Bob Rissetto
If people would like to contact you, how would you like to be contacted? (Email, Webpage)
modulox@hotmail.com is my contact for anyone that wants to write. I check
it regularly. And
http://www.bobrissetto.blogspot.com/ hosts some of my work.
What type of tools or media do you use?
Almost everything starts with col-erase for me. I love how loose I can be
with it and build it up and erase and it comes in all sorts of pretty
colors. I just dig the feel. It's almost necessary for animation.
Speakin' of which, I almost exclusively draw on animation bond. It can take
a beating and I can backlight it no problem. I'm actually getting picky
about it because now I hafta use it at work. I'm a video game concept
artist by day and apparently 8.5 x 11 copy paper just ain't cuttin' it for
me... Outside of that, I enjoy experimenting with other traditional media
(crayons, oil bars, sharpies) but I'm definitely a digital artist at the
core. I'm a bit of a perfectionist (thanks genetics) and the undo button
doesn't exist in the real world. A little Photoshop and a TON of Flash.
Love Flash to death both for it's animation capabilities and vector
illustration.
Where is the place you would like to work or be an Intern if you had a choice?
Cartoon Network without a doubt. There's some really well designed shows
there. There's always fresh content in the works. Great animation,
character driven shows, and supporters of Flash. There's really a lot that
appeals to me about Cartoon Network and what they're doing.
Who do you think are the top character designers out there?
This is really impossible. There's so many people that have really honed
their craft. Craig Kellman tops my list. I was blown away by his work on
Madagascar and really wished his sense of design was even more apparent in
the final movie. And I don't think there's a single weak design in Samurai
Jack. Jamie Hewlett has amazed me with all the work he's done with the
Gorillaz. Such fantastic characters - so well done. The toys are some of
the best hunks of plastic I own because of his design. John Kricfalusi has
been a big inspiration for me for a lot of his characterization. I think
the whole Spumco crew were masters. Stephen Silver is unmatched. Bruce
Timm and Shane Glines are up there too. Katsuhiro Otomo is another one. I
didn't understand a lick of Akira the first time I saw it in high school but
I was drawn in by the characters (bad dubbing and all) and how this world
was very gritty but they were so round and expressive and appealing. They
seemed real, and I attributed that to the design. Studio Gainax in Japan
was responsible for FLCL which was another list topper for me in terms of
design and animation. In the way of anime, nothing is better in my eyes.
Tex Avery can make me laugh with a single character. Just how it was drawn
was funny. Not the pose or what he was doing - just the look can make me
laugh. And Ed Benedict was huge. I remember actually hating the
Flintstones as I was growing up. The limited animation, the "awkward"
shapes and what I thought was a crude flatness. It's so charming now
though! Such simplicity! Ed was the master of asymmetry! Note to self:
must buy Flintstones DVDs...
What are some of your favorite character designs which you have seen?
Basically just connect the above names to the projects they've worked on. I
think the cast of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends takes the cake for me
right now. Some of the best. Samurai Jack, Ren and Stimpy, and Tom and
Jerry will out live them all. Hellboy was introduced to me after watching
Disney's Atlantis and seeing Mignola's designs. I loved everything about
Disney's Hercules too. Oh and Emperor's New Groove! Those two movies
really pushed the look of characters in animated features for me. Stuff was
more graphic was a bit flatter - square fingers, curly kneecaps, straights
and curves really contrasting. I thought Katamari Damacy for the
PlayStation 2 was wonderfully unique in terms of it's design. Such
terrifically weird characters. And I still ogled over the mascots and silly
characters from the 50s and 60s that tried to sell you the latest
sugar-fortified cereal. There's just too much to cover with these
questions!
What is your most favorite subject to draw? And why?
Characters. People. Bipeds. I love to think about posing and expression
because I'm an animator too, so designing a character that can do something
funny and make a face is a big part of the fun. I love boiling down a
complicated thing (like faces) into some simple shapes and lines. And
trying to do it different every time is something my brain just loves.
What inspired you to become an Artist?
If I really date this all the way back, I hafta say He-Man. I've always
loved toys and I loved cartoons. And with that, I loved to draw. I didn't
have every He-Man toy and the ones I wished I had I just drew with Crayola
markers. And eventually I'd draw my own scenarios and my own characters. A
little later, Disney was big with me in Junior High. I loved the art but
early on I was just drawn into the great stories and fun movies. In high
school I got pretty deep into comic books. Jim Lee was golden. X-Men,
WildC.A.T.s and all those Image guys. Fresh new characters and brilliant
art on shiny paper. This was it. I loved to draw - I'll draw comic books
for a living. In high school I was determined NOT to go to college. I'll
just keep drawing and land a gig with a comic company. I got pressure from
all sides to continue my education and I folded like a house of cards.
"I'll try this 3D animation thing" because I still liked Disney and Toy
Story was just released. This would be cool. Going to school taught me one
thing really well - 3D was not for me but animation was. I didn't learn
much about the industry, or much about the craft, but I started getting very
passionate about everything I drew and animated. Even if it was total crap
What are some of your favorite website links that would be relevant to this Blog?
Man, I hafta tell ya - I don't surf the web much at all. I find it really
overwhelming. There's TONS of inspiring stuff out there but I could get
stuck looking at links forever. I'll gladly check out a link that's passed
along but I rarely go out for a stroll on the information superhighway. I
hafta say though, if there's one group of people that really inspire me the
most it's my friends so I do make an effort to keep up with all of them
through the blogs. Check 'em out - they're all linked at
www.bobrissetto.blogspot.com.
CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO THE CHARACTER DESIGN HOMEPAGE
modulox@hotmail.com is my contact for anyone that wants to write. I check
it regularly. And
http://www.bobrissetto.blogspot.com/ hosts some of my work.
What type of tools or media do you use?
Almost everything starts with col-erase for me. I love how loose I can be
with it and build it up and erase and it comes in all sorts of pretty
colors. I just dig the feel. It's almost necessary for animation.
Speakin' of which, I almost exclusively draw on animation bond. It can take
a beating and I can backlight it no problem. I'm actually getting picky
about it because now I hafta use it at work. I'm a video game concept
artist by day and apparently 8.5 x 11 copy paper just ain't cuttin' it for
me... Outside of that, I enjoy experimenting with other traditional media
(crayons, oil bars, sharpies) but I'm definitely a digital artist at the
core. I'm a bit of a perfectionist (thanks genetics) and the undo button
doesn't exist in the real world. A little Photoshop and a TON of Flash.
Love Flash to death both for it's animation capabilities and vector
illustration.
Where is the place you would like to work or be an Intern if you had a choice?
Cartoon Network without a doubt. There's some really well designed shows
there. There's always fresh content in the works. Great animation,
character driven shows, and supporters of Flash. There's really a lot that
appeals to me about Cartoon Network and what they're doing.
Who do you think are the top character designers out there?
This is really impossible. There's so many people that have really honed
their craft. Craig Kellman tops my list. I was blown away by his work on
Madagascar and really wished his sense of design was even more apparent in
the final movie. And I don't think there's a single weak design in Samurai
Jack. Jamie Hewlett has amazed me with all the work he's done with the
Gorillaz. Such fantastic characters - so well done. The toys are some of
the best hunks of plastic I own because of his design. John Kricfalusi has
been a big inspiration for me for a lot of his characterization. I think
the whole Spumco crew were masters. Stephen Silver is unmatched. Bruce
Timm and Shane Glines are up there too. Katsuhiro Otomo is another one. I
didn't understand a lick of Akira the first time I saw it in high school but
I was drawn in by the characters (bad dubbing and all) and how this world
was very gritty but they were so round and expressive and appealing. They
seemed real, and I attributed that to the design. Studio Gainax in Japan
was responsible for FLCL which was another list topper for me in terms of
design and animation. In the way of anime, nothing is better in my eyes.
Tex Avery can make me laugh with a single character. Just how it was drawn
was funny. Not the pose or what he was doing - just the look can make me
laugh. And Ed Benedict was huge. I remember actually hating the
Flintstones as I was growing up. The limited animation, the "awkward"
shapes and what I thought was a crude flatness. It's so charming now
though! Such simplicity! Ed was the master of asymmetry! Note to self:
must buy Flintstones DVDs...
What are some of your favorite character designs which you have seen?
Basically just connect the above names to the projects they've worked on. I
think the cast of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends takes the cake for me
right now. Some of the best. Samurai Jack, Ren and Stimpy, and Tom and
Jerry will out live them all. Hellboy was introduced to me after watching
Disney's Atlantis and seeing Mignola's designs. I loved everything about
Disney's Hercules too. Oh and Emperor's New Groove! Those two movies
really pushed the look of characters in animated features for me. Stuff was
more graphic was a bit flatter - square fingers, curly kneecaps, straights
and curves really contrasting. I thought Katamari Damacy for the
PlayStation 2 was wonderfully unique in terms of it's design. Such
terrifically weird characters. And I still ogled over the mascots and silly
characters from the 50s and 60s that tried to sell you the latest
sugar-fortified cereal. There's just too much to cover with these
questions!
What is your most favorite subject to draw? And why?
Characters. People. Bipeds. I love to think about posing and expression
because I'm an animator too, so designing a character that can do something
funny and make a face is a big part of the fun. I love boiling down a
complicated thing (like faces) into some simple shapes and lines. And
trying to do it different every time is something my brain just loves.
What inspired you to become an Artist?
If I really date this all the way back, I hafta say He-Man. I've always
loved toys and I loved cartoons. And with that, I loved to draw. I didn't
have every He-Man toy and the ones I wished I had I just drew with Crayola
markers. And eventually I'd draw my own scenarios and my own characters. A
little later, Disney was big with me in Junior High. I loved the art but
early on I was just drawn into the great stories and fun movies. In high
school I got pretty deep into comic books. Jim Lee was golden. X-Men,
WildC.A.T.s and all those Image guys. Fresh new characters and brilliant
art on shiny paper. This was it. I loved to draw - I'll draw comic books
for a living. In high school I was determined NOT to go to college. I'll
just keep drawing and land a gig with a comic company. I got pressure from
all sides to continue my education and I folded like a house of cards.
"I'll try this 3D animation thing" because I still liked Disney and Toy
Story was just released. This would be cool. Going to school taught me one
thing really well - 3D was not for me but animation was. I didn't learn
much about the industry, or much about the craft, but I started getting very
passionate about everything I drew and animated. Even if it was total crap
What are some of your favorite website links that would be relevant to this Blog?
Man, I hafta tell ya - I don't surf the web much at all. I find it really
overwhelming. There's TONS of inspiring stuff out there but I could get
stuck looking at links forever. I'll gladly check out a link that's passed
along but I rarely go out for a stroll on the information superhighway. I
hafta say though, if there's one group of people that really inspire me the
most it's my friends so I do make an effort to keep up with all of them
through the blogs. Check 'em out - they're all linked at
www.bobrissetto.blogspot.com.
CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO THE CHARACTER DESIGN HOMEPAGE
posted by Randall Sly at 7:34 AM
4 Comments:
Great interview, Boob. I'm in love wit h that peanut butter drawing!
Tanks Lambey!
Man can ya actually read the interview? I typed it all out in notepad one night and that's why the formatting is all jacked. Blast you "word wrap" - you've foiled me again!!!
Woohoo!!!
Congrats Boobage! YOur interview was very delightful to read. tee-hee.
Chu!
Bob - Awesome.
How do you get interviewed on this site? Very cool to see.
Anyway, you are a big inspiration to me. I really respect your home grown natural talent - which shows just how far you can go with no formal training - basicly teaching yourself as you observe the world.
Animation timing is spot on and your design is always refreshing.
You're one of the best.
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