Sunday, August 14, 2016

Gaston Model Sheets



Probably the most difficult character I ever animated at Disney. A high degree of realism in the design as well as motion is never easy to bring to life. Here is some material I found in my Xerox archive.
The development sketch above still shows a mustache on Gaston's face, an idea that was tossed out. No facial hair on the guy, I was told.

Studying bodybuilders' anatomy.




A couple of construction sheets for Gaston's head. If you can't draw this from any angle, I think your animation will lack range.





A whole body turn-around. Not easy to do after having animated less than five scenes. But production management always needs these sorts of things right away, even though you are still in the process of discovering aspects about the character's appearance.



What I love about Gaston these days is his "after life",  particularly as a "meet and greet character" at Walt Disney World. There are the most hilarious encounters with guests on Youtube.  Here is one of those:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3bp59Eci_0

For my Gaston pencil tests go here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/01/gaston-pencil-tests.html

19 comments:

  1. Thank you very munch for posting Gaston on your blog he's the best villain and a jerk i like it.

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  2. Hi Mr Deja, how did you create your character Gaston in the production of Beauty and the Beast.

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  3. Thank you so much for sharing them!
    Gaston was the challenging character that made you the MASTER! Classic shapes, just as in the good old Disney films.
    Funny, but when I first saw the film (age 5), I didn't understand (in the beginning) why Belle didn't choose this strong guy! :)

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  4. By the way, compared to Scar, Gaston is a nice village inhabitant...

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  5. I don't know if Gaston and Jafar are the best, but there are a lot of villains it's not easy to choose...

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  6. Did you have input on Gaston's color palette?

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    1. During a Gaston color model meeting l iked what I saw.

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    2. Your right Andreas, your character Gaston in the early designes production of Beauty and the Beast, i look the designe on the DVD.

      His tunic or his coat is blue in the deleate scenes than the final version of the film.

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  7. I don't know why you decide to get rid of his facial hair.

    Pencil mileage, perhaps?

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  8. Andreas you draw very good with your pencil you do sculptures to will i think so.

    Have you heard the live action of Beauty and the Beast it's coming out in March next year.

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  9. One of the best villains of the house Disney!

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  10. beautifully drawn. A couple of the other characters in the film have some inconsistencies, but Gaston seemed spot-on the whole way through. Maybe you exercised more control than the other supervisors, or drew tighter or something

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  11. nice post...great that you were part of the design process. I see you working through the shapes with animation in mind...Great Stuff.

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  12. I like the moustache. It has that Princess Bride vibe going on!

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  13. After studying the first image of Gaston above, I noticed a few things: there isn't much informative shading on the legs (little to none of that would be seen in the finished animated product, I suppose), but I noticed that you still managed to give the legs form and mass.

    The arms respond appropriately: the fact that the right upper leg muscles are contracted and taut is indicated by the way the right elbow perches but does not settle on it (all the weight of that arm looks equally counteracted). The form of the left leg is not shown by shading but the way in which you folded/curled Gaston's left hand around it. As a student, I'm happy to see and make these new (for me) observations.

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  14. I' m writing from Italy, sorry for my english! I was a child in 1991, and I remember the emotion! Today I watch again "Beauty and the Beast" DVD and now I find this beautiful blog! Thank you Andreas!

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  15. I actually had stumbled across this blog when looking for Gaston pictures. I was thrilled to see these sheets, since I had been trying to learn to draw him.
    So I started trying to draw him based on the rules in these model sheets, but I was finding that, although some things came out better that way than my freehand attempts, other things were coming out looking far weirder when I drew them myself. So I decided to try just inking over your designs on the model sheets to see what was up -- and that was an eye-opener. The way you draw, the pen just bounces right along the lines! And that swift action with the outlines seems to make up so much of the drawing! It somehow achieves these curved lines, even on parts like the bridge of Gaston's nose which seem drawn very stiffly in the pencils. Fascinating! I'm sure this is part of what makes the animation look so wonderful and dynamic.

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