D23 Expo 2011- The Characters of Monsters University

At this year's D23 Expo, my fiance and I were able to attend the presentation, The Characters of Monsters University.  The presentation was led by the director Dan Scanlon and production designer Ricky Nierva.  They were both very enthusiastic about their upcoming film and shared several photos of different versions of Mike and Sulley that were designed before the Mike and Sulley we all know and love were decided on.  Here are some of the photos they shared with us!

Sketch of Mike and Sulley

An earlier drawing of Sulley

Another early drawing of Sulley and of Boo

Early drawing of Mike

After going over the different possibilties for Mike and Sulley before Monsters Inc. they discussed the challenge of Monsters University- how to make Mike and Sulley look 18 years old?  Monsters University is a prequel to Monsters Inc. where we get to see how Mike and Sulley's friendship is formed.  So to make them look younger, they went through several ideas and possibilities for their new look.
Here are a couple of the photos they showed us of different versions of Mike and Sulley they created as they were trying to figure out how their younger versions will look:

Then they showed us the finished product!  Here is Mike when he's 18!  There are subtle differences that are hard to see in the photo but he has a retainer, less spots, thinner, and overall has a younger look.

Older Mike next to younger Mike:

Close up of younger Mike:

Here is younger Sulley!  Again subtle differences- his hair, horns are shorter, and he's thinner.

Older Sully next to younger Sulley:

Younger Mike and younger Sulley together:

Overall this was a very fun part of D23 for me!  I love Mike and Sulley and am really looking forward to seeing them again on the big screen!

D23 Expo 2009 & Upcoming 2011 Expo Recap

A few weeks ago, I was able to attend the second D23 Expo!  I took many photos so I plan to split them up into a few posts.  To start off though I thought I would share a few photos from the first D23 Expo in 2009. 

In 2009 I was a member and got a ticket for just one day.  I had a good time but there were a few things about the event that I thought could use improvement. There were really long lines for everything!  They didn't have enough presentations for the amount of people attending.  I waited in line for one panel for about an hour before finding out that we would not be able to get in. But I was able to attend two presentations that both featured John Lasseter and got to learn about upcoming projects!  Despite the problems I had a nice enough time to want to attend the next one. Here are some photos from 2009!

We were able to take photos with him!

 

John Lasseter in the middle talking about the parks!

A moving Wall-E, loved him!

I'll be posting photos from this year's Expo so stay tuned for more!