Ronald Searle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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..."

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?

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.