Will Vinton, an Oscar-winning Portland animator and founder of Will Vinton Studios, died Thursday after a 12-year battle with multiple myeloma, his family announced. He was 70.

"He saw the world as an imaginative playground full of fantasy, joy, and character. He instilled in us the greatest values of creativity, strength, and pride in one's own work," his children wrote on Vinton's official Facebook page.

Originally from McMinnville, Vinton invented Claymation, his signature style of stop-motion animation. His Oscar came in 1975 for the animated short film "Closed Mondays," made with Bob Gardner. He founded Vinton Studios in Portland the next year and won three Emmys there as a producer.

"He put the city on the map as far as stop-motion in America," said Rose Bond, an animation professor at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland. Vinton was single-handedly responsible for establishing the city's animation community, she said.

"He was always willing to stand out and be a face and speak," Bond said. "He always had ideas."

Stop-motion is an exacting, old-fashioned technique that requires animators to shoot puppets a single frame at a time, adjusting them slightly between frames to simulate movement. Vinton's Claymation style uses putty or clay and gives the animation a textured, somewhat cartoonish feel.

Joan Gratz, herself an Oscar-winning animator, worked at Vinton Studios for a decade. She said Vinton had a unique, "delightful" technique and sought to support the work of his staff.

"He was always very optimistic, and sometimes when you're animating it's such a drag that it's kind of hard to maintain that optimism," Gratz said. "But he always seemed to believe in what he was doing and always had really positive things to say about it."

Vinton Studios is best known for the 1986 California Raisins campaign featuring Claymation raisins dancing to, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." The ads became a national sensation and Vinton, with his signature handlebar mustache, was among Portland's best-known artists.

"I would like the work that I do to speak for itself, really," Vinton once said. "That would be my greatest wish."

At its peak in the late 1990s, Vinton Studios employed 400 with annual revenue of $28 million. By Vinton's own account, though, the business was a mess financially. Vinton candidly acknowledged the studio made unnecessary investments and pursued ill-considered plans as he sought to recapture the artistic freedom he enjoyed in his early days as an independent animator.

"There was definitely a time when I was rolling the dice and growing the company," Vinton said in 2005. "I was thinking in different terms, that maybe money is the key to getting back to what I want to do."

As the studio's financial problems mounted, Vinton went looking for assistance. He found Oregon's richest man, Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who offered a financial lifeline – with a string attached.

In 1998, Knight purchased a stake in the company for $5 million. He asked for monthly financial statements from Vinton and suggested the studio hire his son, Travis Knight, as an animator.

Phil Knight made subsequent investments but the studio's financial struggles continued and it began laying off employees. Vinton said later that Knight threatened to force the company into bankruptcy unless he allowed the Nike co-founder to buy him out.

Knight ultimately seized control and in 2003 the studio laid off Vinton, its founder and namesake, without severance. Knight renamed the studio Laika, put his son Travis in charge and moved it from Northwest Portland.

There, Laika has thrived with Phil Knight's continued backing, making a series of Oscar-nominated, stop-motion films. The commercial side of the business remained in Portland under a new name, House Special.

"Will was instrumental in founding Portland's thriving animation community and as his legacy grew, he was beloved around the globe," House Special said in a written statement. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of a true legend in animation and cinema."

Vinton Studios alumni continue to help drive Portland's animation scene. Will Vinton remained active creatively in the years after he left the studio, teaching at the Art Institute of Portland. He never achieved anything close to the success he did in the '70s and '80s but said he enjoyed a renewed sense of creative freedom.

"The art of stop-motion animation and Oregon's film industry both owe a tremendous debt to Will's pioneering work. He will be remembered, always," Sven Bonnichsen, director of the Northwest Animation Festival, wrote Thursday on Vinton's Facebook memorial page.

Vinton's survivors include his wife, Gillian; sons, Billy Vinton and Jesse Vinton; daughter, Alexandra Vinton; and sisters, Mary Vinton Folberg and Alice Vinton.

The family plans to celebrates his life at No Vacancy Lounge in downtown Portland at 3 p.m., Oct. 21. In lieu of flowers, they ask remembrances be sent to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

-- Eder Campuzano contributed to this report

-- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699