Milt Kahl animated this Bagheera scene early on during production. There is still some experimentation going on here with facial features. The jaw line going to the ear is something Milt simplified later.
I find the asymmetrical shapes of the panther's muzzle, nose and eyes just beautiful.
Every expression is inventive and has the essence of a big cat.
Incidentally, it is in THIS scene, when Bagheera asks Mowgl to get up the tree: "Go on, up you go!", not in the previously posted long shot with both of them.
Years ago Milt's assistant Dave Michener let me xerox the copies of Milt's rough animation he had kept. And it is a real treat to see these drawings before an assistant cleaned them up.
(#16 and #19 are examples of tied down versions.)
A few rough animation drawings from the tree climbing scene.
I don't think anybody else can draw and animate a panther with so few lines, and make the situation come off as believable and entertaining.
I feel completely amazed with the strength of Bagheera's expressions on these roughs! And again the timing is uneven and complicated - I wonder how could they manage this without computers, it's almost impossible to flip pages of paper with such rhytm to preview the motion. I've tried to make the preview
ReplyDeletehttp://tj.krakow.pl/animation/examples/bagheera_frames.gif
but not sure I got the timing right. It's funny that Bagheera'a whiskers are doing overlapping movement and they change their arc while Bagheera talks :)
I've said it before and I'll say it again....this is ROUGH animation??!! How did he animate so well without constructing things more?
ReplyDeleteAndreas, did Milt work in a similar way to how you work? I mean you do a very rough pass first and then start to tie things down don't you? That seems a fairly common and sensible process. Did he not do that? It feels from these drawings like he just ploughed ahead and got it right immediately!
Milt did a light rough pass, working only on a few important keys.
DeleteOccasionally he would refine those drawings to become final keys,
other times he used them as a guide only and redraw the scene with a degree of roughness you see above.
Go back to a Medusa post that shows first rough passes.
Ah of course! Thanks Andreas :)
DeleteGah, his expression, his jaw, and his whiskers! ';)
ReplyDeleteSuch a great scene! I think it's one of the most creative as far as the actions - nothing's generic or obvious about the way things move. (not that I could ever pick a favorite scene with King Louie, Kaa, and Shere Khan all in the same movie.)
ReplyDeleteThere's a great pencil test of Mowgli trying to climb the tree by himself here: http://vimeo.com/4215260
As a child I recall being similarly and simultaneously impressed by the styles of Disney's Bageera and Marvel's Black Panther and tried to understand what was so appealing in the designs and why both had captured my attention. I was too young to express what I was seeing and no one else seemed even remotedly interested in studying and exploring such things. As such I remained stuck in the middle of that wonderment for years. There was also the whole idea of caricature at work in those designs that I had no reference point on which to base any comprehension.
ReplyDeleteAs an assistant who worked for Kahl I've concluded that the construction lines were in Milt's head. They sure weren't on the paper. He was truly amazing.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't have to be that good to work for Milt Kahl. After all, he did all the real work.
Hi Floyd, I don't know if you'll pass this way again, but I just wanted to ask whether you get much grief from Milt when working on his scenes? I imagine he was rather precious over things!
Deletethanks for sharing these amazing drawings.
ReplyDeleteAs per the tree-climbing drawings: OMG the weight and volume! This is a real hallmark of Disney animation for me and I just can't get over being impressed - you guys were/are such amazing artists!
ReplyDeletewhen I first saw Jungle Book in the theater, this is the scene that actually made me, even as a small boy, think about what animation is. Before that it was more the draftsmanship and art and then the movement and acting. To this day, I look at this scene in awe. So humbling.
ReplyDeleteHey Andy! Great question.
ReplyDeleteActually, no. I found Milt Kahl a delight to work for. Of course, there was some apprehension at first, but Milt was awesome to work for and I learned so much from him.