Way back toward the end of production of "The Black Cauldron" there were a few new animated projects in development at Disney. One of them was "Mistress Masham's Repose", based on a 1946 book by T.H.White (the guy who also wrote "The Sword in the Stone").
This info is from Wikipedia:
Mistress Masham's Repose (1946) is a novel by T. H. White that describes the adventures of a girl who discovers a group of Lilliputians, a race of tiny people from Jonathan Swift's satirical classic Gulliver's Travels. The story is set in Northamptonshire, England, during or just after the Second World War.
Plot:
Maria, a ten-year-old orphaned girl, lives on a derelict estate, her only companions a loving family Cook and a retired Professor of Ancient Latin. These are often unable to protect Maria from her tall, fat, strict Governess, Miss Brown. The Governess makes the child's life miserable. She takes her cue from Maria's guardian, a Vicar named Mr. Hater, the reason why Maria is poor and abandoned. The little girl does not go to school. In church, she has to walk all the way to her seat in over-sized boots which make a great deal of noise. She is shy, lonely, and starved for affection. Meeting the Lilliputians, and being tempted both to fear and to bullying, she must save her friends and herself.
I forget now how long I worked in pre production on the project, but I did enjoy doing this early character development. I even sent copies to Milt Kahl for possible input. He said he liked them ok as far as early concept art goes, but he feared that the studio would probably reuse some of the mice business from "Cinderella" for situations with the Lilliputians. He obviously still felt burnt because of all the reused animation during the 1960ies and 70ies.
As far as style goes, I had Ronald Searle and Milt Kahl in my head, and I think you can tell, for better or for worse.
I remember seeing these as photocopies back in the MadTParty days in Dusseldorf. Hans had a stack of your stuff all neatly stacked on a pile in his immaculately tidy cupboard.
ReplyDeleteWow....This is very expressives sketches...the action lines are perfect...great drawings!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAmazing stuff, Andreas! To bad you did not have a chance to use these for any other productions.
ReplyDeleteThey look really fun to animate.
I wish it had been made! Sounds like my kind of movie. Hahaha. Lovely sketches.
ReplyDeleteAt the time I always thought that would make a good film and your work made it even better. Even though it seemed similar to several other Disney films there was enough that was unique about it to make it worth moving onto after BC
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that the best concepts are always thrown away. This characters are awesome and full of life...
ReplyDeleteDrawings just like these are so impressive. A few simple (but not really) lines on a paper can make such a sweet little girl come to life.
ReplyDeleteWould have loved a film with these characters!
Yeh, all this talk about 2D being dead. Tip for the executives. Please take this story out from the Disney vault and make it happen. Its mouth watering just looking at it
ReplyDeleteIt really does make one wonder how many more ideas Disney must have had - animated shorts, feature-lengths - have fallen to the wayside over time...
ReplyDeleteThis would have been more fantastic to watch than that Arrietty flick Disney distributed (in Japanese or English, I'm not interested with either version). Maria looks adorable especially =D
Wow! These are great! This is the first time I've heard about this project, and I would love to see your Maria in a movie (or in a children's book at least!) :D
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me that one of the other projects they were developing at the same time was Piers Anthony's Ogre, Ogre (which I had suggested to Rick). Did you do any of the development on that one? I can't recall offhand.
ReplyDeleteIf they'd gone ahead with that one they would have caused DW to look at Shrek since both featured an Ogre love story and had a very tongue in cheek take on fairy tales
I didn't work on the Ogre project, Steve.
DeleteBut I did spend some time on "Dufus". Remember that one?
Gotta love the tall droopy jowls on that governess!
ReplyDeleteOh what an interesting concept, plus I love the character design!
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame it wasn't done tho.
These are absolutely beautiful Andreas! Thanks for putting so much effort into each of your posts! Great work!
ReplyDeleteWow I love the rat you made for the guy in the green to ride. That is an awesome rat.
ReplyDeleteOh...My...God these characters are begging to be animated!!!!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and charming sketches! Love them..
ReplyDeleteThese are a little different from your usual posts, they have a lsightly different style. It's very interesting to see how it could still be the Disney style, but has its own uniqueness.
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful work!!! I'd love to have those Trapper sketches hanging on my wall. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteWow. I've never even heard of such a story being developed at Disney. Your wonderful images sure capture the potential it had. The little people stuff is especially a treat.. the whole Vicar, hate to be in church stuff... however true... overdone to death. In this latter sense I can see why Disney passed on it.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff is awesome, never before seen, wow, are these water color.
ReplyDeleteNo water color here. Just black pen and color markers.
DeleteThese are absolutely brilliant. Love the lines, the shapes and colors! :) Such an inspiration!
ReplyDeleteWonderful look, and gorgeous character design. Do you know why this movie was never mentioned neither in "The Disney that Never Was" nor in "Disney Lost and Found"?
ReplyDeleteMaybe because I held on to these sketches. But there was also
Deletelayout and background work done.
wonderful designs.....i wonder if you are willing to tell how long each page of character designs would take you from exploration to rendered marker? :) great work!
ReplyDeleteUsually I do a bunch of bad drawings at the beginning, then things start to click, and it becomes fun.
DeleteDrawing at that stage happens pretty quickly.
Wonderfully drawn...your work at this stage reminds me of Ken Anderson to an astounding degree; but it's still your own loose-limbed style underneath it.
ReplyDeleteThese designs are so expressive... I'll put some of these nearby the Marc Davis 'Chantecleer' designs for shit that I have to do tests of sometime, just to see them move around.
Two things I'm curious about...
a)In Oliver and Company, you were credited as one of the character designers, alongside Glen Keane and Mike Gabriel...how much of the final design influence did Gabriel have? Some of the characters I can see your influence on (Oliver and Dodger look like your work more than most of the other characters); but Gabriel's designs seem to dominate the film (Fagin is the only one I can guess that he had a hand in the final role). Would you have called his work 'domineering' to any extent?
b)You say you arrived at the studio sometime after the Bluth group left (83 or 84?); but the astonishingly bluth-y design of the mouse in this... were people still influenced by his stuff behind the scenes; or were you drawing him that way to appease some of the stragglers? It's quite astonishing.
Mike pretty much gave Oliver the final look. I had something to do with early designs for most of the dogs as well as Fagin.
DeleteI started at Disney in 1980. I wasn't thinking about anybody in particular when I drew that rat, I just tried to make it look dimensional and solid. Nothing special, though.
Fantastic post, Adreas. Didn't know Mistress Masham was ever in pre-production, but I imagine Walt bought the rights around the time of The Sword in the Stone as he did with other authors (Felix Salten, Mary Norton, Dodie Smith). The preparatory work is superb and Ronald would probably have joined Milt in OKaying your sketches! :)
ReplyDeleteIs there a touch of Ollie about the Professor perhaps?
Come to think of it, the Professor does look a bit like Ollie.
DeleteThanks for your compliment, Brian.
God yes! Doofus the police dog....named after Eisner's dog. That was the direction he saw for animation ...between that and Oliver things looked grim
ReplyDeleteBeautifully done, Andreas. I see the Milt influence but it's applied in a genuine way. You clearly had fun! The nose-blowing gag is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteI'm holding a contest at a Disney group for movies that were never made/completed. Someone drew something based off your sketches! http://abranime.deviantart.com/art/Contest-Mistress-Masham-s-Repose-286488903
ReplyDeleteAndreas, do you remember the late Disney artist, Roy Morita? He was also doing development work on this film project. Roy's office was on the third floor of the Animation Building. I used to visit him a good deal while he was working on this film.
ReplyDeleteI love your drawings, however. Great stuff.
I do remember Roy Morita. At that time I had no idea about his rich animation career.
DeleteThat drawing of the girl with the butterfly net looks like the young Ellie from "Up" I wonder if someone at Pixar ever saw this design and used it for inspiration, or if it was just one of those shared consciousness things...
ReplyDeleteHello Andreas,
ReplyDeleteMy father, Roy Morita, was the Disney artist Floyd referred to working on this project as well, right before he passed away in 1984. He was assigned to develop this project and worked on storyboards and character sketches the last few years before his death. He pitched the project it before the current CEO of the time (Ron Miller, I believe.) It was not good timing and the idea was rejected. He passed away from cancer in November 1984. I still have kept some very large poster-size xerox copies of the storyboards he created for this project. They are detailed and amazing sketches which bring the story to life, as are the sketches that you have shared on this website. How he worked on this project, hoping it would be made into an animated movie. Thank you, Floyd, for remembering him and that he had a part in the project. Should anything further ever come of this movie idea, Andreas, please remember that he too put many hours trying to develop this idea. I have long wondered if his storyboards, sketches and notes are in some vault at the Disney studios, gathering dust.~~ Susan Morita