Nostalgia & technology create new art form.

• Position: Imagery

While most of his childhood friends enjoyed their teddy bears, Morgan Kostival was more partial to sword-wielding animated skeletons, giant monsters, and oversized gorillas. "I loved the old Sinbad movies, where they used stop-motion animation to create all kinds of creatures," reveals Kostival, artist and author of the children's book, The Deep Black Pond. "The animation wasn't as smooth as some of the 3D computer animation of today, but the creatures all had depth and texture to them. For me, it made them more real," which is why Kostival decided to combine his love of the old art form with the graphic arts techniques of today to illustrate his book.

"I try to imagine how people must have felt the first time they saw 'King Kong,' and they were able to see this gigantic moving creature interacting with real people. Back then, that was state-of-the-art movie technology, and it seems so simple by today's standards. All they did was make miniature figures with hinges and joints that made them movable, and they'd adjust the arm or the legs or the head just slightly so, and then snap a frame of film--and then they'd do it again. It was time consuming, but not really that much more so than the computer animation of today."

Kostival's process mimics the techniques of special effects pioneer Ray Hamjhousen, who crafted the ape in the classic "Mighty Joe Young," as well as dozens of monsters and creatures for "Jason and the...