Cinderella

I believe that Cinderella is the most challenging Disney heroine in terms of draughtsmanship. There is no graphic style here "to hang your hat on". She is just a subtle, realistic and very beautiful concept of a young woman. You would have to be so careful defining her face. Eyes, nose and mouth need to be placed within exact proportions or she would look like a different person. The nose alone is drawn with a minimum of lines. If not positioned perfectly those facial features would float around the face in animation.

That's why I am astonished that Cinderella looks so consistently appealing throughout the film, there is no off model scene that I can recall. Quite the accomplishment considering the short production schedule.

That's actress Ilene Woods in the photo with Marc Davis. Ilene almost whispered Cinderella's dialogue, which gave the title character such a nice, warm fairy tale quality.

First up a "doodle sheet" that shows Marc exploring Cinderella's face as a sculpture in three dimensions.

Here are a couple of animation drawings by Marc. This is careful, sensitive perfection. 

These are copies of Marc's animation keys from the scene when Cinderella has just been transformed and given her knock out dress for the ball. "Look, glass slippers!"

The folds in her dress needed special attention. If the material felt too light, she'd be wearing a paper dress, if too heavy, the dress would move as if made out of thick carpet.

Eric Larson animated a lot of key scenes with Cinderella, including this one, where she admires the dress the animals made for her. These are Eric's animation roughs.

Last not least a few of Mary Blair's stunning concept paintings for the "falling in love'" sequence. 

All this stuff would be very corny, even back in 1950, but the artists believed in this story and its characters, and their work shows sincerity.

The Stepmother

"Boy, I thought, that's a tough assignment for some poor guy. I wonder who's going to get it?"

Frank Thomas was reflecting in an interview on what he had thought about the character of Cinderella's stepmother. Little did he know that Walt Disney had Frank in mind to bring her to life.

"The Stepmother was one of the toughest characters I did" he added.

In the end Frank did enjoy animating her, and he got very strong performances on the screen. I think some of his best ever.

A character that doesn't move much at all is a challenge for any animator. The acting becomes all about subtleties, and the quality of your drawing is even more important. There needs to be some motion within the longer held key poses or the character won't look alive.

Frank got some help from actress Eleanor Audley, who voiced the Stepmother in a way that sends chills up your spine. She also provided strong live action reference.

What I love about her character concept is the fact that she never lays a hand on Cinderella, but her vicious verbal abuse makes her one of the most evil villains of all time.

Here are a few samples of Vis Dev as well as production art.

Mary Blair painted these early portraits of Lady Tremaine. They already show an icy personality, which Frank took great advantage of in his animation.

I was very surprised when I saw these design drawings by Milt Kahl a few years ago, because I had always thought that Milt had nothing to do with the development of this character.

These are a few of Frank's animation drawings from various scenes. 

Whenever the Stepmother is on the screen she is powerful, commanding and completely convincing as a real personality. She is animated Hitchcock!

The Duke

Continuing on with posts about Cinderella, here are some marvelous drawings of the Duke by Milt Kahl. 

Milt animated this character along with the King during the ball sequence. 

In an earlier part of the film Norm Ferguson and Woolie Reitherman animated the introduction of the Duke and the King.

Milt was dissatisfied with the way they were drawn by these two animators, so he redrew the main animation keys for the whole sequence over a couple of weekends.

You've got to give it to Milt, he did always put his pencil where his mouth was. So this guaranteed model consistency, even though the motion still differs quite a bit from how Milt handled his more fluid animation of these characters on the ballroom's balcony.

Frank Thomas animated a small section after the ball with the Duke, in which he rehearses his announcement to the King that the "girl" has vanished. Those scenes are simply brilliantly acted out.

His utter fear and frustration when he can't bring himself to knock on the King's bedroom door, great stuff!

Milt did these model drawings for Frank to explain the graphic components of the character.

A straight line for his back to contrast the curved belly. The two head doodles on the right show how the Duke's double chin reacts in certain positions.
That's Frank's handwriting on the lower right.

These are copies of some of Milt's actual animation drawings. They show vitality, clarity and…oh yes, insane draughtsmanship. Just look at those hands! 

Any of these poses is super rich with personality. The Duke's scene balancing the monocle on his fingers is one of those Kahl tour de force performances.

During an interview from the early 1980ies Milt remarked that these two characters lacked depth, and that Walt would probably agree. Although he felt that they worked ok enough for supporting the film's storyline.

Where Cinderella Lives

I love these exploratory sketches for Cinderella's living quarters. They are modest and hardly comfortable, but there is still warmth and charm in these sketches which reflects the title character's personality.

The artist is most likely Ken O'Connor, somebody might correct me on this one.

I have always been in awe of talented layout people, who create beautiful worlds for the animators' characters. So looking at these drawings I decided to be a layout artist in my next animated life.

Update: These sketches are by Ken Anderson. Ken's credit in the film is in story, which led me to believe he didn't do any layout work for Cinderella.

Kimball Mice

This photo was probably taken in 1949 when Cinderella was in production. I don't know who the visitor is, but he is a lucky guy to be taken to Ward Kimball's office for a visit by Walt Disney himself.

The movie was perfectly cast in terms of animation. Marc Davis and Eric Larson drew the title character, Frank Thomas animated the stepmother, Ollie Johnston did the comic stepsisters and Milt Kahl was responsible for the King, the Duke as well as the Fairy Godmother.

There was no better animator to take on Lucifer, the cat, and the mice characters than Ward Kimball.

By the late 1940ies there had been numerous designs and concepts for animated mice, so how on earth would you go about creating fresh looking personalities for these rodents ?

Story artist Bill Peet came up with early designs, already full of character.

Ward polished these concepts for full animation and animated them with his sense of zany timing and inventive acting. Everyone of these poses for Jaq show the energy and characteristics of a real mouse. Outstanding character animation !!

If you aren't looking forward to Amid Amidi's upcoming book on Ward Kimball, I can't help you.

Here is the link to pre-order it:

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Steam-Ahead-Life-Kimball/dp/0811866319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348466946&sr=1-1&keywords=ward+kimball