Allan-A-Dale

The rooster has such a small part in "Robin Hood", but to me his few scenes are very memorable. His character design and acting are outstanding.

Milt Kahl again created a totally believable and appealing character.

When you think about the assignment here for a moment,  it would be very difficult to pull this one off:  A rooster, who acts as a narrater, he is dressed in medieval clothes and he plays the mandolin with his wing feathers.

But as with the character of Lady Kluck (another sensational design) Milt has a way with feathers that are articulated as hands.

Frank Thomas also animated Allen at the opening of the film where he is walking on top of the text in the book. The interesting thing is that Frank's walk differs slightly from Milt's, in that the toes hit the ground first. Milt uses the back of the foot to make ground contact. Both walks are great, and only geeks like me would notice the difference.

Here Milt takes a skeptical look at some of his character designs. He is showing them to Roger Miller, who voiced  Allen-a-Dale. Miller also wrote three songs for the movie.

Following are a whole bunch of thumbnail sketches Milt did for the opening scenes.

"Exploring all the possibilities" is what Milt called this phase of planning out a scene.

Wonderful, almost exuberant explorations !

I  have always thought that Milt got a head start from Marc Davis' design of the rooster Chanticleer from a film that was never produced.

More on that project in a future post.

These are actual rough animation poses by Mit Kahl. 

As you can see there is a little anatomical license going on here.

Sometimes the leg's middle joint is used as a human like knee, other times it functions as a realistic bird's heel. Very cool cheating!

The final colors on the character are stunning, I love his pink eyes.

Girl & Tiger

This is a preproduction sketch for a project I am working on at the moment.

The main characters will be a Siberian tiger and a Russian girl. I originally set the story in India, but for varies reasons I changed my mind.

The girl will be younger than the one pictured here, and a Siberian tiger is much bulkier than this one. But stylistically I am striving for something along "these lines".

Rough animation with hints of color, either done with color pencils or with a CG watercolor look. Of course there will be layouts, but the line work should be reduced to an essence.

My friend Myka is helping me with story development, and maybe because he has no studio experience, his ideas are fresh and exciting.

At the moment I am in the middle of a test scene, once I finish it to my liking,

I will post it on this blog.

Robin Hood Double Bounces

I know that "Robin Hood" is not on everybody's favorite list of Disney features,

but there are many things I really like about this film, including this double bounce walk of the title character.

This type of walk was used more frequently during the thirties and forties.

It seems like every classic character did it, and Mickey Mouse himself double bounced quite often. As Disney characters became more realistic and graphic looking, this walk can be seen less and less.

What happens technically is that with every step the body goes up and down twice, instead of once. It communicates that the character is happy and sort of silly.

This is the first close up of Robin Hood in the film. 

Milt Kahl wanted to establish his carefree, happy go lucky personality here,

and it works beautifully. Taking a closer look at the xeroxed drawings, you will see that Milt worked hard at this scene. The positions of arms and legs are erased and redrawn many times, but the final movement is utterly natural.

Did I mention I love this scene?

Having just finished the pencil test, I have to say it takes my breath away all over again!  Here is a fox walking on two legs, and it looks completely believable.

It's pure magic. 

What isn't so magical is the way this scene hooks up with the scenes around it.

Those were animated by John Lounsbery, and they are good as well.

But Louns animated Robin in a standard walk, and the third scene doesn't hook up smoothly with Milt's either. 

I guess the guys weren't communicating with each other, what they were going to do.

More on the development of characters from "Robin Hood" later.

Two more Character Panels

I have a few more of these character collages left, so here are a couple new ones.

Most of the drawings are by Milt Kahl, but not all.

Captain Hook is of course by Frank Thomas. I like this drawing so much, years ago I turned it into a wire sculpture and gave it to Frank for his birthday.

He also drew the Gouchito and the donkey. That little short has some of Frank's best animation.

The stepsisters are by Ollie, and the debate goes on, whether they were handled too broadly next to the stepmother and Cinderella. The drawing sure looks beautiful, though.

That's a John Sibley Goofy, he did some of the best stuff with that character.

(The short "Olympic Champ" is a knock out.)

Norm Ferguson drew this Gideon, a rich pantomime character.

I believe this Donald, who is part of a model sheet, is by Milt Neil. It almost looks like a Kahl drawing.

Highlights on the second sheet are the Preston Blair hippo, the Fred Moore Mickey and the Kimball Jiminy Cricket.

Prince Phillip is from an experimental scene, the design looks a little different.

I will have a separate post on this model change later.

You can see in the drawing of the king from "Cinderella" how Milt started to push his straight lines in order to simplify and solidify his designs.

That's even more evident in the stunning key drawing of Merlin holding Archimedes. The contrast in shapes is so much fun. His thin feet and then the huge, baggy sleeves.

All these would make beautiful wall paper!

Happy Birthday, Fred Moore!

Today Sept. 7, 2011 marks the 100th birthday of Disney animation genius Fred Moore. So let's celebrate and have a toast to Fred, whose beautiful work touched most of us in a big way. His natural, uncomplicated way of drawing and animating will be an inspiration for generations to come. And when it comes to appeal, everybody can still learn from Fred Moore.

I tried to pull together some of his drawings that most likely you haven't seen before.

There is a great Happy Birthday illustration with a self portrait.

The sketch of Mickey shows how much he made the character his own. The proportions, the action and the charm are wonderful.

Any drawings of the dwarfs show how confident Fred had gotten as an animator,

and how much he loved animating.

I don't know what the layout with the two kids was done for, a propaganda short or a poster? 

The poses of Jose Carioca and Panchito are from from an unproduced short.

Loose and so full of life.

The key drawings of the girl telephone operator ("Casey bats again" 1954) indicate how Fred handled the slow change into a somewhat graphic animation style at Disney.

Of course I had to add a few beautiful Freddie girls, they were popular then, and they are popular now.

The partial exposure sheet is for a scene from "The Three Caballeros" which was cut from the film. But it's fun to look at a real Moore X-sheet!

Fred influenced animation and its aesthetics in a profound way, and I know that my childhood was so much happier because of that.

Happy birthday, Fred!

Tim Burton

I am not entirely sure who drew this caricature of Tim, but it most likely is a Glen Keane sketch.

After I passed the training program at Disney in 1980 I was asked to help out with character designs for the upcoming production of "The Black Cauldron."

"The Fox and the Hound" was still being finished by the animation crew, and there was a need to come up with visuals for the next feature.  Producer Joe Hale told me."There is this other young guy who draws in his own unique style, maybe the two of you can come up with a new look for Disney".

That other guy turned out to be Tim Burton, and I moved into a nice roomy office with him. 

Tim's stuff was amazing, and it seemed odd that I was asked to "disneyfy" it.

But I did try to go over his drawings, and each time I altered them to make them look closer to the Disney conventional style, I noticed that the essence of Tim's designs got lost. Tim went over some of my drawings as well, but the whole thing became somewhat frustrating.

Nevertheless the two of us got along well, we just found ourselves in this strange

predicament.

I remember one time Tim told me he was going to take a class in children's book illustration. One of his assignments was "Fun with Numbers", and he showed me what he had come up with. I told him how funny they were, and he gave me some of the out takes. Over time I ended up with a few other gag drawings or illustrations, Tim didn't have use for.

In the end the studio decided not to use his ideas and concepts, and understandably Tim moved on. He started producing stop motion as well as live action films which all reflected his artistic vision, (as you all know.)

I had lost touch with him over the decades until last March, when I visited the set of his upcoming stop motion feature "Frankenweenie" in London. Tim happened to be around and he gave me a warm welcome. We reminisced briefly about our year together, and then he said the funniest thing: "You know, I just had a dream about you and me being back in that Disney office." I replied: "I hope it wasn't a nightmare."

And by the way..."Frankenweenie" is going to be fantastic!!