By Margaret A. McGurk
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mark Henn is packing up his artist's brush.

For 24 years, the Dayton native has been drawing cartoon characters for Walt Disney Pictures. His work can been seen right now in the bovine comedy Home on The Range; he was in charge of animated Grace, the sweet-natured cow voiced by Jennifer Tilly.

His handiwork has also appeared in The Fox and the Hound, The Emperor's New Groove, Mulan, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, among others.

But, he laments, his drawing days are over. From now on, he said, "I'll be moving around a mouse."

Disney recently announced plans to abandon its legendary hand-drawn animation tradition in favor of computer-generated animation, called CGI, the method behind such monster hits as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

"Hand-drawn animation is finished," Henn said. "I'm one of the few people around here who still have a traditional desk. I just keep hanging on to it. Now I have a computer set-up in my office, and I've been training (for CGI) on that.

"It's kind of bittersweet," Henn said. "It's a transition."

Within the industry, the demise of expensive, time-consuming hand-drawn animation has been seen as inevitable, and most traditional animators, like Henn, are adapting to the new technology.

"Thankfully, nobody has been taken out and shot," he joked. "But a lot of people over the course of the last couple of years have moved on. I've tried to make it my goal to try to be a part of the solution.

"It's a big change, but it's exciting too," he said. "Some of the films we've got going are some of the most fun and exciting things I've seen. I'm looking forward to doing my first computer production."

Aesthetically, Henn said, "There's a difference. It's not a matter of one being better than another. ... It's looking at an oil painting versus a photograph. They each have ... beauty and value."

Whatever the method, the job of an animator is to bring to life characters and scripts created by writers, directors and designers.

On Home on the Range, for instance, Henn said, "I likened my role to being a test pilot. Somebody would build it and I would take it out for a spin, making refinements and suggestions along the way."

The movie presented special challenges to the artists. "That's always a challenge with a character like (Grace)," Henn said. "They're not walking on two legs and gesturing with their others like a human would. The fact (that) you have an extra set of legs to deal with is tricky and technical.

"Which leads to the other challenge, the fact that you don't have arms to gesture with like you do if you have a human character. So you take on a different approach, because you're working with heads and necks. It's rewarding to make that work."

Henn attended Bowling Green State University and Dayton's Sinclair Community College before finishing his art studies in California, where he met his wife. The couple have two children.

Even after more than two decades away, Henn said, "I miss Ohio desperately," he said.

Until his next trip home, Henn will be polishing his skills with that mouse. "I'm looking forward to getting my first CGI assignment," he said. "It's going to be exciting."