Here is another rough animation drawing by Milt Kahl that was discarded. This sheet comes from the estate of Disney animator Ken O'Brian. It shows the two lead characters from the short The Martins and the Coys, which was part of the 1946 feature Make Mine Music.
Grace Martin and Henry Coy are dancing energetically on their wedding night. For fast action like this, the animator most likely did all of the drawings (on ones) to ensure fluidity and readability of motion. This is a young Milt Kahl, who knew how to combine his knowledge of human anatomy with cartoony drawing and motion. This single frame from the dance is a JOY to behold!
I would say that the overall character styling is still influenced by Fred Moore. But Milt takes it a step further, because he knew so much about the human figure, composition and action analysis.
The full sheet is pictured below. As you can see, once discarded, Milt used it as a surface to sharpen his pencil. There are notes, calculations ($ 3000 ?) and what looks like telephone doodles.
I am glad that Ken O'Brian saved this gem for all of us to enjoy more than a half century later!!
More stunning sketches from this sequence in this earlier post:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/10/animated-energy.html
I've heard that "The Martins and the Coys" was omitted from the U.S. VHS and DVD releases of the movie, on account of the seemingly gratuitous gunplay. Of course, I hope that any future DVD and Blu-ray releases will include it, so as to make up for the "missing piece" element. (Admittedly, I haven't seen MAKE MINE MUSIC yet, but I hope to at some point.)
ReplyDeleteAndreas, I don't understand why The Jungle Book is your favorite Disney movie it's about Sher Kann the Tiger.
ReplyDeleteHe'd really do it all himself on ones? I suppose he was so good he probably could do that in a reasonable amount of time!
ReplyDeleteAndreas, when Eric Larson was an animation consultant on Black Cauldron and Great Mouse Detective, was that the same as how when Milt Kahl worked for Disney, Milt finalized the look of the character?
ReplyDeleteNo, it wasn't.Instead, when we had trouble with our scenes, we would visit Eric, and he would help us to make our work look better.
DeleteDo you think drawing young girls like Princesses it's very hard the expression and the look are not easy.
ReplyDelete