More Maleficent

This is a powerful scene, Maleficent is in full control. Her curse has come true, Aurora touched the spindle and lies dead on the floor. The Three Fairies are too late.

“You poor, simple fools..thinking you could defeat ME (the mistress of all evil).”

It is one of my favorite Maleficent moments, and Marc Davis gave the character a majestic but evil appearance. These are the drawings of a master at the top of his form. Her expressions are demonic, yet beautifully designed. And boy…do I love her oversized, expressive, claw-like hands.

I will be talking much more about Maleficent and all of Marc Davis’ characters as well as his Disneyland designs and Fine Art at the Walt Disney Family Museum on Saturday, September 13.

Bob Kurtz, animation artist and producer extraordinaire, who was a student of Marc at Chouinard Art Institute, will co-host this talk on the art of Marc Davis with me. 

It is an afternoon, I am very much looking forward to.

Daan Jippes on Aladdin

Here are  a few more drawings by Daan Jippes. 

They are early character designs for the Genie, the Thief, Aladdin and Abu. As usual Daan’s work is inventive, alive and very animatable. His influences are European comic greats like Franquin and Uderzo, and of course Disney’s Freddie Moore. But his art certainly has its own identity. What I love most about Daan’s stuff is that he keeps surprising you with unusual, unconventional poses, expressions and staging.

Daan Jippes on Prince & the Pauper

Famous Dutch Comic artist Daan Jippes worked at Disney Animation for a few years on movies like Beauty & the Beast and Aladdin. He also did storyboards and character designs for the 1990 Mickey Mouse featurette The Prince and the Pauper.

These are his story sketches for sequence 2, which shows Mickey being schooled by Horace Horsecollar. Not interested in the lesson at all, he prefers to tease his valet Donald Duck.

Dale Baer animated most, if not all of these scenes.

I don’t know any other artist who draws classic Disney character in a more lively and appealing way.

Every pose is pushed, drawn from interesting angles, full of personality. Daan’s work has the kind of rhythm and flair you see in vintage Disney comics as well as short films. His boards were always a great springboard for the animators.

Look at these tremendous, dynamic poses he drew for a little continuity sketch with detective Mickey.

Chuck Jones

Like most of you I am a HUGE fan of Chuck Jones. Over the years I’ve  had the pleasure of meeting him on a number of occasions. On New Year’s day of 1990 Chuck invited a small group of Disney animators to pay him a visit at his home in Corona del Mar, California. 

It turned out to be a wonderful afternoon with an animation genius. Chuck had been impressed by the film “The Little Mermaid” which had just been released. As he complimented us on our work, we couldn’t even begin to find words that described how much his work on the Looney Tunes meant to us.

We were in such awe, I don’t think anybody thought of taking a photo with him. Bummer…

It is such a joy to study Chuck’s drawings. I can see a little influence by Fred Moore and Searle, but mostly Chuck Jones drew from his own life experiences. He comes up with the most amazing character designs, and the way he developed Bugs, Daffy, Porky Pig and all the others -graphically and personality wise- is simply incredible. 

It is difficult to pick any favorites among his many outstanding films, but these three would be amongst them:

“Bewitched Bunny”, because the way Hansel and Gretel are portrayed with limited German vocabulary makes me laugh hysterically. (“Ja, ja, is gut…und yummy!”)

“A Bear for Punishment”, because Ken Harris’ animation of that bear family is hilarious and unmatched.

“What’s Opera, Doc?”, because…well, because!

Here are some of my favorite drawings, published in his 1989 book “Chuck Amuck”. 

© Chuck Jones Enterprises, Warner Brothers

Quotes

…from Disney artists, who knew what they were talking about. In the past I have shown these and other “quote cards” during lectures on classic Disney animation, and sometimes they started off an interesting discussion. 

I can certainly came up with more of these statements, based on interviews I have seen and what these guys actually told me.

Here is one, I forgot to add, by Milt Kahl:

“My wife (Julie) and I saw a review of ’The Black Cauldron” on local TV (in San Francisco). It was pretty bad, and I knew the film would be a prize stinker, so we didn’t bother watching it in a theatre. Later we both did enjoy ‘The Great Mouse Detective’ though, it looked like something fresh.”

Don Graham was head of Disney’s internal training program from 1932 - 1940. Chuck Jones called him the greatest American art teacher.

The closest you will ever come to his teachings is through his excellent 1970 book ”Composing Pictures”. It is in reprint and available at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Composing-Pictures-Donald-W-Graham/dp/193524700X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409025633&sr=1-1&keywords=composing+pictures+donald+graham

In other words, if it's not based on real life: Forget it!

It took me years to fully understand this.

Ward’s answer to a student’s question, referring to why the Disney classic films are so good with a quality unachievable today.

Yes…Marc did say that. And I respect him for it.

I wonder what he’d say about today’s animated features.

...as he did with Shere Khan. No rotoscoping, just a lot of live action film studies.