Hercules

Barry Johnson, a very talented story artist who I worked with on a few projects, posted this partial rough model sheet on his blog recently. I had forgotten about it, but it reminded me to do a post on Hercules.

I animated adult Hercules in the movie, and the assignment was a shift from my previous characters Gaston, Jafar and Scar, all villains. I wanted to do a different character concept this time around, so I asked if I could do the title character. 

Even though the film's cast was going to be inspired by the graphic style of British artist Gerald Scarfe, I knew that Hercules needed to be animated subtly and convincingly.

As a matter of fact, Gerald Scarfe drew him in a very exaggerated way and told me:" I just don't draw Hercules the way he needs to look in the movie."

Still, a very cool sketch.

Eventually Gerald and I got together to discuss design issues. All the other units had pretty much finalized their characters, and it was time to nail the appearance of Hercules.

So we both talked and doodled at the same time until we quickly came up with this sketch.

The main idea was to go back to images of Greek sculptures, athletes or Gods, and incorporate some of the facial features into our design.

Still looking for the right shapes and forms.

Thumbnail sketches for my first production scene. Herc has just offered Meg a ride on Pegasus, and confirms that the horse wouldn't mind. Then from up above an apple hits Herc on the head.

These sketches were made in front of a TV set, I was studying life action reference by actor Robert Gant, who gave me great ideas for acting.

More thumbnails for a scene, late in the film. Megara has died, and Hercules rushes into frame and in disbelief picks up her body.

A couple scenes later he lowers Meg slowly to the ground.

These poses are my first rough pass, the last image is tied down. Animator Ken Duncan, who supervised Meg, helped me to keep her drawing on model.

Turn around sheets in clean up and rough form. As you can see, there is quite a bit of line mileage on this character.

A color model sheet.

I have to say I really enjoyed animating Hercules. Tate Donavon's great voice performance had a mix of innocence and awkwardness, but also bravery. After a few scenes under my belt Herc also became a lot of fun to draw. The design was stylized, but he needed to move with weight and subtlety. There are plenty of scenes I'd like to do over again, but I look back with fond memories of how much fun we all had creating these characters.

By the way, initially I was asked to animate the villain Hades. At that time he was thought of as a Jack Nicholson type.
I am glad Nik Ranieri ended up doing this character, he did a splendid job with him.

A fun caricature by Eric Goldberg of me as Hercules and Eric as Phil.

Bill Peet's Song of the South

Bill Peet was a very interesting artist. He had the most fun when working on projects he was in charge of as far as story develpment. During his long career at Disney there were three such projects. Song of the South (the animated sequences), 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone.  Peet storyboarded these films single handedly. 

Whenever he worked with a sizable story crew on movies like Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan, he felt that in the end there were "too many cooks in the kitchen", which led to painful compromises.

The animal characters in Song of the South are incredibly well developed with their contrasting personalities. The story sketches gave the layout department wonderful sets, and the animators were able to use just about every pose Peet came up with.

Look at the vitality in these sketches, appeal, acting and storytelling, it's all there.

I understand that Bill Peet never watched the final versions of the films he worked on in fear of being disappointed. I hope that's not true.

Go to Michael Sporn's blog for scans of complete Peet storyboards:

http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=3909

In this early sheet Milt Kahl explores proportions and expressions for Brer Rabbit, based on Peet's sketches. Have you ever seen anything more appealing?

TS Sullivant 7

How about starting the week off with Sullivant cartoons?

I said about everything I can in regards to his unparalleled work, no need for more analysis.
Any political statement here is a reflection of the time the drawing was published.

Luckily Sullivant was very prolific, so this won't be the last post showcasing his genius.

Hockey Homicide

There have been quite a few great Disney animators who brought the character of Goofy to life.

Art Babbitt developed him during the mid 1930ies as a type who thought long and hard about something, and then did it wrong (Art's own words).

Other animators followed, John Sibley did outstanding work on shorts like Olympic Champ, and Woolie Reitherman's performances in Saludos Amigos are incredible.

In 1945 Milt Kahl worked on a couple of Goofy shorts, the hilarious Tiger Trouble and the wacky Hockey Homicide. The latter one presented a world in which hockey players as well as audiences were drawn as Goofy type designs. Milt had particularly fun animating the referee, who occasionally lost his balance on the ice. Those scenes are as fluid and elegant in their own way as ballet dancing.

Here are a few of Milt's rough drawings of that character. Beautiful expressive hands, and extreme (but appealing) squash and stretch.

You can watch the short here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZSiTUcV2Rg

Cruella in Curlers

What an incredible visual development piece from 101 Dalmatians.

Cruella de Vil is reading the papers about the dognapping. This experimental cel set up shows her in a round bed with a snake motif. Red, mauve and black are the only colors used here.

I love the "real" lace curtain! The Disney artists were trying anything to achieve a new revolutionary look for this film.

Marc Davis animated every single scene of Cruella. The one I am showing here is from that bedroom sequence. The ringing of the phone has just interrupted her gleeful mood, but she fakes a smile when answering: "Hello." After realizing who is calling, her expression changes again.

"Jasper!" she pauses in anger, then "Jasper, you idiot!"

Everything is top notch here, her body composition, wonderful grotesque expressions -those cheekbones are priceless- and of course subtle, controlled animation.

Modern animation as good as it gets.

An actual frame from a scene preceding the one above.

The risks Disney artists were taking with this new style were enormous. This is not playing safe and giving audiences what they want. This movie surprised everybody by showing something nobody had seen before. 

Risks are fun, and there is no reason today's feature animation can't take bold risks again.