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Many children of the 1980s and ’90s remember Skeletor crying, “I’ll get you for this, He-Man!”
One of the original animators who worked on the television series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Rex Barron, lives right here in Albuquerque.
“We thought that stuff was not terribly high quality,” he said. “But I’ll still run into people who’ll say ‘I loved He-Man!’”
Barron started working in animation before he graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. He worked in Hollywood for 11 years on multiple projects, including the animated version of “The Lord of the Rings,” the Pink Panther cartoon and “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.” In the late ’80s, Barron even worked on “Starchaser,” one of the first feature-length 3-D animated films.
“It didn’t do very well,” he said, “but the 3-D looked pretty good.”
He said being an animator sounds like a fun job, but in reality it can be just as tedious as any other 9-to-5 job.
“When you’re drawing Smurfs for 40 or 50 hours a week, you begin to dislike these characters after a while,” Barron said. “So you start seeing bits of graffiti popping up around the studio that’s like ‘this is what I’d really like to do to this character if I could.’”
Barron left Hollywood for New Mexico shortly after his father died. He started displaying some of his more serious works, such as paintings, at a gallery in Santa Fe. This is where he met Tom Ross, a children’s book author who gave Barron his first opportunity to work as an illustrator on the book “Eggbert The Slightly Cracked Egg.” Barron became passionate about illustrating and said his work in animation prepared him for working on children’s books.
“I was thinking visually, and I was thinking sequentially,” he said.
Barron illustrated many children’s books over the course of his career, and even wrote a few himself, such as “Showdown at the Food Pyramid!” and “Fed Up!” Both books’ main characters were irritated vegetables.
Barbara Lohbeck, former owner of Bardean Gallery in Albuquerque, showed much of Barron’s illustrative work about 15 years ago. She said his sense of humor is almost always conveyed in his art, whether in books or on canvas.
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“He just has this wonderful way of putting characters together,” she said. “If you look at his paintings now, there’s quite a bit of illustration in them.”
Barron eventually stopped illustrating after having difficulties with his publisher. His last book was published in 2004.
“At the time, I was very disappointed when my gig with children’s books came to an end,” he said.
But since then Barron has done a lot of freelance work and continues to show pieces at various galleries around the state.
His most recent show was in 2011 in San Antonio, NM, and featured colored pencil art. He also does presentations for school children on how books are put together at a publisher and what it takes to be an illustrator.
He said that being versatile and working on technique is the key to success for young artists.
“You’ve got to do the boring stuff before you do the fun stuff,” he said. “Take classes to find out what really clicks for you.”
