Painting Milt Kahl Cels

 

Many years ago, after I had started at Disney, I toured the studio's Ink & Paint department. At that time here was still a large group of artists who painted cels for productions like The Black Cauldron and Mickey's Christmas Carol. 

I remember talking to a painter who was busy adding paint to a scene of mine featuring Taran and Eilonwy. My scene had been cleaned up very tightly, and the lines on the cels were very thin.

I wanted to know what it had been like a few years earlier, painting cels for scenes by Milt Kahl.

As many of you know, Milt's drawings were often left alone, and the xeroxed cels maintained the sketchy quality of his rough drawings, which he was very proud of. That's why during those "Xerox Years" Milt's animation had that loose line quality on the screen. 

The painter let me in on a little secret:

First she said that Milt's cels were a bit more challenging to paint because a determination had to be made as to which of the multiple lines was the one to paint to. "You just use your judgement" she said.

She recalled an incident regarding one Milt scene with Robin Hood. (It might have been the scene shown in the first image.) 

That finished scene in color on film had been viewed by director Woolie Reitherman. Woolie then asked for the cels to be altered and re-photographed, because to him the linework looked to rough when seen in motion. He feared that some audiences might be bothered by this.

Woolie went to this painter in the Ink & Paint department and asked that she'd use a q-tip and with some alcohol remove some of the loose xerox construction lines from all of the cels. Basically clean them up.

Woolie added, but don't tell Milt!

Of course my question was: So DID Milt notice later that some of his line work was missing?

NO, was the answer. He never noticed.

Here are a few more cels that show Milt's rough lines.