CalArts Students' AnimaTRON Project Trons Out Disney Icons [Art]

The California Institute of the Arts and Disney's Tron franchise share many connections. Founded by Walt Disney himself and the ala mater of such creative luminaries as most of the original Pixar creators and Tim Burton (and yours truly!) CalArts' Character Animation School has fueled Disney's animation corps since the 1960s. In turn, many of those animators were inspired by Tron to push to the limits their own abilities and that of the available technology, especially Pixar's John Lassetter, who was actually fired from Disney in the 1980s for his then-controversially fierce embrace of computer-aided animation in the wake of the original Tron.

With Tron: Legacy now in theaters, it is both fitting and cool that CalArts' current Character Animation students have a little fun and pay homage to the legacy of Tron and the Disney classics by redesigning some familiar animated icons in the brilliant Legacy aesthetic. The work was published on the CalArts Character Animation Facebook profile, and we've spotlighted several of our favorites after the jump.