More Mme Bonfamille

It seems extraordinary to realize that Milt Kahl animated Mme Bonfamille's scenes without any live action reference. Milt had such command and control over the mechanics of the human body, he was able to animate any human type out of his head, realistic or caricatured.
This character is as close to total realism as you could possibly get. Milt employed the might of his drawing powers as well as subtle acting to bring her too life. He reminisced later that he thought the one moment in which she comes alive is when she finds her cats gone. She shows strong feelings there, allowing Milt to show her emotionally engaged.
These rough animation drawings are from that sequence. It starts with Mme Bonfamille waking up during a stormy night.

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She puts on a gown and approaches the cats' night quarter. (What stunning drawings.)

A tight close up shows her disbelief.

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She runs out of her bedroom and calls for her cats.

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About characters like this one Milt said that though not very enjoyable to do, you know that you DO have more entertaining characters in the picture, so it doesn't hurt to do a straight job once in a while.

Roquefort

This sympathetic mouse character from the 1970 Disney film The Aristocats was animated by my mentor Eric Larson. Eric enjoyed one of his last animation assignments, before focusing full time on training new people joining Disney during the late 1970s.
Milt Kahl came up with this early design concept above, heavily based on Bill Peet's earlier concept for the character of Amos from the 1953 featurette Ben and Me. 

As much a I like Milt's drawings, Eric created a new mouse for Disney Animation, which was certainly a challenge, within a medium full of mice characters. Eric remains one of the most underrated animators. No matter what the assignment, animal crowds on Snow White, the cat Figaro in Pinocchio, Flying Horses in Fantasia, Eric performed these characters  believably and beautifully.
He was a Master animator!!

Nobertine Bresslern-Roth

Nobertine Bresslern-Roth was an extremely gifted Austrian painter and graphic artist. She lived from 1891 until 1978. She was an expert in depicting animals either in portraits or in dramatic situations like the one above. I can't believe I just recently found out about her astonishing work. Her main medium was the linocut, but she was also comfortable with oil and watercolor.
In 1928 she traveled to North Africa, a trip that stimulated her talent as an animal artist.
What can I say...only superlatives are in order to describe her work justly. Her knowledge of anatomy, her compositions, her color...everything is top notch! What an inspiration!!!

I believe these images which show a considerable amount of rendering represent her earlier work.

Animated Elegance

Here is another post featuring Madame Bonfamille from The Aristcats. I sort of have a thing about the film's opening sequence, which introduces the main human characters. Edgar, the butler, George Hautecourt, the lawyer, and Madame, all animated beautifully by Milt Kahl. 

Disney's earlier film Sleeping Beauty was labelled as "Moving Illustration", well, so is this sequence.

Character acting and draughtsmanship are so sophisticated, and because of black Xerox, all that great drawing is in your face (in a good way.) Milt enjoyed animating the butler and the lawyer, less so Madame Bonfamille. But her portrayal is so elegant and charming, I can't take my eyes off her. 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy crazy Tex Avery type animation just as much, but I can also appreciate subtle, realistic animation concepts, particularly when done so brilliantly.

As part of the Disney animation Training Program during the late 1970s, xeroxes were made of several Milt rough scenes. These served as a teaching tool for clean up assignments. I have a number of those xeroxed scenes, and will post them in the near future. Here Madame is looking at her reflection in the mirror before the arrival of her old friend George Hautecourt.

The Vis Dev color sketch is by Ken Anderson.

More posts with this character here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/05/madame-bonfamille.html

and here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/03/after-tango.html