Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Cinderella




I believe that Cinderella is the most challenging Disney heroine in terms of draughtsmanship. There is no graphic style here "to hang your hat on". She is just a subtle, realistic and very beautiful concept of a young woman. You would have to be so careful defining her face. Eyes, nose and mouth need to be placed within exact proportions or she would look like a different person. The nose alone is drawn with a minimum of lines. If not positioned perfectly those facial features would float around the face in animation.
That's why I am astonished that Cinderella looks so consistently appealing throughout the film, there is no off model scene that I can recall. Quite the accomplishment considering the short production schedule.
That's actress Ilene Woods in the photo with Marc Davis. Ilene almost whispered Cinderella's dialogue, which gave the title character such a nice, warm fairy tale quality.

First up a "doodle sheet" that shows Marc exploring Cinderella's face as a sculpture in three dimensions.



Here are a couple of animation drawings by Marc. This is careful, sensitive perfection. 



These are copies of Marc's animation keys from the scene when Cinderella has just been transformed and given her knock out dress for the ball. "Look, glass slippers!"
The folds in her dress needed special attention. If the material felt too light, she'd be wearing a paper dress, if too heavy, the dress would move as if made out of thick carpet.








Eric Larson animated a lot of key scenes with Cinderella, including this one, where she admires the dress the animals made for her. These are Eric's animation roughs.




Last not least a few of Mary Blair's stunning concept paintings for the "falling in love'" sequence. 
All this stuff would be very corny, even back in 1950, but the artists believed in this story and its characters, and their work shows sincerity.





25 comments:

  1. I named my teddy bear gus because of this film

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  2. So beautiful. Andreas, is it just me, or is Cinderella's right hand elongated / stretched? Since she's such a subtle character as is the movement here, I'm guessing it's not intentional. Maybe my eyes are tricking me...What're your thoughts? Certainly no slight on Marc. Just fun to notice these things when such perfection is abound. Thank you for sharing...

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    1. I think the slight stretch on her right hand helps to lead your eyes'
      attention toward the foot.

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    2. Ah, that would make perfect sense. Would be awesome if that was his thinking...

      Andreas: YOU ROCK DUDE!

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  3. Mr Deja, I've long felt that the pencil animation drawings for all Disney animated films up to Sleeping Beauty are superior to the final inked and painted images seen onscreen. I'm aware that the ink and paint women did a stellar job tracing the animators' lineart, but those tracings are just that: tracings! There's a loss in vitality. What do you think of this?

    Nowadays, this is not an issue with digital ink and paint, but I still wish the animation of the post-Little Mermaid Disney films were a little rougher.

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    1. I love both kinds of looks, hand inked as well as xerox.
      A xeroxed drawing though only looks good if it is extraordinary.
      A mediocre drawing looks terrible xeroxed, but can be helped somewhat when carefully inked instead.
      My personal film will have that "rough sketchy look".

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    2. Oh yeah! ;) *thumbs up*

      Looking forward to it!

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  4. You're right. She is tough to keep on model.These are amazing drawings! Thanks for being so generous with your collection!!This stuff really helps.

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  5. Here's a gif based on the Marc Davis keys: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbbzwbULkb1qdbhwwo1_500.gif

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  6. Mr. Deja, Can you do posts about the trasnformation scene and the scene where the stepsisters rip her dress please??

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  7. Yes, transformation scene please! It's one of Disney's most classic, magical, fairy tale scenes. :D

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  8. Hi Andreas, "Cinderella 3" was our last film at the Disney Sydney studio and I was on the animation team for Cinderella herself. Yes, she was incredibly tough to draw, and Marc's drawings were great inspiration and reference for us- truly beutiful, and daunting. Thanks for sharing these, that doodle sheet is great!

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  9. Such beautiful drawings, 'just the post I needed. Marc Davis' draftsmanship is insane! It must have been tough being his assistant. I love the fluidity of Eric Larson's roughs. As always Mr. Deja thanks so much for being so generous with your knowledge and collection of animation roughs.

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  10. I love this style of drawing - a purely realistic form, but communicated with a bare minimum of lines - and I admire the way Marc Davic has done it. Thanks for sharing these beautiful drawings!

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  11. Beautifull drawings. What paints are used for paintings? They so great and i like that, they "real" , not just Photoshop files somewhere on computer. About clean/rough style on Disney, i like more on clean inked style, than 70´s rough style. But also pencil test are sometimes "better".

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    1. Disney had their own special paint mix for the cels.

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    2. Example on concept paintings, did they used acrylic paints, which seems to invented 1946-49 (what Wikipedia says) And commercially available in the 50´s.

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    3. As for the Mary Blair paintings, those were done with paint at least similar to acrylic.

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    4. She probably used gouache, like many illustrators did back then. She was so incredible...

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  12. It's so great how you could see the weight in Cinderella's dress (in each of Marc Davis' individual drawings) without the animation! Thanks again for sharing, Mr. Deja :)

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  13. Dear Mr. Deja

    I'm 16 years old and I'm really into experimenting on animation.....I need your advice or tip or something. What is the most effective way to do a walk animation and make it look natural. I'm having so much trouble on doing it perfectly because the leg is too long and my body would just shrink from this elongated original state.

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