{"id":806692,"date":"2020-05-24T08:40:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-24T15:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/us\/?p=5150"},"modified":"2023-07-23T13:27:44","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T20:27:44","slug":"mermay-profile-tom-bancroft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/mermay-profile-tom-bancroft\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Bancroft: Father of MerMay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Header image from Lipscomb University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Tom Bancroft is the creator of MerMay and the head judge of <\/span>our end-of-the-month contest<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Many of our contributors this year have worked for Disney, but he\u2019s the one who\u2019s done it most extensively, working in some capacity on most of their movies of the \u201890s.\u00a0 Notable accomplishments include designing Eddie Murphy\u2019s goofy dragon Mushu for 1998\u2019s Mulan\u2014as his social media bios proudly proclaim\u2014and animating scenes for Simba in The Lion King, Iago and Jafar in Aladdin, and Pocahontas in\u2026 yeah.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, he writes books on character design, illustrates children\u2019s books and comics, teaches both at Nashville\u2019s Lipscomb University and online, and co-hosts the Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast with his twin brother, Tony, who has a similar resume.\u00a0 His own project this year is a webcomic called Riding the Wave, about a mermaid who comes ashore to become a pop singer.\u00a0 \u2026And pursue her caffeine addiction.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Riding the Wave<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

In addition, he\u2019s also preparing to host a four-day \u201c<\/span>Character Drawing Boot Camp<\/span><\/a>\u201d via Zoom in June, for which, as I found out, slots are still open.<\/span><\/p>\n

I spoke to him via email.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Character Design<\/b><\/h3>\n

First off, do you think there\u2019s a single most important aspect of character design?\u00a0 Charm?\u00a0 Uniqueness?\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

That’s a hard one.\u00a0 I would back it up even further, though, to shape.\u00a0 Establishing an iconic shape for the character is the heart of making them unique and recognizable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

From Tom’s website<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Are there still spots open for the Zoom class?\u00a0 And can you give us a teaser of the kind of things we\u2019ll learn if we take it?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes there are.\u00a0 Because it’s online, we can take registrations all the way up until the class starts in June.\u00a0 It’s a foundational class.\u00a0 I’ve been wanting to do something that was a little less intermediate-level because I’ve gotten more and more frustrated with how we don’t teach art to high school students anymore.\u00a0 This will be general character-drawing instruction, but also character design fundamentals.\u00a0 It’s a series of short classes over four days, and students will design a variety of characters including a mermaid, a superhero, and an animal character.\u00a0 It’s aimed toward high-school to adult artists and I\u2019m doing it through Lipscomb University where I teach.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Disney<\/b><\/h3>\n

Have you met any of the Nine Old Men?\u00a0 If so, what was that like?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes!\u00a0 I started at Disney in 1989 when about five of the Nine Old Men were still alive.\u00a0 I met them all at various times, and was even able to introduce Ward Kimball at a lecture he gave at the studio: It was a high point of my career.\u00a0 Everything we did was to try and get them to notice us.\u00a0 I asked Marc Davis once what he thought of Aladdin, which had just come out at the time, and he said, “It was pretty good.\u00a0 We wouldn’t have done it like that though.\u00a0 It wasn’t timeless. Too Trendy.”\u00a0 He wasn’t entirely wrong. \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

Did having daughters during your time with Disney affect the path you took in your art career from then on?\u00a0 And what was it like knowing the movies you were working on would be very influential in their childhoods?<\/b><\/p>\n

While my four daughters\u2014ages 18-26 now\u2014all grew up around Disney films, they were never huge fans.\u00a0 They were mostly into other things.\u00a0 That said, they have an affinity for them, especially the ones I was working on when they were young.\u00a0 They look at them as “their” films because I was working on them and talking about them before they came out.\u00a0 They have a personal connection other kids didn’t have.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I read a bit of trivia that while making the Lion King, Disney brought real lions into the studio for the animators to use as reference.\u00a0 Did you get to see them?<\/b><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to risk embedding it because it belongs to Disney, but here\u2019s a picture of that.<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, I did.\u00a0 Famous animal expert Jim Fowler brought in some buzzards, parrots, monkeys, lion cubs, and even a full grown lion for us to draw.\u00a0 It was intimate and amazing to be in a room with some of those animals.\u00a0 The grown lion was just lying on the stage and we could one by one come up, touch it, and pet its hindquarters while someone held onto the muzzle leash.\u00a0 It was eye-opening to feel the muscle in the hindquarters alone!\u00a0 I’ll never forget the power I felt that even a relaxed lion had\u2014we tried our best to put some of that into the film.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On MerMay<\/b><\/h3>\n

What was the inspiration for Mermay?\u00a0 And what was the first year?<\/b><\/p>\n

MerMay began in 2016 when I did a drawing of two teen mermaids lounging around on some sea rocks, mesmerized by their “shellphones.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n


\nIt went semi-viral and I decided to do a month of drawing mermaids and call it “MerMay,” because May was coming up.\u00a0 I invited my followers on Instagram to join me and it took off right away.\u00a0 I never pictured it still being around five years later and hundreds of thousands of artists taking part in it every year.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does one go about creating something as widespread as a viral art hashtag and getting so many people to participate in it?<\/b><\/p>\n

I have no idea.\u00a0 I wasn’t the first to create a monthly drawing challenge (Inktober by Jake Parker had been around for a few years) but something about mermaids tapped into a nostalgia point for many people.\u00a0 I think it comes from The Little Mermaid being such a popular film when many current artists were young.\u00a0 I had a large following too, mostly of artists in training\u2014so as it turns out, this 50-year-old bald man was somehow the perfect fit for creating MerMay.<\/span><\/p>\n

What has it been like trying to transition your Gallery Nucleus show online?\u00a0 Do you think you\u2019ll be able to postpone the physical show for later in the year, or will you just try again next year?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

No, we\u2019re going for it online.\u00a0 No delays.\u00a0 It launched last week and will continue to the end of May, all online at <\/span>GalleryNucleus.com<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 It’s gotten a great response, with many original art pieces selling on the first day, and many pre-orders for the Art of MerMay 2020 book, as well as limited-edition prints and pins by some of the best MerMay artists in the world!\u00a0 But I do look forward to doing it again next year face-to-face.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/b><\/p>\n

Concepts 1 and 2 for Drama on Mermaid Island\u2014Gallery Nucleus<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

And Finally\u2026<\/b><\/h3>\n

You primarily work with Cintiqs, but have you gotten to try the Wacom One?\u00a0 If so, what are your impressions of it?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes!\u00a0 It\u2019s become my biggest recommendation to upcoming students, and we purchased 6 of them as “loaners” to my present students when our school needed to go remote for COVID-19 concerns.\u00a0 It really is a great product for a great price.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By Samuel Abner<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A good overview of Tom Bancroft\u2019s work can be found on <\/span><\/i>his website<\/span><\/i><\/a>.\u00a0 His Instagram, a good overview of his MerMay work, is <\/span><\/i>@tombancroft1<\/span><\/i><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast<\/span><\/i><\/a> is hosted on his educational network Taught By a Pro. If you\u2019re interested in the full scope of his work in the animation industry, check out <\/span><\/i>his IMDB page.<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Responses edited, with permission, for clarity and concision.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

About the Interviewer<\/h3>\n

\"CSCS Jones is a Philadelphia-based writer and illustrator<\/span>. The former is best seen at\u00a0thecsjones.com<\/a>, and the latter at\u00a0@thecsjones<\/a>\u00a0on Instagram.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Header image from Lipscomb University Tom Bancroft is the creator of MerMay and the head judge of our end-of-the-month contest.\u00a0 Many of our contributors this year have worked for Disney, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2326,2332,2318,2317,2342],"tags":[54,194,56,467,376,662,663,196,596],"class_list":["post-806692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animation","category-cintiq-and-cintiq-pro","category-creative-inspiration","category-digital-drawing-painting","category-wacom-one","tag-animation","tag-bancroft","tag-character-design","tag-disney","tag-interview","tag-interviews","tag-mermaids","tag-mermay","tag-tom-bancroft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}