by Anastasia Davis | Jan 20, 2020 | News Slider, Sports
A Lipscomb teacher and student have made it to the NFL. Tom Bancroft, artist-in-residence in animation and former Disney animator, has been working on a new project this football season. The illustrated “Titan Man” has been seen going up against a new rival each week leading up to Sunday’s heartbreaking 35-24 loss in the AFC Championship battle with the Kansas City Chiefs. With the help of Hayley Mullins a senior animation major from Erlanger, Kentucky, Bancroft has completed 17 illustrations for the season. Mullins is one of 70 in Lipscomb University’s animation program. Mullins said she has gained invaluable experience with her mentor. “I never thought I’d be able to work with an NFL team,” Mullins said. “I learned a lot working on this project. I wanted to depict the other mascots fairly when coloring, and while it is a form of ‘trash talk,’ I wanted to be as accurate as I could.” Each week during the season, Bancroft began the process of creating “Titan Man” and his next showdown. He began the process by creating two to five rough sketches and worked throughout the week while receiving feedback from the Titans about the finalized design before handing it over to Mullins for coloring. The process took most of the week, finished in time for the Saturday deadline. As with any project, there were some challenges. One restriction was that none of the animal mascots were to be “hurt” in the illustrations. This request came from Tennessee Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk, an avid animal rights activist. “It was a good eye-opener for us to hit that right...
by Colleen Casner | Oct 27, 2014 | News Slider
Aspiring animators learned from the careers of veteran Disney animators during ProWeekend Animation and Illustration Weekend Artist Seminar on Saturday in Lipscomb’s Shamblin Theater. Headlining the event were three Disney animators, Tom Bancroft, Ruben Aquino and Claire Keane. Their experiences represented different periods of Disney animation as Bancroft and Aquino designed and animated characters from 1990’s films like The Lion King, Mulan and Beauty and the Beast, while Keane has worked on more recent films such as Tangled and Frozen. The event consisted of lectures by each of the three artists, a character design contest and a question-and-answer session with the artists. Attendees particularly enjoyed learning from the artists’ experiences. Gene Fayne enjoyed hearing how classic Disney characters evolved during the design process, but the most important part of his experience was being inspired by the artists’ success. “The biggest thing I’m taking away from it is to just be inspired and just continue to draw and practice, and hopefully I can get to where those guys are,” Fayne said. Lipscomb sophomore Elena Stewart said about her experience, “The most important thing I’ve learned about animation just this weekend is how important it is to do research and to tell a story.” Stewart is particularly excited about Bancroft’s new position as artist-in-residence at Lipscomb’s new animation department, a part of the College of Entertainment and the Arts. She has lofty ambitions for her career; her dream is to work at Pixar. “I can’t believe that I’m going to be working with Tom Bancroft. I just can’t wait to learn from someone who is so knowledgeable in the field. I...
