Glen Keane, the greatest Disney animator of the last 40 years, can't see images in his mind. It's called aphantasia. He's the son of Bil Keane (the creator of the Family Circus comic strip), and he's also the father of a Netflix animator son and acclaimed illustrator daughter, as well as the brother of a newspaper cartoonist and the grandson of a technical illustrator for steam engines. Glen animated Ariel, the Beast, Tarzan, Pocahontas, and Ratigan, among others. I always thought genes played a huge role in his success, and I still think they must play some role, but how the fuck did he get so far without being able to visualize stuff in his mind? He claims he just has an instinct for drawing, but I don't see how that's possible.
>>7706125you live in a phantasy world if you believe people see images in front of them or trace them on pages from imagination.
>>7706131When I draw things, I see images in my mind. My drawings are my attempt to translate those images onto the page.
>>7706125I think it's actually beneficial not to see images in your mind, you can focus on construction and your actual idea instead of that image morphing into other things or inevitably you make an impossible pose in your head and spend hours trying to get it right.
>>7706125An inspiration to Howie and Cris of this board!
>>7706131>phantasyHoly ESL
>>7706125>how the fuck did he get so far without being able to visualize stuff in his mind?Very common beginner delusion and misconception. Nobody draws like that.
>>7706125The mind's eye is just an ideas guy. The real work is done by muscle memory. I do lucid dreaming to keep myind's eye sharp and I don't use what I'm visualizing as more than a thumbnail. I think more people with active imaginations draw via reference and intuition than they'd like to admit.
>>7706134that's nice but his job is to translate storyboards into animations not images from his imagination into a drawing
Are there even 2D artists at Disney in 2025? I though this stuff died twenty years ago.
>>77062513D pretty much killed the 2D tradition. Because the older generation failed to pass on their skills, the few 2D animators in the West today are reinventing the wheel, and not very well either.
>>7706131Bernie Wrightson describes doing something very much like that. See this video at 2:50.https://youtu.be/zcANcvCcF4o?si=p5wvE3KGc2g1WDrJ
>>7706173>phantasyPHantasy is an archaic version of fantasy. that anon is just old and youre retarded. in latin its phantasia. youre the retard here for not taking not or recognizing old speech.
aphantasia is fucking fakeif people can really see images then why cant the average person draw for shit? they should be able to trace perfectlywhy can people not even draw a bike simplified bike from memory
>>7706388look at imdb for any 3d film slop all the lead animators and the Animation Director either worked at disney in the 90s or are posting hand-drawn stuff on their twitter. Still plenty of 2d skill around as all the good 3d animators prefer to just do a rough pass on paper anyway. Also half the storyboardists on tv shows would rather be doing animation too if there was a job for it.The crown is in the gutter someone just has to pick it up (not Disney).
>>7706125Never heard this before but you can ask Aaron Blaise on his Friday streams. He answers most questions in chat. Glen was his mentor at disney and he talks about him often. Wwgg0
>>7706409Some people are just freaks of nature. Nikola Tesla was said to have been able to visualize directly in front of himself, of course he wasn't an artist though.
>>7706586We literally have images of people's thoughts now, using brain-computer interfaces. And yes, they do SEE things, but there is a lot of noise as well.
>>7706774those are recreatons of what people see
>>7707205So we agreed that people see them. Kek
>>7707206yes with their eyes
>>7706125can aphantasia fags visualize in their dreams?
you see, the essence of seeing is in photons colliding with electrons
phw
>>7707332explain dreams
>>7706774this is literal AI bullshit
>>7706586>if people can really see images then why cant the average person draw for shit?If the average artist doing a study has the picture right next to them why can't they draw for shit? weak b8
>>7708232every person in the world can trace
>>7707237No, but they have auditory and conceptual dreams.
>>7706125aphantasia artists rely on recipes to do their work that they commit to memory. Ironically, they're far better suited for animating that apple seers. apple seers are more suited for concept art.
>>7706125>Let's see what does an animator do? (Pause) There's so many different ways one can approach that question. Primarily I guess and animator's job in a film is he's the actor. I mean, it just really comes down to, a film is a story and the animator, he's one of the characters in it. He crawls inside to the brain and the personality of that character. He is that character on the screen. Not unlike regular actors. The only difference is that an actor in theater, TV or in movies gets to use his own body; his hands and expressions. The animator feels those things but the audience doesn't look at him. They look at his drawing, so it's a matter of how well can you draw how you feel? That's really the gift of an animator, is taking his feelings and putting it through his hand and being able to project himself onto the paper. >I guess the challenge that an animator has is mentally get past the point where he's drawing. He's no longer drawing on the paper. It's not an act of drawing. It's more of a crawling into that page and living in that space that is now a three-dimensional world. So then you can start to draw a character walking away in space and you're not thinking so much of perspectives and all those technical things. Instead you're thinking, how does it feel? How do I feel walking down this meadow and back behind that tree back there and then sliding along the trunk of the tree and resting, looking up at the leaves? How do I feel? Hopefully you get into it, otherwise the animation has a very technical and studied look and it doesn't ring true. But an animator that can really live in the character that he's drawing, his stuff sparks with life. People believe him. Looks like visualization is a fundamental part of the process to him. He didn’t describe it that way because he was speaking on the misconception that artists see a finished drawing in their mind and transmute it from the ether when that’s not how that works.
>>7707237sycra said yes and he was patient zero of the aphantasia meme
>>7711838QRD
