Pres Romanillos, R.I.P.

Pres and Jeannine Romanillos. Photo by Tim Hodge

Veteran feature animator Pres Romanillos passed away yesterday at the age of 47 after a battle with leukemia. His wife Jeannine posted on his Facebook group:

We have lost our wonderful innocent boy yesterday. Pres passed away peacefully on Saturday at 6 pm. He was surrounded by his family and friends. It is the next day and we are still waiting to wake up from this bad dream that just cannot be real. He had such love for all of you and that will stay with you. Goodbye, best friend, husband, lover, companion, shipmate, soulmate. I will love you forever, Jeannine

He most recently animated Prince Naveen in The Princess and the Frog. He studied fine arts and illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York before beginning his animation career at Disney on The Little Mermaid. He worked on a total of eight animated features at Disney, including supervising animator of the villain Shan-Yu in Mulan. He also animated on five DreamWorks features including The Road to El Dorado, Madagascar and Shrek 2. His drawings can be seen on this blog and this blog.

UPDATE: Obituary by Charles Solomon in the LA Times.

Remembrances
Remembrance by Stephanie Olivieri
Remembrance by Kevin Koch
Remembrance by Paul Briggs
Remembrance by Steve Hulett
Remembrance by Tim Hodge
Remembrance by Patrick Mate
Remembrance by Tom Sito