Since I was the first animator assigned to "Lilo & Stitch", directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois asked me to fool around with animation designs for the film's cast. (Based on Chris' work).
Here you see a few of my first attempts plus a few odds and ends I found.
I drew these poses without having any idea who Lilo really is. Way too active.
These are based on Chris' design. Nani ended up being animated beautifully by Stephane Sainte Foi.
An early design idea for David.
Remember him?
This wasn't easy, trying to get authentic Hula poses into a baby body like Lilo's.
To get these poses I studied footage of surfers.
The following three pages show research for a Lilo Maquette.
These were part of the model sheet package.
Three first pass poses with Nani and Lilo on the surfboard.
We started out with a kind of a wimpy social worker. That didn't seem to work in the sequence, so I was asked to try a design that would reflect the ultimate authoritative social worker, Cobra Bubbles.
He was animated beautifully by Byron Howard.
These are amazing! Lilo was always one of my favorite characters.
ReplyDeleteSo terrifically awesome - I shall be studying these for some time n.n
ReplyDeleteWow, these drawings are so beautiful I feel like watching the film again and again! :) Wonderful.
ReplyDeletehahaha!!! I loved cobra bubbles!! His character was so men in black-ish! The initial social worker character looks wonderful as well but it doesn't suit his suspicious role.
Andreas, this is a gold mine! Thank you for posting these sketches. I could (and will) study these for hours!
ReplyDeleteI love the character of Lilo. The spirit of an Ollie Johnston performance you pulled off beautifully with her character. :)
These are amazing. The arm drawings are especially incredible!
ReplyDeleteLove 'em! :D
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. Did you use any live action reference for this movie?
ReplyDeleteShe was so much fun, and your work was just pure joy. Thanks for the experience!
ReplyDeletethanks a lot for sharing them, Lilo & Stitch is one of my all time favourites :D
ReplyDeleteCobra Bubbles was the perfect character to step into the scene at that moment; he was a rock solid, no-foolin' count-down timer for the story, and his deadpan reactions to the chaos in Nani's house were hilarious!
ReplyDeleteLilo again :) Thank you so much! And this post happened on my birthday ;)
ReplyDeleteLilo facing the fish looks so cute - I have to check if this pose was actually used in the beginning scene when she feeds the sandwich to the fish. And here Lilo looks almost like she was a little fish herself :) And the top-right corner of 2nd picture reminds me a lot of Ollie Johnston's style of drawing kids' faces.
I also like Nani's animation awesome! While her body shape is not a top-model one, there's something in her animation and her attitudes make her looking very hot, at least for me :)
I'm particularly impresses with the animation of Lilo dancing Hula. There is something special there - even if she seems to repeat the same dance movements as adult dancers and as her young fellows do, her motion somehow stands out. I don't know if its about some emotion showing from her movements, or if they are just a bit smoother, but the way she moves puts the attention to her. I wonder who animated other girls in the dance scene, and if the effect that Lilo moves somehow stand out was deliberate.
Życzenia urodzinowe dla !
DeleteI have to get back to Poland one of these days, I was born there.
Thanks a lot :) I'm sure you'll enjoy the trip to Poland when you decide to visit, there are many beautiful places to see. I've just returned from 3 days mountains trip and if you saw these amazing views you'd want to come immediately :) Actually I've taken some videos, just need some time to edit and upload them. There are also some beautiful old cities worth visiting, including my home Kraków and your Gdańsk!
DeleteI love all those rough exploratory sketches of Lilo, Andreas! In fact, those are representative of what I'm constantly telling my Character Design students at Sheridan to do with their own design assignments. I refer to it as "taking your character out for a test drive" before you commit to the final design. Only by exploring the character's personality and physical form through expressive, gestural drawings will you understand what works and what doesn't rather than ending up with a character based on just a single clean image that may not function well when animated.
ReplyDeleteIt's very nice to see these exploratory images. Your early work on Lilo almost makes her seem like she's in a gangly pre-teen stage.
ReplyDeleteI like the second page of the maquette images, notably the one where Lilo is holding Scrump with her left arm.
Btw, ages ago I saw a little image of Lilo happily flying in a Superman-style suit. Did you draw that, or was that something another artist drew for fun?
Thank you so much for sharing these! Lilo & Stitch is my favorite Disney film and just when I thought I had seen everything for it, you surprise us all with these lovely pieces!
ReplyDeleteUTTER PERFECTION ! amazing post as always ! it made my day
ReplyDeleteThese wonderful drawings are everything Disney once was-and never will be again. Our marvelous art form has been corrupted by greedy businessmen.
ReplyDeleteHi, Andreas, who was in charge of drafting up the model sheets? I acquired a selection of final model sheets one of which included the drawings of feet you posted. I always wondered who the artist was!
ReplyDeleteI did the model sheets for Lilo.
DeleteThe other animators did sheets for their respective characters.
Beautiful sketces.
ReplyDeleteI love this film.
ReplyDeleteI tried to add a comment earlier today (eight years late to the discussion), but it doesn't seem to have posted. I was wondering about the character in the beach shorts, with the very conspicuous tan line. He reminds me of some of the people who appear on Peter De Séve's New Yorker covers. Peter De Séve did get a thank you in the credits at the end of the film, so I'm curious if he influenced the development of the character (who keeps losing the ice cream he's eating in increasingly tragic ways).
ReplyDeleteThis pictures are so great and wonderful! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting them! :)