Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535742
10 KEYFRAME T H E C L I M B At the age of 88, it feels as if Glenn Vilppu's life is speeding up rather than slowing down. An art teacher since he was in his twenties, he's just returned from teaching in Japan, and he's already planning his schedule for classes in Europe next summer. Not to mention the online Vilppu Academy that he's run for the past 15 years. The school, like everything Vilppu does, flows naturally out of his lifelong passion for art, which runs in his family. His grandfather trained as a stone mason and sculptor in Finland, and he says that his engineer father was a "Sunday painter." But Vilppu's talents were destined for more than a weekend hobby. While in his teens he took drawing classes at Chouinard Art Institute (later to become CalArts) and then at ArtCenter College of Design, where he was offered a full scholarship upon graduation from high school in 1955. While a student there, he eventually began to teach—a passion so tightly intertwined with his love of art that they are inseparable. In 1974, Vilppu left ArtCenter because figure drawing was being downplayed, and he wanted to teach anatomy. He started his own studio, but it was hard work. He had to do everything from hiring models to cleaning up. On top of this, he had his own art career to pursue—painting and solo exhibitions. "I wanted a little more time for myself, and I needed a change," he says. A career in animation had never been on his radar, but he and his wife, Eleanor, were taking morning karate classes from one of his students who worked at Disney, and the student kept prodding him to apply. One day in 1977, almost on a whim, he decided to give Disney a call. Vilppu was 41 years old and unfamiliar with animation. At the interview, he shared a portfolio filled with figure drawings. But he had a good reputation through his students who were working at the studio. After being hired, he headed straight to a bookstore and bought a book about Disney because "I really didn't know what they were talking about," he says. Early Disney jobs included story sketches and layout on The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. While he calls the work he did for animation a departure from what he'd done before, he also says: "In a sense, it wasn't. What they were asking me to do was to take and invent things from imagination. And what I teach is Renaissance drawing … You start with your ideas," he explains. "Then you come to your research and your references. And then you apply drawing skills to communicate your ideas." AFTER MORE THAN SIX DECADES TEACHING ART, GLENN VILPPU'S CREATIVE PASSION CONTINUES TO GROW. IMAGINE THAT!