Ollie Johnston

Almost everybody who knew Ollie Johnston wanted to adopt him as their grandfather. He was kind and patient with everybody who wanted to talk to him.

But make no mistake, when asked for his opinion about drawing, animation or filmmaking, he would tell you very honestly and clearly what he didn't like about it,.....but still in his nice friendly voice.

I made a habit of always asking Ollie as well as his esteemed colleagues what they thought about any animated films I had worked on (then I  mentally ran for cover).

Ollie and Frank particularly liked "The Little Mermaid", they had a problem with a scene from "The Lionking", when young Simba sits by Mufasa's dead body.

"We wouldn't have done that" I remember Ollie saying. "Remember Bambi? We never showed the dead body of his mother."  I silently disagreed with them on this point, I think these moments in both films work very well as they are.

Their criticism didn't go into animation that much, more often it was about character development and story. Or things like we overused the camera in "Rescuers down under", and "Roger Rabbit"  really wasn't their cup of tea.  Animated characters banned to live in a Toontown ghetto?  Oh no!!

Once in a rare while you would get a compliment on your work, which was brought up in passing. I remember Ollie, Frank and Marc Davis kind of liking Jafar. When I heard those words I thought, I am so going to run home, write this down and frame it!  And call Mom and Dad, and my old art teacher and.........

Well, I didn't write it down, but it felt awfully good for a while.

And before I forget, Milt Kahl did tell me that he enjoyed "Great Mouse Detective" very much.

Back to Ollie. As you can see in the drawings below, Ollie put a lot of love into his animation. "When I was doing Pinocchio" he told me once "I thought of the character being real, a living person, not a drawing." I know that's how he felt about all of his characters.

Sometimes Ollie supervised a character along with other animators.

Pinocchio and Bambi with Frank and Milt. Alice with Marc and Milt. Other times he gave knock out solo performances like Smee, Baloo or Prince John and Sir Hiss.

Have a great weekend everybody and enjoy this Ollie Johnston gallery.

(More pencil tests to come later....I promise).

Lilo

This is a model sheet I made up after I finished work on "Lilo & Stitch".

During production I created the usual construction and turn around sheets,

but didn't have the time to do a board with xeroxed rough animation drawings from selected scenes until later.

Putting them together like this gives you an idea about consistency in drawing and character.

I enjoyed animating Lilo very much. She and the other characters were designed 

by Chris Sanders, so the supervising animators just needed to adapt to this

unusual and charming design style.

Before animation began I had the chance to join the directors and a few other artists to visit Hawaii on a research trip. We tried to connect with a local school, but didn't know if I would be allowed to join class and draw the kids.

Our Hawaiian tour guide knocked at the school's door and after a teacher appeared he explained that our purpose was to do some research for a new Disney animated feature set on Hawaii.  By then a couple more adults and a few kids had appeared by the half open door to see what was going on. 

We knew that the locals are very proud and  protective of their old language and culture. And they all gave us a skeptical look.

Then a little girl asked quietly : "Did you work on the Little Mermaid?".

I nodded....and all of a sudden all the other kids yelled "YEEEESSSS !"

That broke the ice and we were in.

Below are a few pages from my sketchbook from that day. I was trying to capture as much child like behavior as possible, while observing them  in class or watching them play.

They were a lot of fun and so enthusiastic.

It got a little emotional for me toward the end, when the kids all sat down and sang a few Hawaiian songs for me. The enthusiasm and joy in their voices was something else.

That was not just another day doing research for a film, that was truly special.

I''ll never forget that day.

Heinrich Kley

To begin with, just a little announcement.

From now on I will have a new post about every other day, 3-4 times a week.

This will give some of you the chance to absorb the material a bit slower, and 

I will be able to catch my breath. (Do I hear complaints...?)

I scanned a few of my Heinrich Kley originals, some of the better ones though 

are currently on loan to a Kley exhibition in Hannover, Germany.

I saw this exhibit earlier this year when it was in Munich.

If any of you are near Hannover, go...no, run to check it out. 

The show is absolutely amazing, it closes on August 21.

There are two Kley sketchbooks that are a must have.

"The Drawings of Heinrich Kley" and "More Drawings of Heinrich Kley".

Some art supply stores still carry them, also you can always find them on Ebay.

The exhibit's catalogue is pretty nifty, too.

To me, Kley was doing with illustration what Walt was doing with animation.

Making impossible characters and situations look completely plausible and believable.

If elephants could ice-scate, it would look like Kley drew them.

If centaurs existed they would move like in Kley's sketches, and so on.

Joe Grant and I exchanged xeroxes of Kley drawings and drooled over them.

It was Joe himself, who brought Kley's work to Walt's attention as inspiration for

"Fantasia".

More on him later.

I want to thank you guys for your interest in this blog.

Over 60.000 pageviews in less than two weeks...not shabby at all !

T. S. Sullivant

Ok...switching gears here for a moment.

I am nuts about T.S. Sullivant.  At the Disney Studio way back the book library had a clip file with small reproductions of his cartoons. That's where I first saw his work.

Since then I had the chance to purchase a few originals (they are pretty big, about

22x16 inches), and I own a good size collection of Judge and Life magazines

from the early 1900s. That's where and when Sullivant published most of his work.

He is in a class by himself ! Nobody caricatures animals and people like him.

He surprises you with completely unique ideas for proportions and exaggeration.

And it's all based on an insane knowledge of anatomy.

Sullivant  influenced Disney, Walt Kelly, Bakshi and many others.

He lived from 1854 - 1926.

Feast your eyes and be inspired !