Mike Peraza

My multi-talented friend Mike Peraza created this beautiful poster design. I just love it. Check out Mike's blog:

http://michaelperaza.blogspot.com

One of Milt Kahl's last Drawings

Just a few days ago I found out that this little gem of a drawing was offered at Heritage's Comic Strip auction, which took place in January. It was sold for just about nothing (or an "apple and and an egg", like we say in Germany). I truly believe that the amount would have been 10 to 20 times larger, had the sketch been offered at one of their Animation Art auctions.

This of course is a Milt Kahl drawing, done for a fan on his last day at Disney, on April 30, 1976.

I think Milt spent most of that day doing sketches like this one. Many of them featuring Madame Medusa, his final character for the studio. 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0F1GCPq5lYQ/TfHn-c5NS4I/AAAAAAAAAEE/Yie0e93ujwc/s1600/MK-14.jpg

PS. I re-read this lot's description, which says that this is a signed print.
Now I wonder where the original might be...

Why isn't he finished yet...

 ...because our team is relatively small, and it takes time to maintain quality. We were thinking earlier this year, if  everybody gives it an extra push, perhaps we could finish the project by the end of this year. But this would mean compromising here and there in order to get it done. That's not going to happen. So we will go into next year with the hope and intention to finish by mid-year.

To be honest. there were times when I thought, what't wrong with a seven minutes format?
The fact is, I need 25 minutes to tell this particular story.
And we are making progress, with five sequences in final color very soon.

The scene above shows Sarah after she arrives in Eastern Russia. She is sent upstairs to her "room".
The camera follows her as she walks across her new home. She trips, then runs into a spider web before arriving by the window on screen left, where she opens her suitcase.

Milt & Roger Miller

Great behind the scenes photo of Milt Kahl and Roger Miller, the voice of Allan-a-Dale, the rooster from Disney's 1973 film Robin Hood. As far as character designs, this is one of my favorites. This character needed to be depicted in some kind of period costume. How do you do that with a rooster?
Milt did have some experience with clothing on poultry, having designed and animated Ludwig von Drake in the early 1960s.
For an extensive post on Allan-a-Dale from 2011 go here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/09/allan-dale.html

Geppetto Head Studies

I should have put in a bid on these two sheets that were just up for auction. I was busy animating and forgot about S/R's animation art auction. Most of you know that Art Babbit animated the character of Geppetto in Pinocchio, but I believe these drawings are by Fred Moore.  

What do you think?

A Family Affair

The opening night for the Nine Old Men exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco was magical. Most of the Nine's families showed up, and to talk to them while visiting the various galleries...what can I say, once in a lifetime.
Wherever you are in the world, if you can afford it, come to SF to see this exhibit. It is the largest the museum has ever mounted. I was planing to take a ton of photos, but ended up talking to family members instead.

Here are three generations of the Kahl family. Milt, Sibyl, his daughter and Zoe, his great-granddaughter, who did inherit Milt's artistic talent (she is super creative, winning awards in all kinds of art competitions).

Go see this show!

Happy Mothers' Day

This unconventional mother-son relationship represents one of Disney's most heartwarming short stories (Lambert the Sheepish Lion). This is a basically a Bill Peet story, even though Ralph Wright and Milt Banta also received story credit. The film was released in 1952 and it stands out among other Disney short subjects produced during the 1950s. It holds up because it fits in with today's modern diverse families.
Such a beautiful message.
A couple of top notch animators, Eric Larson and John Lounsbery supervised the animation, while Milt Kahl helped with character designs:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5PBPOKiyiSQ/TfQFmbWsAoI/AAAAAAAAAEo/_dgpURLSDIk/s1600/MK_L_1.jpg

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