Friday, January 27, 2012

Dalmatians



It is always interesting to see what kind of research was done before classic Disney characters were finalized. 
All these drawings were made before animation began on "101 Dalmatians".
(Yes, you guessed it, this is post #101).
The animators were familiar with the anatomy of a variety of dogs. "Lady and the Tramp" had been produced just a few years before "Dalmatians".
So here four of the supervising animators sketch and find out what is unique about a dalmatian (other than the obvious spots). Some of these poses were drawn from dogs that were brought to the studio, others from live action film footage.
You can identify different drawing styles and approaches to anatomy.
Marc Davis is the only artist  who did not work on any scenes with the dogs. As you know he ended up animating Cruella de Vil, every single scene of that character.




Ollie Johnston






Frank Thomas







Marc Davis






Milt Kahl



26 comments:

  1. Marc Davis' anatomy observations for animation are brilliant! Thanks for sharing.

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  2. simply amasing, great draftmanship. Milt Kahl rocks my world :)

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  3. Once again, some more beautiful artwork on display. This site is always a wonder to visit. Thank you.

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    1. Thank you Michael, I appreciate it.
      And let me say that the animation community would't be the same without your wonderful inspiring blog.

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  4. One of my favourite movies. All these drawings have so much life to them!

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  5. I love 101 Dalmations! I think it is criminally underrated. I love your comments on the behind the scenes feature (one of the dvd releases-can't remember). When I was younger I used to watch this film just about every night and fall asleep to it. But then I would be jumped awake when Pongo licks Roger's hand during the birthing scene and Roger screams. The movie just has a great feel to it. Love this artwork.

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  6. Hey Andreas I just saw this on Zbrush Central! Someone did his favorite characters in Zbrsuh.. One of them is your Jafar.
    Take a look!
    http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?133773-JM-Linares-(mane)-sculpts/page7

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    1. Thanks for sending the link.
      I really like his version of King Triton.

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  7. Thanks for posting! A very rare glimpse into the process...

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  8. So inspirational..thanks for sharing

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  9. This is so amazing..! Your posts have been super inspiring from day 1!
    Thanks you for sharing :)

    Cheers,
    Junko

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  10. I really enjoy the attention to the rolls of skin Dalmatians have behind their necks. It's so true! It's worth pointing out how the animators fleshed out the various forms of the dogs and related the spots to them as you can see in Ollie Johnston's studies above in particular the dog's rib cage stretching across under his elbow. Brilliant:)

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  11. Wow, these are so beautiful! They capture the look and essence of dalmatians perfectly! Disney dogs don't get enough attention, I think. I especially love the scene in 101 when Pongo is looking out the window at the owners and their dogs – the correspondence between dog and human characteristics is so clever :D

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  12. Is that top photo just a publicity shot? It's funny to think that one would need a dog to pose still just to color in the black on a completely finalized design of Pongo.

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  13. Hallo Andreas! Schöne Grüße aus der Heimat! :-)
    Falls Du auf Facebook vertreten bist, dann habe ich hier eine Gruppe (Wenn du in Dinslaken aufgewachsen bist, dann...) für Dich...schau mal vorbei...
    Viele Grüße!
    Guido
    (der Gruppengründer) ;-)

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  14. Ooh that IS great. Flipping back and forth between the last two images, it's pretty great to see his approach to streamlining anatomy; design & shape.

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  15. Also, MAN, I bow down to the draftmanship & expertise demonstrated in this post by these guys.

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  16. I really, really hope and wish that sometime in the future, they Kahl family will publish a graphic book of all of the best of Milt's work. I know I'd buy it!

    This is great stuff, Andreas. Thanks!

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  17. Liebe Andreas Deja,
    Ich bin Journalistin bei NIDO, dem Familienmagazin des Sterns (www.nido.de). Wir würden sehr gerne ein Interview mit Ihnen machen u.a. über Ihren Lebensweg, das (Tiere-)Zeichnen und die Faszination von Disney. Ich würde mich sehr freuen, wenn Sie sich bei mir melden würden (unter helle.anke@nido.de)
    Herzliche Grüße und vielen Dank,
    Anke Helle

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  18. dear Andreas, how wonderful to stumble onto these pages and come upon these dog studies... esp since we were workin on a series of small dog snippets in animation.. These sketches by the masters are a pure blessing since we stumbled onto them serendipitously doing completely unconnected work!!
    Thank you so much for these and all the treasures you have so generously shared on these pages.. you yourself are no less a hero for us than these masters!
    Thanks again for everything!
    from a little studio in India!

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  19. Wonderful life sketches ! these animators were greats. Thanks for posting many drawings of them on your blog, it's so inspiring.

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  20. Wow these are beautiful. Thanks for posting these Andreas.

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  21. Thanks so much for posting!
    These pictures are very helpful! :)

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