Strong Silhouette...or not?

I am sure most of you know about the value and importance of a strong silhouette

when it comes to key poses.

Some of the old Disney masters said that your silhouette should give the audience an idea about the character's overall mood, and that it also might reveal the business and the acting.

The first two examples prove that point very clearly, the last two are somewhat of an exception in this regard.

Milt Kahl animated these scenes, and as usual they are worth a closer look.

Pecos Bill and Widowmaker show a very clear silhouette. Everything points outward, it's almost like an explosion. The emotion here is definitely exuberance.

This scene with Tramp interacting with the beaver also reads very clearly.

The staging connects the characters beautifully. Tramp leans forward and his paw pushes on the beaver's belly. There is just enough negative space between the two so that both poses are easy to recognize in silhouette.

Here we have a case of staging where the main business happens within the character's silhouette, not out in the open at all.

Robin Hood is wiggling his finger through a shot hole in his hat. So why does this read so well after all?

Milt made sure that your eye goes right to that subtle motion, look at the arrows.

And then the importance of  color. Robin's brown finger is moving in front of the WHITE  part of his fur.

It becomes a silhouette within a silhouette. 

Check out the frame grab below.

One of the great scenes in Disney animation.

But you couldn't tell from Medusa's silhouette what's going on here.

Again, the important subtle action of the false eyelash being pulled is staged within the main shape.

But to me there seem to be a hundred lines pointing at her left eye area.

No matter which part of the drawing you start looking at, your eye will end up at the stretched eyelash. The bend of every finger, the folds in her towel, even the shape of her lips help the viewer to focus on this one  particular part of the drawing. 

Of course all this looks so simple, but it took a lot of artistic brain power that made results like these possible.

Follow the Trail

This is a scene with Jafar on his horse, which  I animated early on during production.

I remember being a little apprehensive getting started, this was the first time I animated a horse in a Disney film. As far as Jafar, I had only done a handful of scenes with him prior to this one. So I was still trying to work out drawing issues.

It is sort of an action scene, and you can see that my drawings look pretty rough, especially the blue under drawing. But the graphite lines gave my clean up assistant Kathy Bailey enough information in terms of what I wanted the characters to look like.

As far as the action, it was clear to me as what needed to happen.

The horse is spooked by the bright light, it rises up, at that time Jafar says his line and points forward, and off they go screen right.

There were quite a few things to track, overlap wise. The horse's mane and Jafar's sleeves and cape. I messed with the whole thing for a little while, as you can see in the erased areas and the re pegging on some sheets.

Nevertheless I had fun animating this scene. It was painted dark for the final version, because the sequence takes place at night. Probably for the better, any drawing issues disappear in darkness.

These are most of the rough key drawings from the scene.

PS. I just noticed after all these years, the first few frames were CUT from the scene! WELL....

TS Sullivant 2

Here are a few more Sullivant masterpieces.

As you know I just can't get enough of him, so I'll be posting more of his cartoons once in a while.

The first one showing some kind of interaction between a pig and a rooster is pure joy to look at. I don't have the caption for it, the illustration comes from an auction catalogue. I was bidding on this piece, but it went for a ton of money and I was outbid.

The contrast between these two is what makes this so entertaining. The pig has the shape of a sausage, the rooster is drawn with brilliantly caricatured anatomy.

But his proportions are totally unusual. Who wouldn't emphasize a rooster's tail?

Sullivant instead enlarges his head, neck and legs. 

What fantastic staging with the goat and the pig. Realistic anatomy again, look at how the goat's pants cover his legs. That's not a human leg, that's a goat's leg!

So cool!

I won't comment on all of them, but the "Board of Arbitration" has so much going on, it's worth stydying in detail. I love the lion pulling the giraffe's head. It's a cartoon lion, but look at the power.

Noah and his wife caught in a dispute is hilarious. And the hippo's drool, what a nice touch.

The last piece shows again how unconventionally Sullivant approaches his animal caricatures. Who in the world would think about drawing a bear with a large chest and small hips? Doesn't the "cartoon law" say it should be the other way around?

Amazing!

Aristocats

Disney animator/director Art Stevens told me once :" You never asked for changes in a Milt Kahl scene, because it was always perfect."

I myself do know about a few corrections and scene cuts that even Milt had to endure, although most likely that didn't happen very often.

Look at the pencil animation of this sequence where Duchess meets O'Malley for the first time. There are a few fascinating aspects to it.

Milt had set the desgin of the characters, and he also animated the opening scenes here, Ollie did the second half. You can see that Milt's version of O'Malley is much leaner than Ollie's, and yes, there were arguments about how to draw this character.

Ollie told me that during production of "The Aristocats" Milt took a vacation to Europe. Even being away from the studio for a while, O'Malley's model was still on Milt's mind. So he sent Ollie a postcard almost every day, reminding him that the character is not to be drawn too fat. "Can you believe that?" goes Ollie.

When I look at Milt's version, I can sure see a "Shere Khan hangover". 

The expressions in his eyes and the jaw overbite for example.

The acting seems a little busy, the close up scenes don't quite have the feeling that the situation calls for. O'Malley is trying to charm Duchess, but his head moves in ways that is a little distracting. 

Milt's scene of Duchess clapping her paws was later redrawn, the hair on her cheeks is longer and has more overlap. I was told that Milt never noticed when this change was made. 

As  O'Malley talks about her eyes, her close up was replaced by a different looking Duchess.

In the long shot O'Malley opens his arm when he talks about bright sparkles.

Perhaps Woolie thought that this gesture looked too human, because it was cut in the final version.

I do like the stripes on O'Malley, but I can see that they had to go for economical reasons.

It's so interesting to compare the two versions of the same sequence, and to find out that Art Stevens wasn't completely right on this one.

This is an example for how Milt used a Ken Anderson sketch as inspiration for his character designs.

One day Ollie found this drawing on his desk with a note of Milt's disapproval of how he was drawing O'Malley.

Paul Jouve

Paul Jouve was a French painter, sculptor and animal artist.

I first noticed his work while browsing through clip files at the Disney Studio library many years ago. But there were only a few samples of some of his animal art.

There seemed to be no major publication on his life's work until 2005.

When I found out about it I immediately ordered it from France. 

The book is titled "Paul Jouve, Peintre, Sculpteur, Animalier" , written by Felix Marcilhac, published by Les Editions de l'Amateur.

Well, an amateur Paul Jouve was not.  He lived from 1878-1973.

He developed his distinctive, powerful style during the 1920ies, when Art Deco was a main artistic trend.

When I first  saw these  drawings and paintings of big cats I almost screamed:

"Where were you when I worked on Lion King???!!"

So much grace, beauty and power in these images. The cats are stunningly stylized, their anatomy simplified and their poses have such elegance to them. 

I believe, had I known his work more before or during production of The Lion King, it would have had an influence on my animation of Scar.

Oh well....

By the way, Jouve depicted all kinds of animals during his long career. He did stunning illustrations for an edition of Kipling's "Jungle Book".

© Les Editions de l'Amateur