Oil pastels... anyone use them for concept art?

[helix7]

I was in a book store the other day and came across The Art of Finding Nemo, which is a collection of the concept art from that movie. I flipped through it and found some pretty interesting drawings and sketches, and two things in particular got me wondering.

First, the Pixar artists seems to be very fond of oil pastels. It seemd like nearly 50% of work shown was done in pastels. And I don't mean quick pastel sketches... these guys were doing full-color renderings of scenes. There were even storyboard sequences done with them. But around here (and across the internet) I haven't seen alot of concept art done in pastels. What gives? Is it just a Pixar thing? Or do other concept artists frequently work in pastels?

Second, I noticed a huge lack of digitally created concepts. There were a few, but they were basically scans of pencil sketches painted in Photoshop with a generic gradient background. Are the fully-digital concepts that seem to dominate this message board not as common in the workplace? You would thing that Pixar of all places would be all over the idea of digital drawing, but their book seems to indicate otherwise.

[mtw]

Originally posted by helix7
Second, I noticed a huge lack of digitally created concepts. There were a few, but they were basically scans of pencil sketches painted in Photoshop with a generic gradient background. Are the fully-digital concepts that seem to dominate this message board not as common in the workplace? You would thing that Pixar of all places would be all over the idea of digital drawing, but their book seems to indicate otherwise.
That might make sense, actually. Since they use digital means for actual work, they might get tired of it and want a different medium.

[prismacolor]

If you're talking about Dominique Louis I have a feeling it's more to do with the artist preference, as well as John Lasseter's preference and part of Pixar wanting to be unique.

Although the pastel look could be done in Painter (or Photoshop) they seem to like Dominique's pastel work -- don't fix it if it ain't broke. There is definitely a good touchy-feely thing going on when you do "presentations" with original art in pastel or acrylic, etc.

Next time I'm over there I'll ask. I do have friends at Pixar, and Pixar does it's own thing, that's for sure. Pastel is somewhat unusual in this area of the business. I think I'd be accurate in saying most "old-school" studio artists still use acrylic, cel paints, or gouache instead of pastel.

Cheers.