Stop-motion veteran Mark Gustafson died on Thursday. He was 64. Last award season, he won an Oscar for his work on Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchi. He also worked on the characters for California Raisins and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, another Oscar nominated film. 

Del Toro announced the news Friday morning on social media saying: 

“I admired Mark Gustafson, even before I met him. A pillar of stop motion animation — a true artist. A compassionate, sensitive and mordantly witty man. A Legend — and a friend that inspired and gave hope to all around him. … Today we honor and miss him.”

Del Toro tapped Gustafson to be his directing partner on the dark reimagining of the classic tale of Pinnochio. Together the pair created the highly praised and acclaimed film. Along with their Oscar win, the film won BAFTA and Annie Awards, a Golden Globe, and three awards from the Visual Effects Society.

Gustafson’s career in stop motion began in the 1980s at Will Vinton Studios in Portland Oregon, which was also his hometown. There, he was involved in the creation of the California Raisins characters. The stop-motion rhythm and blues group that surged into popularity after singing “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” in a California Raisins commercial. He also served as an animator on a Planters’ Mr. Peanut campaign. 

In 1999, he began work on the stop-motion series, The PJs, which was co-created by Eddie Murphy and followed characters living in an inner-city housing project. Gustafson won an Annie Award in 1999 for directing an episode titled “Bougie Nights.” The series was later nominated for an Emmy award. 

Gustafson later won an Emmy for the 1992 special Claymation Easter, which he directed and co-wrote. He also wrote and directed an animated short titled Mr. Resistor. 

Del Toro continued in his tribute to Gustafson: 

“He leaves behind a titanic legacy of animation that goes back to the very origins of claymation and that shaped the career and craft of countless animators. He leaves friends and colleagues and a historic filmography. Prayers and thoughts go to his beloved wife, Jennifer. They say, ‘Never meet your heroes…’ I disagree. You cannot be disappointed by someone being human. We all are. Burning the midnight oil during postproduction, or doing daily animation turnovers via Zoom during COVID or being trapped in an elevator in a Cinema in London… I am as glad to have met Mark, the human as I was honored to have met the artist. As I said, I admired him before I met him. I loved having had the chance to share time and space with him during the highs and the lows. Always and forever.”