Somebody asked me a while ago:
"What's up with Milt Kahl's drawing style? He only uses straight lines in his animation."
That of course isn't true. Milt used straight as well as curved lines when defining a character pose or an expression. He was just very definite when balancing the two. Either very straight or very curved.
It gives the drawing a graphic simplicity and readability.
King Louie's arms are boiled down anatomy, straight lines. By contrast his belly is a round ball.
This design philosophy started on Sleeping Beauty. It's what Amid Amidi calls CARTOON MODERN.
Limited TV animation beginning in the early 1960s applied these drawing principles wholeheartedly.
The Flintstones, Yogi Bear etc. They established a basic graphic, held character pose, and added limited animation for dialogue or body parts.
When it comes to Disney full animation though, you would have to be a genius to make such a sophisticated, graphic statement with EACH of your key drawings.
Milt Kahl could do it, and so could Marc Davis. Kimball to a point.
But all of this doesn't really matter that much, because what audiences respond to is PERSONALITY.
And Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Lounsbery and many others had that going on in spades!
I think Don Bluth adopted Kahl's straight lines, but tried to adapt it in a way that the whole crew of animators could do.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, are these Jafar drawings yours, Andreas?
https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/aladdin-jafar-animation-drawings-sequence-of-3-walt-disney-1992-total-3-original-art-/a/121931-11206.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515
https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/aladdin-jafar-animation-drawings-sequence-of-4-walt-disney-1992-total-4-original-art-/a/121931-11208.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515
Thanks for your post! :)
ReplyDeleteI printed it out to read it much more often!
Hello! Do you have any more stuff to do with Kaa the snake from The Jungle Book? I've seen you've posted stuff on here before and I just love the way he's animated
ReplyDeleteI will take a look and post some Kan stuff.
DeleteWonderful! Thank you so much
Deletethe straight line also creates a strong sense of movement, I think you need to be a high level animator and illustrator to use it in the right place.
ReplyDelete