Disney's Zootopia: Sketching with Disney Art Director Cory Loftis

Disney provided me with a trip to Los Angeles in exchange for my coverage of this and other movie releases. No other compensation is given. All opinions, experiences, memories and character crushes are 100% my own.

Disney’s Zootopia: Sketching with Disney Artist Cory Loftis

If you are as excited as I am for Disney’s Zootopia to hit the big screen in March, then you might enjoy seeing a peek behind the scenes to see just how it all came together. Last week I shared with you the interviews that I had with opportunity to sit down and chat with Writer and Co-Director Jared Bush, Writer Phil Johnston and Co-Head of Story Josie Trinidad and Head of Editorial Fabienne Rawley about the process that they went through to bring this movie and it’s characters to life.

Today, I am going to share with you a little bit about the actual ART behind this movie, and the time that I was able to spend with Zootopia Disney Art Director Cory Loftis. I would have to say that Cory has my dream job, and it was no shock to hear that Cory has his dream job as well. What a neat way to spend your days!

I had the actual opportunity to sketch Zootopia’s main character Judy Hopps under Cory’s direction. He sure makes it seem easy, and he gives great instruction. I won’t quit my day job just yet, but it was really fun pretending to be a Disney artist for the day!

I do have to mention that it’s pretty easy to sketch Judy Hopps when you have Art Director Cory Loftis walking you though it step by step. He’s a pretty awesome teacher and it is clear that he knows this character and her details by heart.

Here’s a peek at how my sketch turned out:

It’s so hard to believe that these characters all start out this way, and through a very long and thoughtful process, they become the colorful animated creatures that we will get to see in this film on March 4th!(can’t wait!)

Corey shared with us just how much research and decision making must go into the planning of a movie like this. With SO many characters of all kinds (and behaviors) it’s a lot more complicated than you might first think. From gnus to shrews, lemmings to leopards, rabbits to rhinos, Zootopia is home to animals of all shapes, sizes, stripes and spots. Creating each character requires the inventiveness of artists throughout the production disciplines – and with over a 1,000 unique animals, the challenges on the Disney Animation team was quite large.

Cory shared with us how Disney character design and appeal merged with revolutionary work in Look and Simulation. Bringing these characters to realistic animated creatures was no easy process. Creating a world where everything made sense (as much as a world of upright walking animals with jobs can) was no easy task and EVERYTHING had to be made to scale. Cory shared with us that many things were measured in terms of the size of one mouse. For example: if a Fox is 24 mice tall, then an camel in the film would need to be to scale based on mice as well. He might be 58 mice tall. The moose might be 68 mice tall, and so on. It all had to be accurate for the world to look believable.

AND this world would have to have functioning parts that fit each animal. A door that works for the larger animals, probably wouldn’t make sense for the tiny animals. There are so many little details in this film which were made to fit the different animals and their individual characteristics.

I am so excited to see this film and to see how it all comes together!! Mark your calendars!!

ZOOTOPIA hits theaters on March 4, 2016

The modern mammal metropolis of Zootopia is a city like no other. Comprised of habitat neighborhoods like ritzy Sahara Square and frigid Tundratown, it’s a melting pot where animals from every environment live together—a place where no matter what you are, from the biggest elephant to the smallest shrew, you can be anything. But when optimistic Officer Judy Hopps (voice of Ginnifer Goodwin) arrives, she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of big, tough animals isn’t so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack a case, even if it means partnering with a fast-talking, scam-artist fox, Nick Wilde (voice of Jason Bateman), to solve the mystery.

ZOOTOPIA US Trailer