The Rescuers by Ollie Johnston

To be honest with you, Bernard and Bianca aren't my favorite designs for Disney mice, but when Ollie Johnston draws them...how can you not love these characters?!

Just like his mentor Fred Moore, Ollie's work has always such appeal. These are big drawings on 16 field paper. They had to be part of a pose test, because there is no way drawing #7 can follow #6 without any inbetweens. 

So much emotion in these sketches! His words of wisdom to us young animators was:

"Don't put drawings on paper, put feelings on paper!"

In retrospect, that was the best animation advice I had ever gotten.

 

Hercules Mall Tour

Back in 1997, I had the privilege to help kick off a Hercules Mega Mall Tour as a promotional effort for the release of the film. It was a lot of fun, and I remember flying to Atlanta, Georgia with Roy Disney in his private jet. How cool is that!?

The Disney Hercules Mega Mall Tour was a five-month promotional tour that began in February 1997 to promote the release of the 1997 Disney animated film Hercules. The tour included stops in 20 cities across North America and featured a variety of activities, including: 

• Ani-Muse-Ment-Show: A multimedia performance with a live singing muse inspired by the five muses from the film 
• Learn To Be an Animator: A 10-minute video workshop where kids could follow Andreas Deja, the animation supervisor for Hercules, through the animation process 
• Hercules-themed games: Midway games and game booths 
• Pegasus carousel: A carousel featuring Pegasus 
• Drawing lessons: Lessons on how to draw Hercules 
• Merchandise: A variety of Hercules merchandise for purchase 
• Cassette giveaways: Mall patrons were given away cassettes of the song "Zero to Hero" 

A Maleficent Color Issue

  

A beautiful color design for Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent by animator Marc Davis. You may notice that her main colors here are black and red. Marc told me that red to him represented fire, and he felt strongly that this should be her final appearance..

Art director Eyvind Earle had a slightly different color scheme in mind for this villainess. To him it was black and purple. And since Walt Disney had given Earle a lot of authority over Sleeping Beauty...purple it was.   

Many of us might think that working on classic Disney animated films was all fun and games, when in fact there were artistic disagreements all the time. 

Fritz Hug Animals

 This is not the first time I post beautiful animal drawings by Swiss artist Fritz Hug (1921 - 1989). Especially his loose, sketchy work is very inspiring to me. 

Many more images here at the new Fritz Hug website:

https://fritzhug-bildarchiv.ch/

Marc Davis Art

A few highlights from the recent Heritage Auction, featuring the art of Marc Davis. From gag drawings and personal notes to Picasso-esque art. This man expressed himself in a multitude of ways.

The sculpture of him was a gift from Imagineering to Marc upon his retirement.

More Heinrich Kley

I just discovered these two Kley drawings online. It is unusual to see his sequential work, or in this case  A, B illustrations. 

I suppose the first image might say: Come check this out! And the second one: Booo!

Great attitudes on the human figures as well as the the fantasy ocean characters.