil drawing, without the details.

Noodle: When you work on a drawing too long, as in "Stop noodling that drawing to death!"

Animators suggest you read these books to start you on your way:

Disney's Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film by John Culhane

The Art of Walt Disney From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdom by Christopher Finch

Cartoon Animation: Introduction to a Career by Milton Gray

Figure Drawing and Anatomy for the Artist by John Raynes

Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth

Heads, Features, and Faces by George Bridgeman.

Animals: How to Draw Them by Hugh Laidman