Thursday, May 23, 2019

Marc Davis Bambi Research



A few sheets with beautiful development drawings for Bambi by Marc Davis were recently offered at S/R Labs auctions.
They remind me of what Frank Thomas once said, that without Marc's thorough deer studies quality character animation would not have been possible.
Marc found just the right balance between realistic anatomy and human expressiveness.
He developed appealing designs that could be animated.
Animated by only a few artists who were willing to take on this challenge of studying the heck out of deer anatomy, then adding subtle caricature and acting.






3 comments:

  1. Beautiful! Thanks for sharing Andreas.

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  2. It seems like a rite of passage for animators to take the dive into learning animal anatomy properly. I heard about how James Baxter did it for Spirit, and he essentially borrowed the learning process from the Bambi animators. (In terms of studying in detail, then adapting the knowledge into something animate-able)
    I guess it's easier than ever now, so I have no excuse not to do it!

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  3. I would love to find more of these illustrations. They are so cute!

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