On Saturday, September 20th, the Walt Disney Family Museum played host to a special event called Over There with Steve Pilcher. Members of the museum had the option to add-on a reception to the experience, which allowed us to meet Steve before his presentation, read our copies of Over There, and have him sign the book. Now when I say he signed the book, Steve Pilcher is an artist. While his signature is there, it is accompanied by a drawing he did of the book’s main character, Shredder. This was more than your average book signing. While he signed the book, we asked what he was currently working on at Pixar. The answer was Finding Dory, which he seemed really excited about.
What is Over There you ask? It’s the first in a series of children’s books to be published under the new “Pixar Animation Studios Artist Showcase” banner. Individual artists at Pixar have been tasked with creating a children’s book and Disney Press has committed to publishing one each year. This is a sister-series to the “Walt Disney Animation Studios Artist Showcase” series that debuted in March with No Slupring, No Burping!
After the reception, more attendees were admitted into the Fantasia Theater at the museum and Steve began the presentation by calling out a colleague of his, who is working on a future book in this series that will be about hats. That book is scheduled for release in two years. Steve’s background as an artist stems from a passion for drawing, which he started doing when he was 3 years old and never stopped. It was his own personal source of amusement. At 19 he starred in his own successful one-man show where he would make live sketches for audiences in addition to freelance art. In his early twenties, he enrolled in a prestigious animation course in Canada and after two weeks, decided to drop out because he realized he would be much happier as an art director. His path lead him through 40 years as a commercial artist, which eventually lead to a job with Warner Bros. Animation.
He had a Keynote presentation with much of his art that has never been seen before. His first project at Warner Bros. really excited him. He couldn’t reveal the title, but it was set in ancient Egypt and the concept art he created for it was gorgeous. Warner decided not to make the film when they learned that Dreamworks was working on The Prince of Egypt, which would have been released around the same time. They changed gears and put Steve to work on Quest for Camelot instead. Steve lamented that the original treatment he worked on was much more exciting than the final film and featured a sword-wielding female warrior that would have leapt movies forward twenty years had WB made the movie that way. Instead, they dumbed down the concept, the heroine became a singing damsel in distress and the story became “a vehicle for songs.”
While Steve’s inspirational artwork may be hard to see in the final film of Quest for Camelot, his art did feature a lot of Celtic design and influence, which would prove very useful years later… more on that in a bit. While at WB, Steve became friends with Brad Bird, who was working on The Iron Giant there. Steve was asked to create a poster for the film as a favor, which he did hand painted. The marketing guys at WB were shocked to see a hand painted poster, something that hadn’t been done in years. Steve mentioned that many of his colleagues from his days at Warner ended up at Pixar as well.
Steve’s last film for WB was Osmosis Jones. He spent a lot of time and thought putting detail into the world. He had to think on a “molecular level” to figure out how to make the inside of a human body look inviting and interesting and not disgusting. The artwork he showed was really great and he pointed out that a lot of the details of the world he created was lost in the final film.
After leaving WB, Steve went freelance which lead him to a brief stint working on a traditional animated feature at Disney that was shelved. You know, a tiny little picture for Don Hahn based on a Hans Christian Andersen story… what’s the name of it again?… oh yes… The Snow Queen. Steve didn’t share many details about this version of the film that would eventually become Frozen and the artwork he shared was of the world, not the characters. But he did stress that at the time of his involvement, the film was going to be hand drawn.
His freelance work also landed him some assignments at Dreamworks, where he worked on Shrek 2 and the design of the popular character Puss in Boots. He was an art director on the short film The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper. His final project with Dreamworks was on Bee Movie. He made tons of concept art for the world the bees would inhabit. Everything was made out of honeycomb and his ideas were creative and funny. Sadly, Dreamworks decided they didn’t want to do any of it and Steve feels the film suffers from losing these concepts.
Dreamworks’ loss is Pixar’s gain. Steve soon found himself with an offer to move to the Bay Area and take up residency at Pixar Animation Studios as a Production Designer. His first assignment was Brave (this is where the Celtic research he did on Quest for Camelot came in handy). Steve spent 7 years working on Brave at Pixar and he had many concept art pieces to share, each one more gorgeous than the one that preceded it.
Steve’s presentation ended with a discussion about his book Over There. Steve was inspired by the backyard of his childhood home in Canada, which featured a chain link fence and a forest. Steve came up with the character of Shredder the Shrew and began sketching the character in 1980. He was very inspired by the works of A. A. Milne and the earliest drawings of Shredder have him wearing Piglet’s shirt. He showed some early paintings he did of Shredder, which he sadly sold at art galleries long ago, not realizing anything would ever happen with the character.
When John Lasseter announced his idea for this series of books, it gave Steve a chance to finally let Shredder make some new friends. The real challenge of making this book is that Steve had to work on it in his spare time, on nights and weekends. His wife and children were at the presentation, and he called them out and thanked them for their patience while he spent time on it. In the end, it was a three year project to create Over There. He started to create the book using PhotoShop, which is the medium he uses for his concept art at Pixar. After a year, it didn’t feel right and he decided to do everything by hand using acrylic paint on wood panel and illustration board. It took two years to finish all of these pieces.
Steve also shared nearly twenty concepts for the cover that he created. The final cover that exists today was done on a tight deadline and Steve stayed up all night to get it done. He had to fight to make sure that Shredder would be the only character on the front, since it is his story and he didn’t want to give the story away at first glance. Steve also said that it was complicated creating art for a children’s book because you have to be aware of page folds and where the text is going to fit. He concluded his presentation with an anecdote. As he was nearing the end of creating the book, he was driving with his family when something ran out in the middle of the road and stopped. Steve slammed on the breaks and realized it was a mole, one of the other star characters of the book. He felt like it was Nosey reminding him to finish the book.