Sargent

I have been meaning for a while to talk about American artist John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). There is a new exhibition currently at the MET in New York called "Sargent and Paris". He lived there from 1874 - 1884. Sargent is one of the most important American artists. Yet...his work has often been criticized as being too commercial with a painting technique to impress. He took portrait commissions from the rich and famous. And he was gay, too.

Be that as it may, Sargent's art introduced impressionism based on solid realism with a sense for experimentation. I am definitely a big admirer.

Probably my favorite Sargent painting "Smoke of Ambergris". What an unusual gesture for the woman to catch the perfumed smoke. Gorgeous!

Early Yzma II

The last time I posted some of my early Yzma designs was in 2011. I had a blast exploring the possibilities for this character. I was trying for 100% Eartha Kitt. Sultry, sensuous, vain, with a hunger for her lost youth. A total diva. Dale Baer did a fabulous job when he took over the character. But it goes to show you that in traditional animation you will get a very different result depending on who the animator is.

Here is another sketch from my batch of experimental designs for Yzma.

 

The earlier post with more drawings is here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/09/early-yzma.html

Lilo Roughs

After seeing a few of my first pass Lilo rough animation drawings online, someone asked me, why some of them look clean while others are drawn in a sketchy way.

The answer is simple. Every time I am dealing with slow, subtle movements there is no need to draw in a rough manner. Very little motion comes into play, and the key drawings are very close to each other graphically. The first image is an example of this. 

Whenever Lilo is excited, and she is gesturing a lot, I feel the need to explore those broader movements in a loose, more exploratory way. Here there are more things to figure out, like fast arm gestures, quick angle changes on her head etc. 

Also the fact that faster motion requires more key drawings leads me to draw quicker in order to get all those keys done. And it is easier to feel the character's emotion that way. 

It's funny when I look today at the way I drew Lilo's hands. Way back I had studied art from the European Rococo period. Lots of cherubs in those paintings. Subconsciously I gave Lilo those hands.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijzgYsQqTjg7dfrpG9qo3l2E1-H788ipFKOONckTGaEt6Z0t3GSUEc2bcdNdIaS4CSFqV19ztatGODVTNe-x61-zi1IHSccnOqazdfJBkXLiHnV0-UAXdvrkeCvaOxQVBaZKGwUCGu4GvW/s1600/ADRPB.jpeg

Clean or rough, after my first pass it was always important to add detail in graphite, in order to give as much information as possible to the clean up artist.  

Cinderella Storyboard Sketches

I love Joe Rinaldi's story sketches.  Much like his colleague Bill Peet, on top of his superb storytelling he worked out camera angles, staging, terrific character poses and expressions as well as color mood. As I said before, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish Rinaldi's sketches from Peet's. The drawings are deceivingly simple, the main idea for each sketch is boiled down to its essence. Everything reads instantly, which makes for excellent communication while watching the film in story board form. 

All sketches are from recent Heritage Auctions.

AnimAID needs your Help

By now most of you probably heard about AnimAID, an Animation Art Auction through Sotheby's whose proceeds will go directly to members of the LA  Animation community who lost their homes during the wild fires earlier this year. THEY NEED OUR HELP!

Check out the hundreds of lots, featuring drawings, cels, concept art as well as tours of Pixar, Skywalker, Dreamworks and Disney Studios. Here is your chance to own a piece of animation history or visit a world famous Animation Studio.

This cel set up from Roger Rabbit is being offered. I animated the scene, but it does not come from my collection.

 

This Jafar rough animation drawing does come from my collection. It is from the Cave of Wonders sequence. 

Here is the link to Sotheby's/AnimAID:

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/animaid-the-art-of-animation?lotFilter=AllLots

Note: More lots will be added soon. Such as a Fred Moore Centaurette design sketch as well as one of my King Triton roughs, when he argues with Ariel. 

Geraldine Page inspires Medusa

At Disney each time animators started exploring a new character assignment, it became very useful to do some research on the character's voice actor. Before animating Scar I looked at photos and watched film sequences with Jeremy Irons. You never know if you might find interesting expressions or gestures that could influence and benefit your animated performance. 

I am certain that Milt Kahl did the same when he started animating Madame Medusa in The Rescuers. Milt mentioned that he had observed Geraldine Page for a little while during her voice recordings at the studio. I imagine that photos of the actress were available to him for further study. Of course I have no idea if Milt was inspired by these press photos shown here from previous films....but I wonder.

Here is a link to a previous post on Geraldine Page:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/09/geraldine-page-is-madame-medusa.html

The Magic of Xerox

I was thrilled last week to be given the opportunity to revisit Disney's original Xerox "machine" in the old Ink & Paint Department on the Disney Studio Lot. This thing STILL WORKS, after all these decades.

Ub Iwerks had developed this "two room" contraption in 1959 in order to reproduce animators' drawings straight onto cels. The costly process of inking cels was eliminated. From then on Disney characters appeared with black outlines. Walt Disney was not happy originally with this new look, but when 101 Dalmatians was such a box office smash, Walt eventually accepted this new aesthetic.

The current Ink & Paint Disney department is very small. There is no need for production cels anymore, but special cels are still being painted for Disney employees. 

Here is a link to a previous post on Disney's xerox:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/05/xerox.html

Two Ladies by Iwao Takamoto

When the film Sleeping Beauty followed Lady and the Tramp in 1959, audiences were in for a surprise. All of a sudden the styling, for both backgrouds and characters, had become flat and graphic. Sleeping Beauty looked like a Renaissance painting come to life, while Lady and the Tramp had a Norman Rockwell feel to it. Quite a few animators needed to learn how to draw "flat", but keep the movements dimensional. Not an easy thing to do. For animators with superior draughtsmanship like Marc Davis and Milt Kahl this became a fairly easy task. 

What about the key clean up assistants? One of them, Iwao Takamoto, made the switch just as easily. It is fascinating to compare these two drawings by Iwao. His clean up study of Lady looks like a  sculpture. Round, dimensional forms that had been so typical for Disney's animation style. Aurora on the other hand looks like a beautifully designed paper cut out. 

I don't know about you, but I love BOTH styles. 

 

Here are links to earlier posts on Iwao Takamoto:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/01/iwao-takamoto.html

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2016/03/why-this-scene-looks-so-amazing.html

Marc Davis, Jungle Cruise

Some of you might not be aware that in 2019 Disney published a two book edition called: Marc Davis In His Own Words: Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks. By Pete Docter and Christopher Merrit.

Each volume has 750 pages. Combined they seem to show everything that Marc Davis ever drew for Imagineering. Absolutely incredible!! 

After 101 Dalmatians Marc's (and Ken Anderson's) proposed animated project Chanticleer got cancelled in favor of The Sword in the Stone. Marc was crushed since he had produced a lot of stunning artwork for Chanticleer. 

So Walt Disney offered Marc a brand new challenge away from Animation. According to him, Walt needed someone with his talent to add storytelling and humor to new as well as existing rides at Disneyland. And the rest is history. Milt Kahl was NOT happy to see Marc leave the Animation department, and when a few years later Walt asked Ken Anderson to help out at the park as well, Milt had a "spirited" conversation with the boss about draining the animation talent pool. Ken ended up doing some work for Imagineering, but in the end he remained full time with Animation.

Here are just a few samples of Marc's gorgeous work (scanned from the book) for the Jungle Cruise, which originally opened in 1955. But this attraction really came to life when Marc got involved later. 

Get these two books at Amazon, if you want to study staging, solid drawing with flair, character development and much more:

https://www.amazon.com/Marc-Davis-His-Own-Words/dp/1484755758/ref=sr_1_1?crid=T8XTO5EUBWPU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.moOirCEaEfu8C3KJlrX-vfn53e6-aH4BLhEZ1z0DvWiaLkk79FuqDRwI3bVQsB4sOX6d4TuUWezKVJ_v4bNLIpUv867MDi58DpQT59DRZhifJ4IfEdLWx-tr_ZDvylhy.PPAkxlvczKrjBgn5kykIQzbliMJUjdby7IgwSTBNCfc&dib_tag=se&keywords=marc+davis+in+his+own+words&qid=1744610578&sprefix=marc+davis%2Caps%2C204&sr=8-1