Working on "The Thief & The Cobbler"

One of my subscribers at my YouTube channel recently asked me what it was like working on "The Thief & The Cobbler" - the almost-completed animation classic sometimes described as "the greatest animated film never made".  I could write a book on the subject - and there is a very useful Wikipedia page on The Thief which explains in detail what happened to the film. Above is a short video giving my personal take on working on the film - which was one of the best experiences of my career in animation.

The Thief & The Cobbler




Zig Zag's Entry into the Golden City
Above is a series of shots I animated during my two years working as an animator on "The Thief". The ZigZag walk was my one of first assignments as a junior animator, and it was a tough one to figure out. The walk contained a lot of different elements all moving together in sequence but on different timings, hard to pull off and hard to get right. But sometimes in animation the jobs that are the most painful at the time are the ones you are most proud of later on. Very little that is worth doing comes easily at first.

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