Photo © W.R. Miller.

To help promote the soon-to-be-released live action Pete’s Dragon, Disney has released The Art of Disney’s Dragons, published on June 28. As one would expect, the book showcases designs, drawings, paintings and CG renderings of all of Disney’s dragons from The Reluctant Dragon to both hand-drawn and CG versions of Elliot.

And what better choice to helm such a book than Tom Bancroft, designer and supervising animator for the scene-stealing Mushu from Mulan?

Here’s Tom in action drawing Mushu while his twin brother, director Tony Bancroft, provides behind-the-scenes anecdotes:

Uploaded March 7, 2013

You can see how talented Tom is from his animation reel:

Uploaded December 15, 2011

Years ago I had worked with Tom on Larryboy, a hand-drawn Flash-animated spinoff of Veggie Tales. I was serving as creative director and storyboard artist at Cornerstone Animation in Glendale, CA, while Tom was directing the project from Big Idea Productions.

On Saturday, July 23, I had the pleasure of meeting up with him again at Comic-Con San Diego, where he graciously signed copies of The Art of Disney’s Dragons and posed for pictures.

Photo © W.R. Miller.

The Art of Disney’s Dragons has a foreword by Pete’s Dragon director David Lowery, in which he says dragons stand out from other mythical beasts because

1. They have long, serpentine necks. “A short neck will turn a good dragon into something more akin to a goblin.
2. “Sharp claws. You can lose the fangs; you can lose the horns. But a dragon needs something pointy to give it that dragonish edge.
3. “Leathery wings. If the wings have feathers, your dragon will instantly become a griffin or a chimera!”

Oops. So much for the dragons in Dragon Tales.

Alas, the book leaves two questions unanswered:
(1. Why do most Disney dragons have teeny tiny wings?
(2. Why did the live-action Elliot have to be furry?