Deja View

Marc Davis, Fine Artist

2012-03-14T23:33:00.001-07:00

Just got back from a party, where I saw Marc Davis' wife Alice again. She looked great and was in good spirits.

So I thought I would post one of her husband's drawings, a sketch that I think qualifies as fine art.

I remember Alice giving it to me as a Christmas gift a few years ago. I know…lucky me!!

When I first visited the home of Marc and Alice Davis years ago I was literally overwhelmed.

Marc's art was (and still is) all over the house. Oil paintings, lithographs, watercolors…you name it, beautiful drawings and paintings done in a variety of techniques.

I remember asking Marc : " How can you animate Tinker Bell at the studio, then come home, and do Fine Art?"

His response was: " Well, I consider myself an artist first. As an animator I express myself in acting and graphic motion, as a painter I use different mediums to make a statement."

This sketch of a bull shows animation, realism with some abstractions, but most of all a thorough understanding of anatomy. Just stunning!

More on Marc Davis' Fine Art in future posts.

Wilhelm M. Busch Originals

2012-03-12T22:49:00.001-07:00

Last year I had the chance to purchase a few original sketches from the estate of Wilhelm M. Busch in Germany.

I was sent a disc with images of many works depicting circus scenes. Large oversized drawings that would be up for sale.

It was pure torture to select just a few, all of them were breathtaking.

These are works done on the spot at the circus, either during rehearsals or performances. (most likely during the 60ies or 70ies)

Busch didn't care about making pretty drawings here, to capture the essence of the moment was the most important thing. There is thorough observation and an honest truth in them, that makes it easy for the viewer to relive those moments.

Busch captured these "Kodak" moments in his head, then put them down on paper, a few strokes within seconds.

Fascinating what is left out, only the most essential lines define an animal like the marvellous leopard.

More Alice

2012-03-09T21:40:00.002-08:00

Here are a couple of magazine articles which helped to promote "Alice in Wonderland" for its initial release in July of 1951. They both show a fantastic variety of photos with Kathryn and other actors at work, performing scenes for the animators. Part of the French article features Bobby Driscoll, who would soon give Peter Pan his voice. Bobby also provided live action reference for that character.

There are still a few drawings of Alice by Milt Kahl I want to share with you.

Every possible angle of her head, every hand gesture is so beautifully worked out.

It's animated realism and appeal on the highest level.

Kathryn Beaumont

2012-03-03T23:15:00.004-08:00

Her full name is Kathryn Beaumont Levine, and her friends call her Kathy.

I am very proud to be one of them. We recently got together to take a look at some animation roughs of the character of Alice from "Alice in Wonderland".

Many of you know that Kathryn gave her voice as well as live action reference to two iconic Disney characters, Alice and Wendy from "Peter Pan". We had a lot of fun studying the drawings, they instantly brought back memories of certain sequences, and how involved the live action filming was way back on a soundstage of the Burbank Disney Studio lot.

Because the situations Alice finds herself in are often surreal, the performance in front of the camera required almost acrobatic skills. Young Kathryn had to fall -attached to a harness- into Wonderland, she moved around sitting inside a miniature house and played croquet with an imagined flamingo.

I asked her if there was ever a moment when she was scared or felt unsafe. "Never" was the short answer.

She remembered that Milt Kahl showed her how rough animation was coming along, based on her performances. It was also Milt who invited Kathryn and her mother to spend their first American Thanksgiving with his family. "That was a lot of fun" she recalls, "at the studio I worked with adults only, so it was nice to spend time with Milt's children Sybil and Peter, who were roughly my age."

Another interesting recollection came up about her costume for the filming.

Marc Davis wasn't satisfied with the way it was fabricated. The color was all wrong. Since the photostats were later printed in black & white, only a certain grey would be beneficial for motion study. And the material was too light, so the dress had to be re done with a weightier fabric.

I find all those stories fascinating, and there isn't a lovelier person than Kathy to talk to about those magical Disney years.

I hope you'll enjoy the photos and the artwork.

Photos by Roger Viloria

Kathryn's adventures on the soundstage.

Milt Kahl shows a guest a gorgeous Alice drawing from one of his scenes.

Kathryn is examining Milt's work.

Don DaGradi, Milt, Kathryn and Clyde Geronimi reviewing a story board.

Kathryn with Milt Kahl and Ken Anderson on the set.

Time to visit Marc Davis and see what he is doing.

Milt Kahl draws over photo stats. For close ups: Keep the size of the head and shrink the body.

For long shots: Keep the size of the body and enlarge the head.

Makes sense to me.

More Milt drawings following:

Marc Davis

Ollie Johnston

Walt and Kathryn looking at Mary Blair's work for "Alice in Wonderland"

Kahl's Version of Captain Hook

2012-02-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

This photo taken during production of "Peter Pan" is interesting to me.

You see Frank Thomas working on the scene with Captain Hook, when he is anxiously waiting for Tinker Bell to reveal the hiding place of Peter Pan.

I don't know who the visitor is, but she seems to be admiring the Hook model sheet.

The drawings on that sheet are by fellow animator Milt Kahl, who had lobbied hard for the assignment to animate Hook. But Walt Disney wanted Milt to supervise the title character as well as Wendy, and it was Frank who ended up with the villain.

He remembered screening his first test scene for Walt and the crew. Milt was very displeased with the result, "That's a nothing scene" he touted.

Frank was relieved when he heard Walt's comment, "No, there's something there, I want Frank to play with the character a bit more, he'll get it."

When you look at Milt's drawings below, you can detect his typical graphic abstractions.

The jaw line is an almost inconsistent design, but it still works.

We'll never find out how Milt would have handled Hook in animation.

It doesn't matter, Frank Thomas did some of his best animation on Captain Hook.

The way he interacts with Smee or Tinker Bell feels to me like animated "acting fireworks".

A phenomenal character.

Disney is looking.....

2012-02-27T23:23:00.002-08:00

Eric Larson sent me this terrific brochure in the late seventies, while I was still studying Graphic Design in Germany.

My jaw dropped, and my eyes popped out of my head when I browsed through the pages.

This was Disney NOW, people working on a variety of projects and looking toward the future of Disney animation. There was no way I was not going to try to be part of this…whatever it would take.

I was dead serious about this. I remember being a little intimidated by the sample sketchbook pages toward the end. They looked pretty awesome to me. I don't think I draw THAT well, was my thinking.

Mel Shaw's artwork for "The Hero from Otherwhere" and "The Black Cauldron" blew me away.

I had always been excited about Disney, but this brochure set me on fire.

I won't write captions for every photo, but you find talented folks like effects animator Ted Kierscey, story man Pete Young, animator Gary Goldman, Glen Keane, writer Steve Hulett, Disney CEO Ron Miller, Tad Stones, director/animator Don Bluth, Lorna Cook, Ed Gombert, John Pomeroy, Emily Juliano, Dave Spafford, Don Griffith (couldn't do a bad layout to save his life) with Dan Hansen, Eric Larson with Rebecca Reese, Frank Thomas with Ron Husband and a few others.

It takes my breath away just remembering and writing about this.

Bernard Garbutt

2012-02-25T17:53:00.002-08:00

Bernard Garbutt was an animator during the Golden Age at Disney, where he also taught animal drawing.

I found this info about him online:

Bernard Garbutt (1900-1975) Born: Ontario, CA; Bernard Garbutt was born in Southern California and grew up in the Los Angeles area. After finishing high school he was hired as a staff artist for the Los Angeles Times to cover country fairs, horse races and farming events to produce drawings for the Sunday supplements.

Bernard Garbutt was an extremely versatile artist. He wrote and illustrated a number of children’s books, Including Timothy the Deer. The Walt Disney Studio hired him to work on the animated film productions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi. During WWII he was an artist for Screen Gems Productions in Hollywood and during the 1950s and 1960s, he taught at the Chouinard Art Institute.

Garbutt was no expert in personality animation, but he animated realistic and believable animal locomotion beautifully.

His draughtsmanship is top notch. The following pages show that he was able to sketch complex animal poses with great ease. Frank and Ollie said that his Vis. Dev. work on "Bambi" was invaluable for everybody.

The last three images are examples of how he handled deer anatomy and motion for that film.

With a touch of poetry, if you ask me.

Medusa and Penny

2012-02-23T00:06:00.000-08:00

Here is another insight into Milt Kahl's working method.

He would look at the storyboard and then fine tune the staging for a particular scene, trying to plus it as he went along. During the first pass, done with a felt pen small scale, Milt also worked out the continuity for several scenes.

By the time it got to animation, he drew rough layouts in pencil of the characters in their environments.

In this scene Medusa is forcing Penny to go down the hole to find a diamond.

The staging is beautiful, a lot of the line work points down toward the hole to emphasize the story point.
Yet a few things actually look better in the first version, like Penny's head angle or Medusa's lean toward the girl. I remember Milt saying:" I often have the hardest time capturing the life of my thumbnail drawings into the large animation sketches."

Still…Milt's drawings never fail to amaze you.

Bambi in Wire

2012-02-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, after I had finished work on "Bambi 2", I did a wire sculpture of that character and gave it to animation director/story artist extraordinaire Brian Pimental as a thank you gesture for having me be a part of the production.

From all the wire sculptures I have done this one is the most unsteady and wobbly.

I tried to use as little wire as possible, I wanted to get to a certain simplicity and elegance.

Maybe one of my better ones.

Merryweather's Wardrobe Malfunction

2012-02-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

In "Sleeping Beauty" when it came time to create a wedding dress for Aurora, it was Flora who insisted on taking on this challenge. She only needed Merryweather as a model.

We all know how well that turned out. I love the dialogue between the two.

Merryweather: "It looks awful!" Flora: "That's because it's on you, dear."

Marc Davis came up with a couple of different "fashion" designs for the situation, and they look great. Ollie Johnston combined ideas from both sketches and created the final version, as you can see in the last image.

Pinocchio by Frank Thomas

2012-02-15T23:32:00.000-08:00

Frank animated Pinocchio brilliantly in the song sequence "I've got no strings on me".

It is a character defining section of the film. Pinocchio tries very hard to be an actor, and even when little accidents happen during his first performance, he carries on the best he can.

I had the chance to listen to a short Frank Thomas lecture on how to animate Pinocchio, which was recorded during production…when Frank was still a kid!!

The interesting thing he pointed out was that you shouldn't use the usual squash and stretch on him because he is made out of solid wood. So when his head hits the floor, it bounces, but without any deformation of the head mass.

Here are a few drawings from that sequence. Eric Larson did the beautiful animation of the puppets.

They move and perform, but without life.

Masterful Doodles

2012-02-13T19:25:00.000-08:00

When Ollie Johnston showed me his collection of Disney drawings years ago, he came across these two small sheets (8 1/4 x 6") showing design sketches of the character Georges Hautecourt from "The Aristocats".

"Are these Ronald Searle drawings?" I asked Ollie. "No, these are Milt's", he responded.

As I examined them closer it became obvious that Ollie was right. But I had never seen Kahl drawings that resembled Searle's style to this degree.

Then again Milt shared Searle's sensibility for a sophisticated balance of strong straight lines against curves. And when the drawing is rough and loose, the lines remain thin and delicate.

I don't know why Milt used such small sheets of paper for these character studies, he normally drew design work on large 16 field animation paper. Perhaps there were done during a story meeting, and only small sheets were around.

In any case, even in this size there is great detail in the definition of bony hands and loose facial skin. Just beautiful!

Mistress Masham's Repose

2012-02-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

Way back toward the end of production of "The Black Cauldron" there were a few new animated projects in development at Disney. One of them was "Mistress Masham's Repose", based on a 1946 book by T.H.White (the guy who also wrote "The Sword in the Stone").

This info is from Wikipedia:

Mistress Masham's Repose (1946) is a novel by T. H. White that describes the adventures of a girl who discovers a group of Lilliputians, a race of tiny people from Jonathan Swift's satirical classic Gulliver's Travels. The story is set in Northamptonshire, England, during or just after the Second World War.

Plot:

Maria, a ten-year-old orphaned girl, lives on a derelict estate, her only companions a loving family Cook and a retired Professor of Ancient Latin. These are often unable to protect Maria from her tall, fat, strict Governess, Miss Brown. The Governess makes the child's life miserable. She takes her cue from Maria's guardian, a Vicar named Mr. Hater, the reason why Maria is poor and abandoned. The little girl does not go to school. In church, she has to walk all the way to her seat in over-sized boots which make a great deal of noise. She is shy, lonely, and starved for affection. Meeting the Lilliputians, and being tempted both to fear and to bullying, she must save her friends and herself.

I forget now how long I worked in pre production on the project, but I did enjoy doing this early character development. I even sent copies to Milt Kahl for possible input. He said he liked them ok as far as early concept art goes, but he feared that the studio would probably reuse some of the mice business from "Cinderella" for situations with the Lilliputians. He obviously still felt burnt because of all the reused animation during the 1960ies and 70ies.

As far as style goes, I had Ronald Searle and Milt Kahl in my head, and I think you can tell, for better or for worse.

Rembrandt Bugatti

2012-02-07T23:03:00.000-08:00

Among my favorite sculptors are Michelangelo, Rodin and Rembrandt Bugatti.

Bugatti was born in Milan in 1885 into a highly artistic family. His grandfather and his father were both famous in their time for sculpting, painting and engineering.

One of his brothers Carlo made stylish groundbreaking furniture, the other, Ettore became one of the best known automobile manufacturers.

In 1902 the family moved to Paris, where Rembrandt Bugatti developed his passion for sculpting animals. He spent a lot of time at the Antwerp Zoo in Belgium.

That zoo unfortunately was forced during World War I to kill off most of their livestock. Bugatti, who had used many of these animals as models for his sculptures, was devastated.

He already had problems with depression, and in 1916 at the age of 31 Rembrandt Bugatti killed himself.

His work astounds me. Even though he never travelled to wild places in order to study wild life, his research was done at zoos, the sculptures truly capture the spirit of the animal.

Stylistically they range from a rough Rodin like approach to an Art Deco design.

The first time I saw his work was at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, and I immediately fell in love with it.

Shere Khan crouches

2012-02-05T22:40:00.000-08:00

This post took a while to put together. As you know, creating pencil tests is time consuming, but when the result looks like this…who cares?!!

Before I get started, I had a great time at the Annies yesterday. It was good to talk to people I hadn't seen in a while. Thought the presentation was hysterical, congratulations to my fellow nominees and the winners.

Back to the tiger. Before I shot these copies I noticed that one image was missing, so I drew one inbetween to complete the scene. First of all, that took me forever. When you look at two tiger keys on your drawing desk, just try and figure out the subtle change in the stripes. Insane.

Whoever inbetweened Shere Khan (Dave Michener did some of it) deserves a medal!

Of Course Milt Kahl wouldn't tolerate the slightest inbetweening mistake.
Just look at how all those stripes define the subtle movement of skin over the body.

I have always loved this introduction to Shere Khan. His controlled, withheld power and strength are breathtaking. And the draughtsmanship is -as usual- awe inspiring as well as intimidating.

The movement of the tiger's shoulders in the second scene is sort of a cycle. Milt animated that move once, then timed it a couple of different ways, slow and a bit faster. That's the only time I have seen him do this. Careful trace backs of the parts of the body that don't move give the scene so much life. If you'd use a partial hold for that, it wouldn't look this great.

Without any further ado, here is some of the most amazing animation ever drawn!

Ollie's Three Fairies

2012-01-31T00:15:00.000-08:00

Frank and Ollie animated most of the personality scenes with the Three Fairies in "Sleeping Beauty".

Ollie said that originally Walt wanted them to have the same personality, like Donald Duck's nephews.

"That wouldn't have been too much fun", Ollie remembered, "so Frank and I suggested they'd have different personalities".

And the picture is much richer because of the contrast between the three. But it goes to show you that Walt took his top animators suggestions seriously.

Here are three rough animation set ups, it's just that these beautiful drawings by Ollie aren't that rough. But then again everybody drew a bit cleaner on "Sleeping Beauty" in order to control the sophisticated design concepts.

The first image, which was drawn on there different levels, shows them reacting to Maleficent in the opening sequence of the movie.

In the second one Flora and Fauna push Merryweather forward and encourage her to grant her wish for the princess, which might counter Maleficent's spell. They are on one level here.

In the third set up, drawn on there sheets, we see the fairies in a sorrowful mood after Aurora left in frustration, when told "she is never to see that young man again".

Even though the designs are graphic, I see a great sense for perspective and depth here. When dealing with three characters in one scene clear staging and composition is so important.

Ollie loved animating these three ladies, and it shows in his drawings and in his animation.

The Pongo Muzzle Issue

2012-01-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

Story artist Bill Peet boarded all of "101 Dalmatians" by himself.

He had definite ideas about the construction and flow of the story, but Bill also had strong opinions for what the characters should look like on the screen.

Ever since "Song of the South" (which Peet also boarded) it had been established that Milt Kahl would take a look at Bill Peet's story drawings, and from there he would polish the look of the characters for animation.

Most often this process worked swimmingly. Peet provided the overall concept, and Kahl refined it with outstanding design and draughtsmanship.

Yet when it came to finding the final design for Pongo both artist found themselves butting heads.

Milt had finished a few drawings showing Pongo next to Perdita, but Bill Peet was not impressed. "Pongo's muzzle is too large, that doesn't look like a Dalmatian, that's a Great Dane" he argued. I am sure Milt responded with a few angry choice words, defending Pongo's muzzle size to better contrast Perdita's.

In the end though Milt gave in and adjusted his design.

I wonder if Walt himself helped to settle the matter.

Bill Peet

Bill Peet Milt Kahl

Milt Kahl

One of my favorite scenes with Pongo shows the final design.

Dalmatians

2012-01-27T00:59:00.000-08:00

It is always interesting to see what kind of research was done before classic Disney characters were finalized.

All these drawings were made before animation began on "101 Dalmatians".

(Yes, you guessed it, this is post #101).

The animators were familiar with the anatomy of a variety of dogs. "Lady and the Tramp" had been produced just a few years before "Dalmatians".

So here four of the supervising animators sketch and find out what is unique about a dalmatian (other than the obvious spots). Some of these poses were drawn from dogs that were brought to the studio, others from live action film footage.

You can identify different drawing styles and approaches to anatomy.

Marc Davis is the only artist who did not work on any scenes with the dogs. As you know he ended up animating Cruella de Vil, every single scene of that character.

Ollie Johnston

Frank Thomas

Marc Davis

Milt Kahl

Post #100, Old Portfolio Stuff

2012-01-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

100 posts, how times fly.

It feels like I just started blogging, a sign that I am having fun, I guess.

I want to clarify a couple of things:

I do apologize for not having accepted any invitations to join some of you on a variety of social networks. Absolutely nothing personal, but I just don't have the time right now. Maybe in the future some time.

Also, just because I showcase the work of Disney's great animators as well as some of my own stuff from time to time does not mean that I put my work on to their level. These guys were in a class by themselves, and that's that!

But since a lot of you are students and probably grew up with some of the films

I worked on, having the occasional "Behind the Scenes" post and talking about those movies might be of interest to some of you.

For the classical Disney animation purist, rest assured, there will be plenty more

"Nine Old Men" gold coming this way.

I selected these drawings from my Disney application portfolio.

They date back to 1978/79.

Life drawings, animal sketches, motion studies from Super-8 film and cartoon experiments, where I tried out different styles. (Second to the last)

I keep hearing my life drawing teacher from way back saying: " If you get too confident with your drawing, try sketching with your other hand (to keep learning)."

That sounded funny at first, but it makes sense. What he meant was: don't show off with what you think you know, keep observing and improving instead.

I think if you know how to draw well, you own something treasured. It shows that you put quality time into observing and trying to understand things.

And it doesn't matter if you are a pencil animator or if you work in CG, good drawing will help you to visualize so much better, and you will be ahead of the game.

In other words, you will know a bad pose from a good one. You will be able to say:

this hand looks awful, but that one looks great. And combined with your acting sensibilities: this is entertaining, that isn't!

This journey to become a good draughtsman is a lot of fun, but of course you never arrive. Hopefully you'll just keep on learning.

My five cents worth of wisdom for the day, here are a bunch of oooold drawings.

Berlioz

2012-01-21T19:54:00.000-08:00

Here again are a couple of character doodle sheets. They explore ideas for entertaining poses and situations as the kitten Berlioz from "The Aristocats"

plays the piano.

The first sheet is by Ken Anderson, the second one by Milt Kahl.

Ken is drawing the character with a Beethoven hairdo, Milt did not incorporate that idea. Neither did he animate any of those scenes for the film, perhaps at one point he was was supposed to.

I love all of these drawings. Ken seems to have endless ideas for this situation, and Milt gives Berlioz a lot of appeal by maintaining a cuddly softness in his anatomy.

Marc Davis "Song of the South" Doodles

2012-01-20T00:44:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of sheets showing design and personality explorations by Marc Davis for Brer Fox and Brer Bear.

Marc is defining the overall structure of these anthropomorphic animals. At the same time he is thinking about shapes that are character specific and entertaining.

My favorite is the doodle of the fox's head on the upper left. The way the hat sits on the head, and you only see the nose and some cheek hair. Yet it's already a personality. Brilliant stuff!

The final two images are copies of Marc's animation roughs for the fox.

Jungle Girl

2012-01-17T20:13:00.000-08:00

As story artist Floyd Norman can testify, finding a proper ending for "The Jungle Book" proved very difficult for the crew.

They had created all these entertaining sequences full of rich characters, but how do you wrap it all up? How DOES Mowgli end up at the man village?

Finally, in a meeting Walt Disney himself suggested that a young girl would lure Mowgli away from the jungle toward the village.

Guess what, the animators hated the idea. Milt Kahl blurred out: "Yeah, and we'll call it 'The Lure of the Tame' "!

"Walt was NOT amused", Milt recalled years later in an interview "He just gave me a look."

Even Ollie Johnston thought, this would be a tacked on ending. Nevertheless he ended up with the assignment of animating the sequence. "The more I thought about it, the more I liked it" Ollie said.

The challenge for this situation was to find the right balance between innocence and sexy for the two characters. They are both still very young, and this needed to be handled very carefully, or the sequence would be laughable.

Of course Ollie was the perfect choice to animate it, the end result feels genuine and sincere.

The first color sketches are by Ken Anderson and Vance Gerry, the second one seems to be inspired by painter Paul Gauguin.

These are more specific character sketches by Ken Anderson. You can compare them directly to the following more nuanced versions by Milt Kahl.

I am completely in awe of those drawings, there is an absolute beauty and charm

to them. Milt just had a way of creating the ultimate appeal for Disney characters.
Disney's Michaelangelo? You bet!

This blue animation rough by Ollie shows that he was able to utilize beautifully what Milt had prepared for him.

The last sketch by Ken Anderson suggests a somewhat different tone for the final sequence in "The Jungle Book".

Gaston Pencil Tests

2012-01-12T23:10:00.000-08:00

Since "Beauty & the Beast" is going to hit theaters again this weekend, this time in 3D, I thought it might be interesting to show you a few pencil tests of my character Gaston.

He was challenging as far as animation assignments are concerned, because

Jeffrey Katzenberg insisted that this villain needed to be handsome. He was right, of course, because the overall theme of the film was: Don't judge a book by its cover. So, Gaston had to be good looking, but we find out he is not only full of himself, he is also a murderer.

There were scenes where I used live action reference, in other shots I acted out the motion myself.

This character was a "toughie" because he had to be handled with realism.

I sure wished I could do certain scenes over again, but for all its worth, here is a selection of Gaston rough pencil animation.

Image quality is not the best because the source material comes from very old tapes.

By the way, if you do plan on seeing "Beauty & the Beast" in a theater, be sure to stay for the end credits. You will see some of the animators rough drawings transformed into three dimensions. Very cool.

Ronald Searle

2012-01-10T00:26:00.000-08:00

By now many of you have probably read obituaries for British illustrator Ronald Searle, who passed away late last year.

All I can add here are a few masterpieces which I acquired over the years.

Come to think of it, Searle's work has always been an important inspiration to me.

And because he was so prolific, there is much to admire.

The connection to Disney Animation is apparent to everybody with an eye for design and caricature. As you see in the photo, Searle visited Disney Studios

(in 1957), where he spent time with Walt and the animators. It was Ward Kimball

with whom he stayed in touch with over the years. Kimball kept a large framed Searle drawing, depicting a very old Mickey Mouse, in his living room. It was a gift.

Searle's graphic influence can be seen in Disney short films like "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom", "Pigs is Pigs" and others.

The feature "101 Dalmatians" looks like it was art directed by Searle. Ken Anderson sure knew how to apply the Searle style to that film. To this day "101 Dalmatians" remains the most visually gutsy, most modern and avant-gard looking Disney feature.

Chief character designer and animator Milt Kahl admired Searle as well. Both artists were true masters of the line. From Madame Mim to Madame Medusa,

there are visual influences. I wonder if Milt had ever seen the Searle illustration of Lucille Ball for TV Guide from 1966, when he designed Medusa a few years later.

Conceptually there are parallels, the wild orange hair, big eyes, arms and legs like sticks etc.

I don't think there is any doubt here that Milt studied and re-interpreted this Searle book illustration for the character of George Hautecourt from "The Aristocats".

Ronald Searle was a giant in the graphic arts, and wether he knew it or not, he helped modernize popular animation.

An Autograph but no Drawing from Milt Kahl

2012-01-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

One time during the early eighties when I met up with Milt Kahl in San Francisco, I asked him for a sketch of one of his characters. He felt a little uncomfortable with my request, on one hand he knew that I would very much appreciate it, on the other he thought that he wasn't up to his old drawing standards anymore.

Since I had brought a couple of stills showing Shere Khan (I had made these prints from pieces of actual 35mm film), he looked at them and said:

"Yeah, these are good, these are good poses."

Milt then went on to sign one image, as you can see below.
Just look at the stylized anatomy of the tiger, still takes my breath away.

Brenda E. Spender

2012-01-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

I have a couple of books illustrated by Brenda E. Spender, the following images are from "Important People" from 1930.

Her work has a special charm. She observes situations beautifully and her draughtsmanship is tops . Very inspiring!

The sketches look old fashioned , but in the best sense of the word. There is an honesty here, which of course is timeless. She would have made a great animator, her poses are full of character, like good animation key drawings.

I really don't know anything about her life, other than that she most likely was English, because this first edition was published in London.

Maybe some one knows about Brenda E. Spender and can educate us.

I remember Frank and Ollie using her work in one of their lectures as an example

of what to strive for when creating strong animation poses.

Staging Pongo and Perdita

2012-01-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

Just returned from A New Year's weekend at Walt Disney World in Orlando.

The parks were packed, but it was still a lot of fun to spend time there.

It sure brought back memories from when I worked at Disney's Florida Animation Studio on "Lilo & Stitch".

Time for another post:

These are staging ideas for a scene animated by Frank Thomas for "101 Dalmatians". Here Pongo is trying to give Perdita some hope that the Twilight Bark

might help find their stolen puppies. It's interesting to see that Frank is analyzing

the direction of movement and feeling through arrows, he even comes up with an abstract doodle on the last sheet, that seems to say: connect these two characters !

That last drawing shows a physical connection as well as a strong emotional touch.
Just compare it to the middle one, what an improvement!
First Frank thinks of the placement of the characters, then he adds real emotion.

As I said before, great staging is not easy. The audience often has only seconds to register what the animator is trying to say. But when the staging communicates like here, the scene becomes a warmhearted story telling statement.

Frank Thomas' Squirrels

2011-12-27T23:39:00.000-08:00

Let's stay with "Sword in the Stone" for a moment.

Juan Alfonso asked to see some squirrel sketches from this film, so here they are.

Frank Thomas was very fond of the squirrel sequence, and after he had passed away this section from the film was shown at his memorial.

It is a bitter sweat moment in the movie, when the girl squirrel falls in love with somebody who turns out to be a human. After she flirts with Wart as a squirrel, her disappointment is so devastating when she finds out he is a human. It breaks your heart.

This kind of emotional material is what Frank handled so well, in many films.

By contrast, one day I was surprised to see Frank in his back yard squirting water

at some squirrels, they apparently were causing a big mess behind his house.

I gave him a hard time about it.

Bill Peet storyboarded this sequence, and with Frank's acting it became another animated masterpiece.

The Sword in the Stone Christmas

2011-12-23T23:26:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to everybody who celebrates this holiday.

I have always liked this photo of Walt Disney presenting "The Sword in the Stone" at Christmas time.

It would be interesting to find out if this was only a photo shoot or maybe a filmed introduction to the movie.

In any case, this gives me the opportunity to show you a few more beautiful sketches by Milt Kahl for the film. As you might know "The Sword in the Stone" was one of Milt's favorite projects he worked on. He admitted there were some story issues that didn't get resolved, but he thought that the richness of the characters more than made up for that flaw.

He also mentioned that the reason for its lack of success was the fact that it was released in 1963 as a double feature with "The Three Stooges".

Happy New Year to everyone!

Tigger Pencil Test

2011-12-21T01:33:00.000-08:00

I am absolutely thrilled to be nominated for an Annie Award for my work on Tigger in the feature film "Winnie the Pooh".

It was intimidating and challenging at the same time to do this character, who was originally created by "you know who".

Last weekend I had the pleasure to spend time with Milt Kahl's daughter Sybil, and I had to tell her: Can you believe I got a nomination with your dad's character?!

Here is one of two pencil tests I did to apply for Tigger. The scene is a little too busy with excitementI, but he is talking about firecrackers. I hope the directors Don Hall and Steve Anderson know how happy I was to have gotten this assignment. Both guys were just great to work with.

"Gosh, Pluto..."

2011-12-18T20:54:00.000-08:00

I got this beautiful Fred Moore drawing at a recent auction, and I love it.

It's from the short "Society Dog Show" 1939. Mickey and Pluto are pretty cartoony

characters, but in this sketch their sad attitudes feel so honest and real.

Can anybody come up with a more uplifting caption for it than:

"Gosh Pluto, whatever happened to pencil animation?"

Let me know.

What's My Crime?

2011-12-16T00:39:00.000-08:00

Remember the great TV parody sequence in "101 Dalmatians" called "What's My Crime?" ?

Even if you have never seen the American TV show "What's My Line", which the animated version is based on, the humor and satire are so strong and enjoyable to watch, way past the 1960ies.

Here are are a few character design sketches by Milt Kahl, no doubt based on story drawings by Bill Peet. They show one of the questioners Miss Birdwell and the Quizmaster himself.

I can't ever get enough of Milt's graphic abstractions, such as the Quizmaster's hands, fingers interlocked, forming the shape of a bridge or something like that.

Some of you might recognize a drawing influence of Ronald Searle, who's work affected animated projects from many studios in those days.

Early Mama Odie

2011-12-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

When designing a new character, it is entirely possible to get off to a false start.

And that's no big deal, as long as you haven't fallen in love with your first attempt.

I almost did this with Mama Odie, before we started production on "Princess & the Frog".

The directors Ron Clements and John Musker had given me some ideas about her character and her role in the film. And they were great :

Mama Odie is 197 years old, she is blind and has a seeing eye snake.

Her home is a boat that got stuck in a tree after a storm.

She is the one who can help the lead characters to return to their human form.

These are sketches I made right after the briefing. It was fun to get started on such an eccentric character, and after a while drawing her became easy and very enjoyable. I got to a point where I thought, this might be the character.

When I showed these sketches to Ron and John, their response was positive, but they pointed out a few things I had missed.

At an age of 197 there had to be a way to show bony limbs, she needed dark glasses (I had avoided them in fear of not being able to show emotional change) and she should be a lot shorter. So I visited our story guys Paul Briggs and Toby Shelton, who were working on Mama Odie sequences. Their story sketches showed an older looking character with a twisted sense of homor. I liked how they drew her, and I was able to use that concept for the final design.

Teamwork!

Penny and Rufus

2011-12-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

Ollie Johnston did a lot of work on "The Rescuers".

The mice Bernard and Bianca were developed by him and Frank Thomas.

Most key personality scenes of characters like Orville, the albatross, as well as Rufus the cat and Penny were animated by Ollie.

Part of the reason for this big amount of footage was that he didn't over analyze.

Ollie had a gut idea about who his characters were and how they felt in each scene. And he really did kind of fall in love with them after some initial research.

These are development sketches that were done before animation began.

Ollie captured the loneliness of a young orphan very well, by exploring specific

sentimental attitudes and poses.

As far as Rufus is concerned, John Canemaker is right, that character ended up being a self portrait.

I love these realistic studies of a cat, the way form and shape of ears are thoroughly analyzed. The sketch of the cat scratching it's head is amazing.

During the few years before Ollie's passing 2008 I tried to visit him at his home in Flintridge as often as I could. Even though it had gotten difficult for him to talk, he did welcome company and was grateful to people stopping by and spending time with him. Occasionally I took friends or students with me on these visits to liven up the conversation and to offer a little stimulation.

Ollie repeatedly mentioned how lucky he felt to have had that kind of a career at Disney, and to have lived that kind of life. He said he was at the right place at the right time.

Photo by Mark Kirkland

Bambi Book Layouts

2011-12-08T19:19:00.000-08:00

For those of you who like the movie "Bambi", here is a real treat.

Years ago when I purchased these illustrations, Frank Thomas told me that they were done by him, Milt Kahl and Ollie. These supervising animators for the character of Bambi drew them with the idea in mind that they serve as visual guides for other illustrators who would do book illustrations. At that time production of the movie was finished.

I remembered right away that I used to own one of those Bambi books when I was a kid. Recently I found another copy of it on Ebay.

The final book illustrations are quite nice......but the animators' roughs are just incredible. Charming, elegant and full of life.

It's a little hard to say who drew which sketch, since they helped each other out by drawing over the other one's layout.

But I am pretty sure that the first few are by Frank and the last ones by Milt.

Frank said he had a little bit of trouble with the staging of Bambi's mother in this

sketch. He felt her body looked too blocky and stiff. He said: "So I asked Milt for help, and within moments he came up with this beautiful, much simpler pose for the mother." But it's the way Frank remembered this episode, with a sort of "I hate him for that" expression on his face. Of course meant in good fun.

I heard from some people who find Bambi's story a bit slow, personally I think it's one of the most beautiful films ever made. To quote Richard Williams: "The way these cartoon deer are handled in animation with realism, believability and dignity is miraculous."

Happy Birthday, Walt!

2011-12-05T13:59:00.000-08:00

Today is Walt Disney's 110th birthday.

This man not only changed the world of entertainment forever, he also changed many people's lives, mine included.

Google/Life-Images has a few wonderful photos of Walt and some of his artists.

Check out their site:

http://images.google.com/search?q=Walt+Disney+source:life&biw=1683&bih=903&sei=LjrdTsjzL-KxiQLB4JzJAw&tbm=isch

All photos are ©LIFE.

Peter and the Wolf

2011-12-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

I have always loved this short film from the feature "Make Mine Music".

You put the music of Sergei Prokofiev and the animation by Disney together, and of course you end up with something special. Originally planned without narration, it was Walt who asked to get Sterling Holloway to tell the story.

The animation is top notch and the background styling is stunning.

Several great animators had their hands on this film, and it is interesting to compare these design sketches and staging drawings.

This is an early model sheet of Peter, courtesy of Joe Grant's model department,

followed by the final clean up sheet, based on animation by Ollie Johnston.

The next few images are by Milt Kahl, who actually didn't do any animation for this short. But as so often he helped out with design and drawing issues, in this case for scenes by Ollie Johnston. The sketch with Grandpa mimicking the wolf is kind of scary, Ollie did not take it this far in his animation.

The wolf foreshadows the one from "Sword in the Stone", both characters were designed by Milt and animated by John Lounsbery.

Milt's early version of Peter.

Ward Kimball took a crack at it and came up with these. Any resemblance to the young Pecos Bill?

These are Ollie's drawings, I find those proportions the most appealing.

Layout and compositional studies by Milt. The last image is Ollie's.

When I look at this cel set up, I see beautifully painted snow, but it also reminds me of sweet whipped cream. You just want to take a bite out of it!

Mickey

2011-12-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

I had the opportunity and the honor to animate Mickey Mouse on a number of occasions. In "Who framed Roger Rabbit" it was Dale Baer who handled most scenes for Mickey's cameo, but I did a few as well. A couple years later in 1990 the studio produced "The Prince and the Pauper", and I got the chance to animate a few key sequences.

To tell you the truth, it was intimidating to get started on such an iconic character.

I have always loved Mickey Mouse shorts, but since the character's look changed over the years, which design should we apply for this new featurette?

After studying just about all of his classic films, we agreed that the most charming looking Mickey was from the period of the late 1930ies to early 1940ies.

Time to go back to the archives and study Fred Moore. It was so much fun

to find out, how Mickey's hands really work and how to do graphic cheats with his ears and nose.

The section I particularly enjoyed animating was when Mickey and the Prince meet for the first time. They both have the same design, but the acting needed to be specific to each character. Mickey is humble and shy, the prince is confident and cocky.

I had discussed "The Brave Little Taylor" (probably my favorite Mickey short) with Frank Thomas, who admitted that Mickey's old concept for his eyes gave him trouble when animating certain acting scenes.

Still, those scenes in front of the King and Princess Minnie are animated GOLD.

The last Mickey short I worked on was "Runaway Brain" from 1995.

I can't shake the feeling that the world is truly waiting for a cool Mickey comeback, he's been away from the screen way too long, wouldn't it be nice.......

Hans Erni

2011-11-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

Did you ever wonder which artists Disney's animators admired ?

From the conversations I had with them, I can tell you that the range was pretty wide. They all knew about the lively drawings of Heinrich Kley, and they appreciated the realism in Norman Rockwell's work. Frank and Ollie liked Edgar Degas very much, Marc and Milt were big fans of Picasso.

During early visits in the 1980ies to their homes, I noticed that both animators, Marc and Milt kept a framed print by a Swiss artist on the wall.

That artist is Hans Erni, who turned 102 this year, and still draws and paints every day at his studio in Switzerland. His life work includes interpretations of classic themes as well as designs for postage stamps and posters.

When I look at his art, I see a drawing style that echoes the Renaissance.

Classically drawn figures within abstract environments. Marc Davis used this approach in some of his own fine art as well.

Here are a few examples of Erni's work, mostly from the 1950ies.

Horned King Pencil Test

2011-11-28T19:49:00.000-08:00

This test was the first piece of animation I did after completing the Disney training program under Eric Larson.

Just for fun I just added my voice to the scene. (30 years later).

Way back we had talked about the Horned King's face always being in the dark, you would only see his eyes. So for the test I didn't bother animating dialogue.

I didn't have a voice track anyway. I remember I acted the scene out in front of a mirror, it helped me with the foreshortening of his hand.

The bulk of the character's actual production scenes were animated by Phil Nibbelink.

For contrast I am showing a Tim Burton sketch of Taran and the pig Hen Wen....

brilliant!

Early "Black Cauldron"

2011-11-26T22:31:00.000-08:00

Here is a blast from the past.

I have been going through my old application portfolio for Disney, and I am taken back to around 1979. There are life drawings, animal sketches and attempts at character designs. (I will post some of that stuff soon.) But even then I was already drawing (potential) Disney characters. I knew the studio was gearing up to produce "The Black Cauldron", based on the books of Lloyd Alexander. So I bought the books, read them, loved them. I started to imagine what characters like Taran , Princess Eilonwy, the Horned King and the witches might look like.

I had a blast, because I had never done anything like this before.

Later, when I showed my design ideas to Disney, they liked them enough to photograph them and share them with other artists. I was flattered beyond belief.

So this is a small selection of a bunch of art I dreamed up for "Cauldron" before I started at the studio.

Animation's Most Beautiful Squirrel

2011-11-25T19:40:00.000-08:00

There are many great squirrel characters in the history of animation.

Tex Avery's hysterical Screwy Squirrel, Chuck Jones' charming squirrel from

"Much Ado about Nutting", and the list goes on.

To me the most beautiful and elegantly designed is the squirrel from "Sleeping Beauty". Based on rough character sketches done by Tom Oreb (first Image), it was Milt Kahl -again- who drew the final design and animated a few important personality scenes. The drawings below are actual animation keys, which were cut out and mounted on to this model sheet.

I purchased a single pose from it (the one on the top right) a few years ago. It had been separated from the sheet and then reproduced for Disney's "The Art of Animation" exhibit, which toured the world in 1959 to help promote the release of "Sleeping Beauty".

To my absolute delight, the original model sheet (minus that one drawing) was offered to me years later, and I was able to complete it again.

The animation of the character is charming with a lot of spunk. My favorite scene is when the squirrel reacts to Aurora's resignation, that the prince exists only in her dreams. Milt animated the most heartfelt, sympathetic sigh...it's adorable!

Yet when you study these drawings up close, you'll find out that they are much more than adorable. There is a graphic perfection, a conviction that this is the best and ONLY way to draw this squirrel. And yet it doesn't come across as cold, calculated precision.

On the contrary, these drawings are so alive because Milt thought about appeal,charm and personality when he was doing them.

A little character with a small role, but a high point in the career of Milt Kahl.

Madam Mim

2011-11-22T23:26:00.000-08:00

Of all Disney animated classics, "The Sword in the Stone" was the last one I saw way back, in a re release in theaters. I was already an art student by then and appreciated beautiful design and animation.

When Madam Mim appeared on the screen I was blown away. There is great sophistication in her design, and her acting is fresh and full of life.

Walt Disney assigned Milt Kahl and Frank Thomas to this character, knowing that if you combine their creative forces, nothing but great stuff would come out.

Milt had perfected the way he drew hands in his animated scenes. The fingertips are squared off, and the fingernails are placed with realistic perspective.

To give the design contrast, her body is kept short and chubby, her arms and legs are very thin and boney.

Both animators just loved working on Mim, and they agreed that there should have been more of her in the movie.

Milt's animation is full of inventive moves, like funky dance steps and hops. When Mim turns into a "beautiful" witch, her moves are almost risque.

Frank had a lot of fun with her dialogue scenes. His acting is eccentric, too, but it feels very believable and grounded.

Here is the first part of her intro in pencil test form.

These are a few of Milt's rough key drawings, beautiful and perfect.

Here you can see how Milt helped out with Mim drawings for a few Frank Thomas scenes. In doing this, graphic continuity was guaranteed.

These scans show you how Frank handled Madame Mim. His drawings are a mix of caricature, subtlety and realism. I have almost all rough drawings from this scene, where she comes up with her own rules for the Wizard's Duel (One of my all time favorites).

I will add a few missing inbetweens myself and show the whole pencil test at a future post.

A gorgeous cel set up from the opening scene.

Wart, Future King of England

2011-11-20T23:05:00.000-08:00

Just got back from CTN in Burbank. Had a great time, mingling with animation students and professionals. Kudos to Tina Price, she rocks for putting this expo together.

On a late Sunday night, here are images that show design ideas for Wart from

"Sword in the Stone". At the end of that film Wart is crowned to be the future king of England. As far as making this situation visually entertaining, several artists knew there could be fun in showing young Wart wearing a crown on his head that doesn't fit him. I am not sure who drew the first two sheets, the style reminds me of Bill Peet and Vance Gerry.

The following drawings are by Milt Kahl. I never quite understood why Milt 's only screen credit for character design was "Sword in the Stone". Considering all the design work he did for other movies, it seems like an oversight.

As you can see, Milt based his studies for an oversized crown for Wart on earlier

sketches. And this is typical for how he worked. He looked at drawings that had been done by other artists, and then he refined those ideas and polished them.

The last image was drawn for Ollie Johnston, who animated these final scenes in

the movie.

Disney team work in action.

Medusa, Woman of many Faces

2011-11-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

These are a few more of Milt Kahl's extraordinary roughs for Madame Medusa.

It's the range of expression that floors me. Look at the mouth shapes, they can be small, almost minimal, or wide...and I mean WIDE open.

Milt said in an interview:" I sometimes go very far with open mouth shapes, more than other animators. I guess, I am feeling something there...."

As a matter of fact, the mouth is open so wide, he almost breaks the jaw.

But....if you ever studied people's dialogue when they are in an extreme mood,

or singing (especially opera), you find out these extremes exist in real life.

Part of animating believable dialogue is to go this far OCCASIONALLY when a particular strong vowel calls for it.

A character says :"How are you?". Which of the three words is emphasized?

It could be either one. Listen to the track and decide . Go bigger on that one vowel.

If you have a big mouth shape on ALL three, your dialogue and acting will look

too broad, overdone and unnatural. On the other hand if you don't go broad once in a while, your animation will look bland and too understated.

All this stuff comes with experience and developing an opinion about when a piece of dialogue looks and FEELS right in animation.

Early "Jungle Book"

2011-11-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

Here are a few "Jungle Book" pre production images I want to share with you.

The first painting is a background study by Walt Peregoy. Walt had been in charge of color and some layouts for "101 Dalmatians" and "Sword in the Stone".

He brought a great sense of experimentation to these projects with unusual colors and strong graphic design.

By the time the style of "Jungle Book" was being developed, Walt Disney opted for a softer, more painterly look for the backgrounds. Peregoy disagreed with that approach and left the studio.

Personally I love the final art direction, but a jungle influenced by Peregoy's abstractions would have been stunning, too.

This is a simple Peregoy jungle backdrop with a character cel overlay.

The drawing is by Milt Kahl, and I love the rough quality in it.

Here we have another early Milt Kahl drawing, made into a painted cel. It's interesting to see that Milt drew black spots on Bagheera. I think it looks kind of cool as it reflects the appearance of a real black panther. But for economical and perhaps aesthetic reasons they were dropped in the final design.

As far as the background sketch, I am 90% sure it is the work of Vance Gerry.

In any case it's interesting to study these works in progress and to find out what kind of art was produced to get to the final result.

TS Sullivant 3

2011-11-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

Another selection of TS Sullivant illustrations from Life Magazine.

The beautiful balance between detail and simplification is something worth studying. Look at the lioness in the first image for example. Her face, hands and feet are drawn with realism, her upright body pose is effectively simple.

Everything reads very well. Lesson: Simplicity is best, add a few details to give the design some texture and focus.

The rhino in the next cartoon is pure joy, proportions and appeal to perfection.

Sullivant draws everything well, and with a sense of invention. Bunnies, tigers, monkeys, humans and even dinosaurs. Although the dialogue on that one makes you kind of sick, knowing what it refers to. Gotta love your animals...

On a different note, Milt Kahl's daughter Sybil has left a comment on the Madame Medusa post.
It's pretty funny, check it out!

Professor Ludwig von Drake

2011-11-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite Disney characters!

Milt Kahl came up with his final design in 1960, based on the classic Donald Duck formula. But by then Milt had studied Picasso, and that influence is visible in Ludwig von Drake and most other characters Milt designed in the sixties and seventies. There is an astonishing balance between pleasing shapes and lines.

I would think it isn't easy to put a suit jacket on to a cartoon duck body and make it look natural. If you look at the top left drawing on the model sheet, you see that it is tailored like a real jacket, folds and creases occur in the right places.

As usual Milt made sure that hands are drawn to perfection. The fingers retain a slight feathery feel and are very expressive.

Since his personality is that of a befuddled TV host, he does a lot of talking and explaining. Milt and the other animators who handled him often looked for props they could incorporate in Ludwig's acting. His glasses, a letter or a piece of chalk to write with.

Two of the best TV shows were ""An Adventure in Color" and "Kids is Kids", watch its opening sequence on the bottom of the post.

The first few scenes are by Milt, then Frank Thomas follows. I wonder if you can tell when the switch happens.

Ollie Johnston also did some very nice Ludwigs in other shows.

This is a design sheet, it looks like Milt is trying to figure out what an "O" mouth would look like on this beak.

Here is a drawing Milt did for a Frank Thomas scene.

A selection of beautiful rough key poses.

This sheet shows that Milt could draw Ludwig's head from tough angles and make it look fantastic.

And this was animation for television!!

Fritz Hug

2011-11-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

It's always fun to discover artists who know how to draw and paint animals well.

Fritz Hug is one of the best in my opinion. There is a sense of caricature in his work which brings out the essence of the animal. I love his looseness combined with anatomical accuracy.

A little while ago I purchased a few books featuring his work, and I have been looking through them regularly.

One thing is for sure, this man really loved animals.

Fritz Hug was born in 1921 in Dornach near Solothurn, Switzerland and spent part of his childhood in Java. His art studies took him to many different regions of Europe as well as to Africa. While in Africa in 1950-51 he worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer at the Lambarene Hospital in Gabon.

From 1967 until his death in 1989, Fritz Hug produced a number of works on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, showing endangered species of wild animals and birds.

Madame Medusa

2011-11-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

When Milt Kahl was asked in an interview if he had a favorite character he animated, his response was: "Oh I enjoyed a few, I just loved doing Madame Mim,

Shere Khan was a lot of fun, and so were the butler and old lawyer in 'Aristocats'.

But I guess I enjoyed Medusa more than any one of them."

And it shows. His last animation assignment at Disney -just like Marc Davis's- was a tour de force of character acting. It has a "I'm going to give it all" feel to it.

Marc told me that Milt promised him, Medusa will "wipe his Cruella off the screen".

Then he added with a chuckle: "Of course that didn't happen".

So there was definitely a friendly competition going on between these two great animators and their characters. Milt sort of designed Medusa's features opposite from Cruella's.

Cruella has a small nose, Medusa's is longer. Cruella's hair parts in the middle, Medusa's off to one side. Cruella has a pointy jaw, Medusa is almost chin less etc.

I have to admit, when I first saw Medusa in "The Rescuers" in a London theater,

I couldn't believe my eyes. So much inventiveness in her drawing and motion.

How on earth can you show an animated character removing her make up?

Wasn't that something only a live actress could pull off...but in animation? Incredible!

I have spent way too much time studying this character, on the other hand I think I got a lot out of it. Dialogue, graphic but dimensional drawing and just being gutsy in general.

These first few felt pen drawings are design studies, done before Milt started animation. They don't differ that much from the final look of Medusa.

These thumbnail sketches show Milt's brain at work, trying to figure out the best way for Medusa to put on her coat. Wonderful stuff!

A lot of these pencil roughs were drawings that Milt threw away, because he changed his mind about the drawing or the acting pattern.

But again, they show his thought process beautifully.

What a fantastic pose!! Unfortunately Medusa moves right through it, so you barely register it. It would have been nice to see it for four or six frames longer, before she rises up with the suitcase.

You just feel the physical pressure when Medusa tries to close the suitcase.

Lipstick half wiped off. What a great graphic statement!

Here are a few very loose roughs for the scene where Medusa uses a chair as a prop when approaching her dressing table. These are so full of character, and done without the help of live action reference. Takes your breath away!

Here are the final key drawings for that scene.

Medusa might not benefit from the kind of rich story material that Cruella had,

but she sure steels every scene she is in. A true animated masterpiece!

Cruella de Vil

2011-10-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

It's kind of fitting to have a post with Cruella de Vil on Halloween.

She is one of the best villains in film history, and she is Marc Davis's final animation assignment at Disney. I asked Marc way back: "How could you leave animation after having done such a strong statement with Cruella?"

He just said:"It was time to move on, and Disneyland gave me many new challenges."

I still wonder though how Marc might have influenced films like "Sword in the Stone" or "Jungle Book" if he had stayed in the animation department.

I put together some great pre production art, that shows the development of Cruella. Milt Kahl once told me that he thought Marc would do fantastic drawings right from the start, when designing a new character. He himself would have to struggle and draw a lot of bad stuff before finding what he wanted.

These early drawings still show an influence by the "101 Dalmatians" book illustrations. Those were done by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone.

Original book illustration

Eventually Marc found his own distinctive style for continued development.

He experimented with different hair styles and fur coat designs.

This is a key drawing from an experimental scene.

Character actress Mary Wicks provided live action reference for Cruella.

These are keys from a production scene, where Cruella throws a bottle with booze into a fireplace in an effort to scare Jasper and Horace. As it turns out she scares herself quite a bit, too.

Look at how graphic and gutsy Marc draws her in this scene. Some of those faces are completely crazy, insane and wonderful!

He once told me: "Maybe I went a bit too far with Cruella's caricature, she kind of stands out from the rest of the cast." I immediately responded: "No way, perhaps

the other animators should have shown more "Avant Garde" in their design."

The color model cel Marc is holding in the photo.

Cruella de Vil is a creation for the ages. Color stylist Walt Peregoy said: "There

will never be a character like Cruella!"

I say, let's admire and look at her as a challenge to match. All we need is top story material like Bill Peet's, a way out character design with animation that is rooted in realistic observation.

Oh yes, and -to quote Milt- the determination to have super high standards.

A Couple more Character Panels

2011-10-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

I won't have any new posts for one week. I will be on the Disney Wonder cruise ship, where I'll give a few talks on Disney animation.

In the meantime here are a couple more character panels.

Among personal favorites would be the pre production drawing of Wart. He looks more caricatured here than he does in the movie. I really like this version of him, and I had the chance to ask Milt Kahl about this early design. He said, Walt made me change it, he thought it wasn't appealing enough.

Hmmmm.... personally I prefer this drawing of Wart, it just has more character and personality in my opinion.

I also like the Marc Davis drawing of Aurora next to him. The angle of her head would be very difficult to pull off, but she looks beautiful here.

Across the page is a funny drawing of Pongo and Roger. They are reacting to the news of all those newborn puppies, and their expressions make them both look alike.

Pecos Bill on Widowmaker is by Ward Kimball, who must have had a ball doing this character.

I don't know who drew the centaur for "Fantasia", but I sure like the boldness in this pose.

I'll be back in a week with development art for Cruella de Vil and Madame Medusa.

Woolie Reitherman

2011-10-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

I only knew Woolie Reitherman a little bit during the early eighties, when he was still at Disney. I remember him working with Mel Shaw on ideas for a couple of animated features. One was called "The little Broomstick", based on a book by Mary Stewart. I thought the story was utterly charming, and Mel's pastel sketches for the film were incredible.

The other project was "Musicana", a sort of follow up to "Fantasia". It used some classical music for its story segments, but there was also World music from all over the globe. I had the chance to see a slide presentation of Mel's artwork which was synchronized to music. It was sensational. Unfortunately both projects were dropped after Disney changed management.

The first time I met Woolie I thought I was looking at John Wayne.

He told me that he saw my application portfolio and that he liked the work in it.

When I asked him to sign my copy of "The Illusion of Life" he wrote:

To Andreas - Carry on! Take animation a step farther - Woolie

Those are mighty big words, I thought. But that should be the goal, shouldn't it?

Woolie said he was born in Munich, and I thought it was cool to have that German background in common. He also invited me to come to his house for dinner sometime, whenever I wanted.

Unfortunately I never had the nerve or courage to ask him....darn it !!

Woolie died in a car accident on May 22, 1985.

His career at Disney is legendary. His first feature assignment was he Magic Mirror for "Snow White". He did super dramatic animation like Monstro in "Pinocchio", and the dinosaur battle in "Fantasia". But he could equally well handle funny and sweet characters like Timothy Mouse in "Dumbo". After animating a whole bunch of great Goofy shorts Woolie started to specialize in exciting action sequences.

During an Academy tribute to his work in the early eighties, his chase with Ichabod and the Headless Horseman was screened. Afterwards he turned to the audience and said

"You know, this stuff is holding up pretty good after all these years".

And it still does, might I add!

I want you to take a look at one of his earlier efforts, Gus Goose in "Donald's Cousin Gus" from 1939. I just love this character.

The animation has great comedy, awesome timing and fantastic WEIGHT.

It is fun to study, whether you are doing 2D or CG animation. Weight is always a big issue, as you know.

Woolie also did the dog fight in "Lady & Tramp" and the dragon fight in "Sleeping Beauty".

After that he turned to directing. He co directed "101 Dalmatians" and was the single director on all animated features up until "The Rescuers".

So how can I not love Woolie Reitherman....the guy directed "Jungle Book"!!!

Hidden in the Crowd

2011-10-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

A while ago I re watched a sequence from "Rescuers", it was the section where Bernard and Bianca are at the airport on their way to find Orville.

The human crowd scenes are not particularly well drawn or animated here, but all of a sudden I noticed a young couple moving up the escalator. It was just one held drawing, yet those two were drawn exceptionally well.

I knew this was a Milt Kahl drawing, but what was it doing here amongst all the other human characters, who were handled by a lesser animator?

This is what I think probably happened:

Milt saw the scene in a sweatbox screening and "objected" to the original drawing of the couple. So he re drew them....beautifully!

It is a solid illustration, done with a lot of care. Both seem lost in their own thoughts, probably thinking about the flight ahead. I just love the way her right hand holds on to his arm, it's sooo nicely staged.

Her whole figure looks simple and elegant, with the weight on her right leg. And look at how heavy her hand bag feels.

His pose is equally balanced, the body weight is on his left leg. There is a nice feeling of thick fabric for his jacket and thin fabric for his pants.

I could go on....

Yep, I do love Milt Kahl drawings, and I know you do, too.

Milt Kahl Crowd Scenes

2011-10-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody, I'm back in town.

I have one more short trip coming up next week, other than that new posts will appear regularly again.

In August I posted a few Milt Kahl key drawings from two scenes that were cut from "The Rescuers". They showed an audience watching the performance of a bear at a zoo. The whole sequence never made it into the film.

I do wonder why Milt ended up animating these scenes, which I would consider

of secondary importance as far as top character animation for the movie.

My guess is that Medusa wasn't ready yet for production.

And I remember Dave Michener, one of Milt's assistants, telling me that occasionally, when a film had to get finished toward the end of production Milt animated minor characters or crowd scenes, just to help out.

And he didn't mind at all.

What I love about these scenes is how clearly they are choreographed and synchronized. Milt sure knows when NOT to move a character, or parts of a character, because your eye will always go to whatever IS moving in the scene.

The path of the purchased soda bottle is easy to follow, and of course it ends unexpectedly.

I get a big kick out finding Kahl animation that you didn't know existed. It leaves you with a feeling that the old master is still around and just finished his latest animation.

A big thank you to David Kuhn who sent me the files of the scenes.

In case you are wondering if there will be any posts on Madame Medusa coming up, the answer is YES !!

Two Weeks Break

2011-10-03T00:31:00.000-07:00

I won't have a new post for the next two weeks. I am off to Vienna to give a talk at

the Pixel Animation Conference. Feel free to leave comments on any post you'd like, I will be checking them.

When I get back I will have some very cool material for you, pencil tests as well as artwork.

Like the guy on public radio over here says: "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

African Cats

2011-10-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

Early this year I was asked by my buddy Don Hahn, if I would be interested in being the featured artist for the DisneyNature film "African Cats". I didn't quite know what that meant at first.

So, this is what it meant:

Producing wildlife illustrations, inspired by the film, which would be showcased and offered for sale within an exhibition at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood, when the film opened.

The proceeds would go to the African Wildlife Foundation to help save the big cats.

Sounded like a fun challenge to me, and it did turn out to be a great experience.

I received a rough cut DVD of "African Cats", and started to look for specific scenes that intrigued me. Well...where to start...! This movie is magnificent.

The story follows a family of lions as well as cheetahs, and you are hooked from the first few scenes on. Among favorite moments of mine are one scene where the old lion Fang challenges a crocodile. Another sequence shows a cheetah mother deterring male lions from the hiding place of her cubs. You'll hold your breath, I guarantee.

Amazing photography, mesmerizing storytelling. (Don had a lot to do with that, and he helped with the final edit, too).

This film really picks up from where Walt Disney left off with his "True Life Adventures".

"African Cats" was filmed by BBC camera men, the guys who did "Planet Earth"

(which is a series I could watch once a week!)

The movie comes out on DVD/Bluray this week in the US, it will be shown in theaters internationally in a few months.

Below is a selection of my artwork, inspired by DisneyNature's "African Cats".

Prince John

2011-09-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

Prince John as a tiger?

Milt Kahl considered this for the villain from "Robin Hood" at least momentarily,

as you can see in some of these early design sketches.

But his brother King Richard "The Lion Hearted" obviously had to be portrayed as a lion, so the tiger idea was dropped.

Ollie Johnston of course animated this character. I remember Ollie talking often how much he enjoyed animating Prince John (as well as Sir Hiss), and he thought that Peter Ustinov for his voice was just great.

Here is a funny story Ollie told me about Milt Kahl and the issue of screen credit for "Robin Hood":

" Milt liked what I was doing with Prince John, he was very complementary about my animation. One morning he came into my office and said that I should get top billing this time within the "Directing Animators" credits. Milt usually got that honor,

because he designed all the characters. Milt was going to talk to management that afternoon. So I said OK thanks, and almost forgot about it. The next morning Milt stormed back into my office, this time with an agitated attitude. 'You know, I am the character designer around here and do all this extra work. I should get top billing on this film.'

I just said, that's fine by me, Milt, no problem. I later found out that he had discussed the credit issue with his wife the night before, and she wasn't too happy about it."

There you have it, 1970ies politics at Disney.

That being said, I find all of these drawings just beautiful!

Tinker Bell

2011-09-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a little gallery of Tinker Bell roughs by Marc Davis. A few scans are from originals, others from photographic reproductions.

I really enjoy studying some of these doodle sheets, where Marc is figuring out the character's structure and is dealing with drawing issues. Then again some of the scribbles look more like telephone doodles.

He is definitely establishing that the top of Tink's head is a straight line and the back of her head is a curve. The combination of those two helps to make the drawing look solid.

To me Tinker Bell is perfection. Her character arc in the story is very strong. Because of her affection for Peter Pan she is jealous of Wendy, which gets her into trouble. But toward the end of the film she saves Peter's life as well as the other kids.

Her animation throughout is flawless. Occasionally based on live action reference,

Marc animated her beautifully. She always feels like a small figure, but the acting has great range and subtlety.

Marc said he really enjoyed the challenge of a mute character, where pantomime

is the name of the game.

Early Yzma

2011-09-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

The animated movie "The Emperor's New Groove" used to have a different title.

The original version was called "Kingdom in the Sun".

I was thrilled at that time to get the assignment of designing and animating the female villain in the film, Yzma.

And I loved her main motivation in the story. Yzma was extremely vain, she wanted her youth back under any circumstance. So she made a deal with a dark spirit who had been locked up inside a mountain. If she could set him free, he in return would give her back her youth.

What a simple and wonderful premise.

The one and only Eartha Kitt agreed to do the voice of Yzma.

I was in animation heaven !!

Just closing my eyes I could see and imagine the character. A sultry, seductive and power hungry diva. These early sketches suggest that kind of a direction for her personality, and I enjoyed exploring this type of Yzma very much.

I remember buying a few fashion magazines to get inspired by some of those super model poses. For life drawing class we hired a skinny model, but instead of drawing the life poses, I translated what I saw into Yzma.

You see some of those sketches at the bottom of this post.

Then things changed. The overall story treatment wasn't working as far as the studio was concerned. Everything was put on hold, and a brand new story line was developed. Eventually I moved over to the production of "Lilo and Stitch".

In "The Emperor's New Groove" Yzma became more of a comic villain, my friend Dale Baer took over the character, and he did a great job!