I've always loved animals, since I was a kid watching kittens get born. My first word was "kitty." So, of course, I had to draw and paint them.
Which isn't easy. I thought I knew what cats looked like until I worked on Disney's Animal Kingdom, where I was designing a whole land of mythical creatures—dragons, unicorns, pegasus horses, sphinxes and phoenixes. That sphinx was tripping me up. I couldn't get the legs right. So, Joe Rohde (the lead designer) suggested I research lion anatomy so I could understand how to draw it better.
And so I did. Turns out, animal legs are a lot like human legs. Lions have hips, knees, ankles, and digits—only in different proportions. Same with the rest of the body. There's a head, spine, rib cage and hip carriage. Once I learned that, it gave me new superpowers: I could draw any animal, real or imagined.
