Saturday, July 28, 2012

Prince Phillip and Samson


As I mentioned before, Milt Kahl really didn't enjoy animating Prince Phillip.
A handsome dude with a limited range for acting just didn't appeal to him. Of course he still gave it all he'd got to put a descent performance on the screen.
The following drawings are from the scene where Phillip gets on his horse, confident that he found the love of his life, even if his father King Hubert objects.
These are original rough drawings mixed in with copies of clean ups to show the path of action.
It looks to me that this scene was somewhat based on live action reference, but the translation into drawn animation is incredible. Just dealing with the horse turning direction would be a real challenge. 
Assistant artist Dave Suding, who worked on the film, told me once that one clean up drawing with the prince on his horse took one full day. That means a second of final clean up footage would require a whole month! Incredible.





           




Bre Melvin created a pencil test with these drawings:

19 comments:

  1. Milt's work on Prince Phillip is just fabulous.
    That's really doesn't look like a work of someone who hates what he does.

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  2. Brilliant animation. Interestingly enough, Prince Phillip was one of my favorite princes (until The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin), because he had the most personality out of all of the early princes. ;)

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  3. Wonderful. It's kind of a shame that the lovely clean drawings get lost when they're inked onto cels, though I do like the look of inked lines.

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  4. Simply lovely. It was nice seeing it one drawing at a time because I never noticed how amusing Samson looks in this scene. Especially that fifth drawing. Prince Phillip is one of my favorite princes, mostly because I love Aurora so much.
    Andreas, I have a question: where do you get these drawings? If you own them, I am so jealous!! It's like owning a little bit of Disney history.

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    Replies
    1. I own the three rough animation drawings.
      The clean ups are xeroxes.

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  5. I put a gif together of this based on the indicated timing:

    http://animationtidbits.tumblr.com/post/28208036697/prince-phillip-samson-milt-kahl

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  6. A month to do a second of clean up? Is that why this movie was in production for like 6 years?

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    Replies
    1. That's part of the long production time. The backgrounds took a while to paint, too.

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  7. Thank you!! Inspiring!!!!!!

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  8. He may not have liked Prince Philip, but the rest of us love him ';) And Samson. Especially Samson. Much awesomer than Maximus, I think haha :D

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  9. Fantastic, Thanks for those beautifull drawings.

    It's funny to see that a part of this animation is reused on on of the first Prince Philip scene before he meet Aurora. I read that Milt Kahl hated the reuse of animations from one film to another, it's strange he did it in this film... Do you know more about it Andreas ?

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    Replies
    1. That scene you mention is actually not a re-use. The action is similar, but the animation is different.

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    2. Perhaps you talk about the close shot right after but it really seems to me that this part is exactly the same. You can take a look at this animated gif I made to check what part I'm talking about: http://sushixav.com/tumblr/prince_horse_comparison.gif

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  10. I love the look on the horse's face when he is made to turn. LOL

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  11. Ouch!! There's so much goodness that it hurts my brain. I have enjoyed practicing my breakdowns and inbetweening on the keys you provide, but this one takes some serious skills and time. Thank you so much for sharing these gems. It's great to have the original drawings with the charts included!!

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    Replies
    1. I am glad you are doing this, you will learn a lot.

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  12. Dave Suding wasn't the only guy doing one drawing a day. I also picked up work from Milt's assistant, Stan Green and I did a drawing a day as well.

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