When you’re watching animation from Disney, Marvel or Warner Bros., it’s likely Glenn Vilppu has had a hand in it somehow. Not only has he worked on film and TV productions for all three studios, the internationally acclaimed artist and animator’s approach to life drawing and gesture has gone on to become a standard across the industry.
We caught up with him to learn about his journey, and some of the approaches he teaches aspiring artists through the online Vilppu Academy.
Can you tell us a little about your background as an artist?
I’ve really never done anything else except being an artist. Well, outside of part-time jobs and things like that to get myself through school.
My father was an engineer by profession, but he was also a Sunday painter. I remember being six years old and watching him work on a portrait of my mother while I was on the floor and tracing things out of one of his books. That was the beginning. But first of all I needed to learn English. My background is Finnish, although I didn’t learn Finnish until I started school. Although I was born in
