Friday, May 18, 2012

A Lesson from Frank Thomas


…on how to draw Merryweather, one of the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty.
Frank notes on the first sheet, these instructions were probably meant for assistant Dale Oliver.
What's so fascinating about these is that they give you an insight into the animator's thoughts on the character's construction and design.
As Ollie Johnston states in the documentary "Frank & Ollie", Frank analyzed everything very rigorously in preparing a scene, probably more than anybody.




This is a great demonstration on how to squash and stretch Merryweather's body and face. The idea is that you can distort her body mass, but the amount of mass must remain the same.
Fred Moore pioneered this principle years earlier when he developed Mickey Mouse from a rubber hose design into a character that moved with more weight and expression.




Even the design of folds in the costume's fabric needs to be carefully thought out.
Just about everything in Sleeping Beauty had to be specially designed.




This is all about how to base the cartoon eye on that of a real person. To the layman Disney eyes might just look like an oval with a round pupil in it, but there is so much more to it than that.
Many components go into the eye unit. The eyebrow, the mass underneath, the upper eyelid, the eyeball, the lower eyelid, eyelashes etc. Even though the animated eye is much simplified, those components do play a part.

13 comments:

  1. Very Cool! Question Andreas, I heard this term "Animation Pattern". Can you define this word, it was someone that said: " When they got the animation pattern down, then they move to the next step in animating.
    I love this evolution of skill in the craft, standing on the shoulders of giants. We all get better and learn from each other. Have an awesome weekend.

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    1. In my book animation pattern means: the way a character moves.
      Usually you take care of that first in rough form, before adding details and bringing the character on model.

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    2. oh..ok, that shed some light on it now. Thanks again

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  2. Andreas: Was Frank's meticulous preparation and analysis of a character/scene due to the fact that he thought his draughtsmanship wasn't up to par with his peers?

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    1. No, I don't think that has anything to do with it. Frank was always after the kind of animation that felt real and believable to him and the audience. So he needed to research the anatomy of his characters as well as their emotions thoroughly.

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  3. It's astonishing - because every American I've ever seen through CalArts seems to copy their eyes from Frank Thomas, in shape and not movement. Seeing Frank's thought process into the eyes is so amazingly inspiring...

    (There are exceptions, of course. You ever see 'Son Of Satan?' ^^)

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  4. It's like Glen Keane said: "If you're going to make a mistake, make sure it's not in the eyes!" thanks for sharing; this is my favorite animated film, bar none. Everything is so ridiculously meticulous.

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  5. this is totally awesome, thanks for sharing :]

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  6. Andreas, do you have any examples of Franks work with "Robin Hood as The Stork?" I would love to see how he approached those scenes! Those performances are amazing!

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