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Description
Now despite the fact that the anniversary of his death from last year took place last Sunday on the 16th, I decided to do a tribute drawing for Richard Williams anyways regardless of being late for that specific date. Also, this drawing took me like 4 days to complete it (August 19-22).

About his bio background, Richard Williams was a Canadian-British freelance animation director, voice actor, author, teacher, and a perfectionist who was born in Toronto, Canada on March 19, 1933 as well as being the only child to both his mother Kathleen "Kay" Bell (1909-1998), a commercial illustrator, and his father Leslie Lane (1905-1993), a London-born painter and photographic re-toucher, before his father left him as a baby and then later being adopted by his stepfather Kenneth D. C. Williams (1910-2003), an advertising executive who worked for their local printing and design company called "Brigdens" at the time. Also, he once attended the Northern Secondary School (formerly named the Northern Technical School) during his high school years before he later attended the Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCAD University) during the early-1950s as well as moving to Ibiza, Spain in 1953 to become a painter there for awhile and then later moved to London, UK in 1955 afterwards. Then starting in the 1960s, he founded his own animation studio in Soho, UK where he continued to produce dozens of animated commercials and short films for the next few decades before closing down permanently in the mid-1990s. But if there's one thing about him that makes him a legend, besides being both the animation director, the voice of Droopy, and especially the character designers for the live-action/animated film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), would be the fact that he currently holds the world record for the longest production time for an animated film "The Thief and the Cobbler" (1964-1993) as it took like nearly a few decades to somewhat complete his failed magnum opus but sadly it only got like around 85% of his film completed (which it's a long story but I can still share a Wikipedia page link about its production history down below if anyone here is interested or curious). And finally, despite being temporarily retired for quite some time, he decided to be a traveling mentor/speaker to every future animation students all over the world through his masterclasses throughout the 2000s and 2010s decades and then finally revising his 2001 best-selling "how to" animation guide book called "The Animator's Survival Kit" in 2009 (which I also own a copy of it for myself by the way) as well as opening up his own Twitter account in 2015 to answer anyone's questions relating to his animation skills/advises before he passed away on August 16, 2019 in his home still working on his next animation project in Bristol, UK at the age of 86 due to cancer.

So anyways, here are the names of his cartoon characters in this drawing (from top to bottom side-by-side): Ziggy from "Ziggy's Gift" (1982) who's hovering over Ebenezer Scrooge from "A Christmas Carol" (1971); both Raggedy Ann, Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees from "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure" (1977), and those three abstract-looking characters trapped on that tiny island would be from an experimental short film (also his first-ever animation project) called "The Little Island" (1958) as they're all located on the left side of my drawing while the other characters on the right side of my drawing would be both Jessica Rabbit and Roger Rabbit from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988); the Cresta polar bear mascot from his Cresta soda drink commercials that were aired on British TV during the 1980s; both the Thief and Tack the Cobbler from "The Thief and the Cobbler"; and finally some random Greek girl who witnessed a bloody battle between the Greeks and the Athens from his final short film "Prologue" (2015), which not only got nominated by both the Academy Awards and the BAFTA for their best animated short film selections in 2016 but it was also a sneak peek of what it initially could've been his next and final animated feature film based off from an Ancient Greek play called "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes (446-385 BC) but due to his passing he wasn't able to get it finished on time before his time came unfortunately; well...so much for bringing back traditional hand-drawn animation back on the big screen again for once. 😔

As for my final thoughts here, even though I may not had the chance to communicate with him when he was alive at the time when he had his own Twitter so I could've created my own account just to go ask him and to learn more about this unique individual's personal background/experiences and to find out how much work he had accomplished with his Prologue feature film as a sneak peek for myself before it was ever completed (hypothetically speaking), I decided to carry on his legacy by not only reading his Animator's Survival Kit guide book to educate myself on how animation works but I also had thought about wanting to create my own 2D animated feature length film whenever I plan out on my future careers to become both a film director, producer, writer and animator someday but this time I'll just use his methods of trying to animate on 1s (one drawing per frame) in order to make my own animation move more fluidly since that's my own style preference and more importantly hoping that I'll be one of those innovators to revive the old art form of traditional hand-drawn animation and bring them back into movie theaters again someday if it ever gets to that point where 2D animation gets rejected from the Hollywood industry while CG animation remains as the only popular choice for animated films in the future like it still is to this day and to prove that 2D animation can still remain relevant today as well as being able to expand the boundaries of its art form to the next level. Either way, he was someone who was inspired by Walt Disney as a kid when he first saw "Snow White and the Seven Drawfs" when he was 5 years old back in 1938 as well as later working with some of the legendary Disney animators throughout the 1960s-1980s to become his mentors at his animation studio before he ended up becoming the Disney company's inspiration to revive their future animated films by improving on their animation qualities that lead to the Disney Renaissance era (1989-1999) in the first place all thanks to his innovative animation skills in the Roger Rabbit film due to its critical and financial success at the time (especially how he won two Academy Awards for both the Visual Effects and a Special Achievement Award for his animation direction in that film) along with the fact that he had earned numerous awards and nominations from all over the world throughout his lifetime for many of his animated projects and especially how he became the only person in the world to spend nearly three decades to create the greatest animated movie never made (referring to The Thief and the Cobble obviously) as well as being the only one who had pushed 2D animation far beyond its limits through decades worth of evolving his own animation skills before passing down his wisdom and techniques to the whole world from both his masterclass lectures and his "how to" animation bible and so we should be thanking him for everything he had learned and done for the world of Hollywood entertainment with his superhuman-like drawing ability despite all the life trials he had to endure in order to get where he was at with his career because this man has been blessed with an extraordinary gift of art and to show how much he had made a big difference in the world throughout half of the last century despite not getting enough credit back then. Like honestly, I'm actually not too sure if there would be anyone out there who would either be at his advanced level of perfecting animation or to surpass him for that matter but I do know that I'll try my best to improve my own animation skills by learning from his lessons as he would be my own animation teacher in spirit so I could make something great in the future. So thank you Richard for creating some of the most unique pieces of animation to date and I couldn't be more grateful enough for what you had made in the past and what you would've bring into the future if only you had the chance to do so if it wasn't for cancer but now you can finally rest in peace from all the incredible hard work you've been through for so long now; that takes guts!

Richard Edmund Williams (March 19, 1933-August 16, 2019)
"A true animation legend"

By the way, I decided to share some YouTube video links to his cartoon short films, TV specials, full movies, and the Cresta commercials if anyone is interested in checking them out (for those who haven't heard or seen them before except for Who Framed Roger Rabbit of course) along with a reference source to Richard Williams' photo shot from 2013 that I found online as it was initially a bit difficult to find which one of his photos have the best quality and smiling expression of his for my own personal choice for this tribute drawing of mine. Also keep in mind that since The Thief and the Cobbler had three different versions of that film since his film has been taking over by Fred Calvert to be the new replacement director in his place after Richard was kick out from his own decades-long dream animation project in 1992 and turn it into his own edited version of that film under the title "The Princess and the Cobbler" that was theatrically released in both South Africa and Australia in 1993 when it was initially owned by Allied Filmmakers before it was later re-edited into a different version under the title "Arabian Knight" that was theatrically released in North America in 1995 when Miramax later owned the rights to that film (which both of them became commercial and financial failures with mixed critical receptions), there was a big Richard Williams fan name Garrett Gilchrist who has a couple of YouTube channels as well as being the one who made an edited fan restoration of that film as he had attempted to restructure it into the original version that Richard had initially visioned for years before Fred had ever ruined that vision for him by cutting out the altered scenes that Fred and Miramax both edited from their own versions and then adding in most of the deleted/unfinished rough animation scenes and storyboards in order to make it feel more accurate to his original screenplay before he finally released that version onto YouTube under the title "The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut" in 2013 and so I decided to upload both of those versions on here so that you could see how different they are by comparison out of curiosity but I still would strongly recommend watching the Recobbled Cut version since that version is much closer to his original version and even more enjoyable to watch while the other versions are pretty terrible but it's really up to you.

The Little Island short film: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv1xS067… )
A Christmas Carol TV holiday special: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzyC9CZ… )
Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=cy2Fswbs… )
Ziggy's Gift TV holiday special: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=njkRw4TF… )
Cresta TV commercial collections: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=K2NQbycq… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyqizUEF… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=RY1HcZ8_… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtikdo7B… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=f9fDhWEJ… )
The Princess and the Cobbler full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=E53XH0yb… )
Arabian Knight full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCVGMDfC… )
The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=gows7iOo… )
Prologue short film: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=FsTnUDhO… )
Richard Williams' photo shot source reference: ( www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/obi…)

Also, like I've mentioned from above, here's a link to the Wikipedia page about the production history behind The Thief and the Cobbler if anyone here is interested: (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Th… )

And finally, here's a link to one of my previous practice sketches of my first Roger Rabbit drawings (along with my first Simba drawing from "The Lion King") as I went into more further details about Richard's background in its description including Mark Henn's background as well if anyone is interested: (www.deviantart.com/korn2012nwo… )

Description
Now despite the fact that the anniversary of his death from last year took place last Sunday on the 16th, I decided to do a tribute drawing for Richard Williams anyways regardless of being late for that specific date. Also, this drawing took me like 4 days to complete it (August 19-22).

About his bio background, Richard Williams was a Canadian-British freelance animation director, voice actor, author, teacher, and a perfectionist who was born in Toronto, Canada on March 19, 1933 as well as being the only child to both his mother Kathleen "Kay" Bell (1909-1998), a commercial illustrator, and his father Leslie Lane (1905-1993), a London-born painter and photographic re-toucher, before his father left him as a baby and then later being adopted by his stepfather Kenneth D. C. Williams (1910-2003), an advertising executive who worked for their local printing and design company called "Brigdens" at the time. Also, he once attended the Northern Secondary School (formerly named the Northern Technical School) during his high school years before he later attended the Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCAD University) during the early-1950s as well as moving to Ibiza, Spain in 1953 to become a painter there for awhile and then later moved to London, UK in 1955 afterwards. Then starting in the 1960s, he founded his own animation studio in Soho, UK where he continued to produce dozens of animated commercials and short films for the next few decades before closing down permanently in the mid-1990s. But if there's one thing about him that makes him a legend, besides being both the animation director, the voice of Droopy, and especially the character designers for the live-action/animated film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), would be the fact that he currently holds the world record for the longest production time for an animated film "The Thief and the Cobbler" (1964-1993) as it took like nearly a few decades to somewhat complete his failed magnum opus but sadly it only got like around 85% of his film completed (which it's a long story but I can still share a Wikipedia page link about its production history down below if anyone here is interested or curious). And finally, despite being temporarily retired for quite some time, he decided to be a traveling mentor/speaker to every future animation students all over the world through his masterclasses throughout the 2000s and 2010s decades and then finally revising his 2001 best-selling "how to" animation guide book called "The Animator's Survival Kit" in 2009 (which I also own a copy of it for myself by the way) as well as opening up his own Twitter account in 2015 to answer anyone's questions relating to his animation skills/advises before he passed away on August 16, 2019 in his home still working on his next animation project in Bristol, UK at the age of 86 due to cancer.

So anyways, here are the names of his cartoon characters in this drawing (from top to bottom side-by-side): Ziggy from "Ziggy's Gift" (1982) who's hovering over Ebenezer Scrooge from "A Christmas Carol" (1971); both Raggedy Ann, Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees from "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure" (1977), and those three abstract-looking characters trapped on that tiny island would be from an experimental short film (also his first-ever animation project) called "The Little Island" (1958) as they're all located on the left side of my drawing while the other characters on the right side of my drawing would be both Jessica Rabbit and Roger Rabbit from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988); the Cresta polar bear mascot from his Cresta soda drink commercials that were aired on British TV during the 1980s; both the Thief and Tack the Cobbler from "The Thief and the Cobbler"; and finally some random Greek girl who witnessed a bloody battle between the Greeks and the Athens from his final short film "Prologue" (2015), which not only got nominated by both the Academy Awards and the BAFTA for their best animated short film selections in 2016 but it was also a sneak peek of what it initially could've been his next and final animated feature film based off from an Ancient Greek play called "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes (446-385 BC) but due to his passing he wasn't able to get it finished on time before his time came unfortunately; well...so much for bringing back traditional hand-drawn animation back on the big screen again for once. 😔

As for my final thoughts here, even though I may not had the chance to communicate with him when he was alive at the time when he had his own Twitter so I could've created my own account just to go ask him and to learn more about this unique individual's personal background/experiences and to find out how much work he had accomplished with his Prologue feature film as a sneak peek for myself before it was ever completed (hypothetically speaking), I decided to carry on his legacy by not only reading his Animator's Survival Kit guide book to educate myself on how animation works but I also had thought about wanting to create my own 2D animated feature length film whenever I plan out on my future careers to become both a film director, producer, writer and animator someday but this time I'll just use his methods of trying to animate on 1s (one drawing per frame) in order to make my own animation move more fluidly since that's my own style preference and more importantly hoping that I'll be one of those innovators to revive the old art form of traditional hand-drawn animation and bring them back into movie theaters again someday if it ever gets to that point where 2D animation gets rejected from the Hollywood industry while CG animation remains as the only popular choice for animated films in the future like it still is to this day and to prove that 2D animation can still remain relevant today as well as being able to expand the boundaries of its art form to the next level. Either way, he was someone who was inspired by Walt Disney as a kid when he first saw "Snow White and the Seven Drawfs" when he was 5 years old back in 1938 as well as later working with some of the legendary Disney animators throughout the 1960s-1980s to become his mentors at his animation studio before he ended up becoming the Disney company's inspiration to revive their future animated films by improving on their animation qualities that lead to the Disney Renaissance era (1989-1999) in the first place all thanks to his innovative animation skills in the Roger Rabbit film due to its critical and financial success at the time (especially how he won two Academy Awards for both the Visual Effects and a Special Achievement Award for his animation direction in that film) along with the fact that he had earned numerous awards and nominations from all over the world throughout his lifetime for many of his animated projects and especially how he became the only person in the world to spend nearly three decades to create the greatest animated movie never made (referring to The Thief and the Cobble obviously) as well as being the only one who had pushed 2D animation far beyond its limits through decades worth of evolving his own animation skills before passing down his wisdom and techniques to the whole world from both his masterclass lectures and his "how to" animation bible and so we should be thanking him for everything he had learned and done for the world of Hollywood entertainment with his superhuman-like drawing ability despite all the life trials he had to endure in order to get where he was at with his career because this man has been blessed with an extraordinary gift of art and to show how much he had made a big difference in the world throughout half of the last century despite not getting enough credit back then. Like honestly, I'm actually not too sure if there would be anyone out there who would either be at his advanced level of perfecting animation or to surpass him for that matter but I do know that I'll try my best to improve my own animation skills by learning from his lessons as he would be my own animation teacher in spirit so I could make something great in the future. So thank you Richard for creating some of the most unique pieces of animation to date and I couldn't be more grateful enough for what you had made in the past and what you would've bring into the future if only you had the chance to do so if it wasn't for cancer but now you can finally rest in peace from all the incredible hard work you've been through for so long now; that takes guts!

Richard Edmund Williams (March 19, 1933-August 16, 2019)
"A true animation legend"

By the way, I decided to share some YouTube video links to his cartoon short films, TV specials, full movies, and the Cresta commercials if anyone is interested in checking them out (for those who haven't heard or seen them before except for Who Framed Roger Rabbit of course) along with a reference source to Richard Williams' photo shot from 2013 that I found online as it was initially a bit difficult to find which one of his photos have the best quality and smiling expression of his for my own personal choice for this tribute drawing of mine. Also keep in mind that since The Thief and the Cobbler had three different versions of that film since his film has been taking over by Fred Calvert to be the new replacement director in his place after Richard was kick out from his own decades-long dream animation project in 1992 and turn it into his own edited version of that film under the title "The Princess and the Cobbler" that was theatrically released in both South Africa and Australia in 1993 when it was initially owned by Allied Filmmakers before it was later re-edited into a different version under the title "Arabian Knight" that was theatrically released in North America in 1995 when Miramax later owned the rights to that film (which both of them became commercial and financial failures with mixed critical receptions), there was a big Richard Williams fan name Garrett Gilchrist who has a couple of YouTube channels as well as being the one who made an edited fan restoration of that film as he had attempted to restructure it into the original version that Richard had initially visioned for years before Fred had ever ruined that vision for him by cutting out the altered scenes that Fred and Miramax both edited from their own versions and then adding in most of the deleted/unfinished rough animation scenes and storyboards in order to make it feel more accurate to his original screenplay before he finally released that version onto YouTube under the title "The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut" in 2013 and so I decided to upload both of those versions on here so that you could see how different they are by comparison out of curiosity but I still would strongly recommend watching the Recobbled Cut version since that version is much closer to his original version and even more enjoyable to watch while the other versions are pretty terrible but it's really up to you.

The Little Island short film: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv1xS067… )
A Christmas Carol TV holiday special: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzyC9CZ… )
Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=cy2Fswbs… )
Ziggy's Gift TV holiday special: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=njkRw4TF… )
Cresta TV commercial collections: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=K2NQbycq… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyqizUEF… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=RY1HcZ8_… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtikdo7B… )/(m.youtube.com/watch?v=f9fDhWEJ… )
The Princess and the Cobbler full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=E53XH0yb… )
Arabian Knight full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCVGMDfC… )
The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut full movie: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=gows7iOo… )
Prologue short film: (m.youtube.com/watch?v=FsTnUDhO… )
Richard Williams' photo shot source reference: ( www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/obi…)

Also, like I've mentioned from above, here's a link to the Wikipedia page about the production history behind The Thief and the Cobbler if anyone here is interested: (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Th… )

And finally, here's a link to one of my previous practice sketches of my first Roger Rabbit drawings (along with my first Simba drawing from "The Lion King") as I went into more further details about Richard's background in its description including Mark Henn's background as well if anyone is interested: (www.deviantart.com/korn2012nwo… )