Ken O'Connor Flowers

More beautiful art by Ken O'Connor available currently at Heritage Auctions. It is about time to give LOTS of credit to Ken for his immense artistic contributions to Disney animated films, which are ALL classics now. I've had the pleasure of having a couple of conversations with this soft spoken Aussie. 

Here are some of his designs for the flowers in Alice in Wonderland. Giving personalities to animated people or anthropomorphic animals is one thing. But flowers? What a challenge. 

Ken also worked out business involving Alice and the flowers. BRILLIANT!

Rose from My Peoples

Earlier I posted my character designs for the character of Rose. She was the female lead in the unproduced animated feature My Peoples. At the time actress Ashley Judd was the voice, and I had fun doing some test animation. 

Here Rose is sitting in front of a mirror as she says her lines. I don't remember exactly what the dialogue was, but she is talking to her aunt (off stage), about not being able to go to an event..."and look at my hair!"

This was animated without live action reference. Maybe somebody can turn these key drawings into a pencil test. The timing for each drawing should be maintained. 

Wilfred Jackson

 

When I came across some of these photos showing Disney director Wilfred Jackson as he is acting out those powerful scenes for the character of Chernabog, I was amazed.

Skinny Jackson, the live action model, helping animator Bill Tytla visualize the scariest and most powerful Disney character ever? 

That's what happened. Once Tytla studied these poses, he had enough inspiration -and talent as well-  to take it to the next level. The action Jackson provided was all there, but a lot of drama needed to be added as far as perspective, anatomy and....those enormous bat wings of course.

Milt Kahl 1964

French journalist/screenwriter/presenter Pierre Tchernia visited Disney Studios in December of 1964 to film artists and personnel as they talked about current Disney productions.

At the beginning of the documentary Tchernia knocks on the office door of Milt Kahl (several times) in order to demonstrate the various moods you might find an animator in. 

I grabbed a few frames showing Milt acting out those moods: Anger, Friendliness and Fatigue.

Milt's daughter Sybil sure got a kick out of this when I forwarded her the footage. "It sure shows his eccentric personality".

Here is the Facebook link to the footage:

https://fb.watch/Duu98kwejO/?mibextid=wwXIfr&fs=e

 

Ken O'Connor

These photostats and sketches are by Disney layout artist/art director extraordinaire Ken O'Connor for The Dance of the Hours sequence from Fantasia. 

Here he is planing character movement within the scenery. There are photos of actual miniature stage sets for the animated alligators, hippos, ostriches and elephants. 

The man in the photo is T.Hee, who co-directed this masterpiece along with Norm Ferguson.

Drawings and prints are currently available at Heritage Auctions.

A cel set up from one of their earlier auctions.

Animation Roughs

A few of my "left over" animation rough drawings I donated to a charity auction a while back.

 

Film Museum Frankfurt

During my recent travels through Germany I stopped by Frankfurt to visit the local Film Museum. This is a great place to find out about German as well as international film history. Next time you transfer flights at the Frankfurt airport, spend a little time in the city and visit this beautiful museum. 

 

They have a small section on animation with a few pieces of Disney Art. I was pleasantly surprised to see a gorgeous rough animation drawing of Tinker Bell by Marc Davis. 

Here is the link to the museum:  https://www.dff.film/en/