Let's start with a short description...
What you will see here is a compilation of visual styles themes and which I have adopted and molded to fit my own needs. Usually, when I describe these influences, people smile, nod and say something along the lines of "Oh yeah! I get it!" This site will focus on the more obvious ones like those you are seeing all over this screen right now. Others will get there mention in their own section. For now, lets focus on the most popular and most obvious...
Although most can recognize his style and illustrations immediately from Lilo and Stitch, Chris Sanders has been involved in quite a few projects throughout his career including many illustrations like those pictured here. His style of illustration was the basis for the whole look and feel of Lilo and Stitch but there is another side of his work most are not familiar with.
The soft organic lines and natural feeling of his illustrations are what caught my attention the most. The soft details add life and character to every piece. The whole style is just fun and engaging because of it.
Go ahead and click on these text boxes... You know they're blocking your view.
From here I would like to go into how my facination with the whole look started
Originally, Lilo and stitch was rendered as seen in the background here and was intended to be a comic. The story failed and never quite took off until later when Disney picked it up and made it look a little more "Disney". Some things were changed but overall it's all still pretty much Chris Sanders.
In the end, despite any changes that were made, this is still to this day one of my favorite films I can watch at any given moment happily. The whole feel reaches me at an artistic level which has yet to be matched. Well, maybe The Fifth Element, but that's a website for another day.
Moving on to some other works...
How to Train Your Dragon was release 2010. The story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named Hiccup aspires to follow his tribe's tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. After finally capturing his first dragon, and with his chance at last of gaining the tribe's acceptance, he finds that he no longer wants to kill the dragon and instead befriends it. Sanders served as a Screenplay Writer and Director.
And after How to Train Your Dragon we had...
Sanders came back as Writer and Director for the Croods. The film is set in a fictional prehistoric Pliocene era known as "The Croodaceous" when a caveman's position as a "Leader of the Hunt" is threatened by the arrival of a prehistoric genius who comes up with revolutionary new inventions as they trek through a dangerous but exotic land in search of a new home.
Sanders also contues working on the Webcomic Kiskaloo...
Kiskaloo is a webcomic focused on Ogo, a one eyed cat, and Sesi, a young girl and their misadventures in a remote town. This series seems to be more in tune with what Sanders does best and seems to reflect his style and oddball comedy the best. Although it is lacking in color, it carries all of the character which caught my attention from the beginning.
Christopher Michael "Chris" Sanders (born March 12, 1962) is an American animation director, film director, screenwriter, producer, illustrator and voice actor. He is best known for co-writing and directing the Disney animated feature film Lilo & Stitch (2002) and DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon (2010), both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with Dean DeBlois, and for creating and voicing Stitch in Lilo & Stitch and every Western-produced work in its franchise. His recent work was serving as director and co-writer on The Croods, along with Kirk DeMicco.
Sanders began his career as a character designer for Muppet Babies. He soon became the head storyboard artist for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He also served as a storyboard artist, artistic director, production designer, and character designer on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Mulan.
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