Milt Kahl

I think Milt Kahl was one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century. As far as the look of the Disney style, there were three main animators who influenced and shaped it. Ub Iwerks, Fred Moore and then Milt Kahl for the longest period. 
Ollie Johnston said that Walt leaned on Milt for for the final look of the Disney characters, because he saw appeal and believability in his drawings.

Even Marc Davis stated : if it wasn't for Milt, the rest of us would look pretty good.

Milt left the field of animation in April 1976 and moved to Northern California.

After having written a fan letter as a student I first met him on a visit to San Francisco in early 1980. Eric Larson had given me Milt's phone number, so I took a deep breath and called him. He proposed to meet up at his condo near Sausalito.

It took a couple of bus lines, then over the Golden Gate Bridge to a specific bus station. I waited a couple of minutes, and there he was, walking toward me.

My heart was pounding so fast, after all I had heard about his volatile temperament, and how intimidating he could be.

Well, you couldn't meet a nicer, happier man. As it turned out Milt had just gotten remarried, and he was totally in love with his wife Julie.

Back at his place he showed me photos of her, and he had a big smile on his face. I looked around the living room while Milt prepared a little lunch, a Waldorf salad.

There were a couple of Picasso posters on the wall, A Fred Moore sketch of three High School girls and a Ken Anderson layout sketch from "101 Dalmatians".

And of course a display of his mesmerizing wire sculptures.

Throughout our conversation I found out that Milt didn't want to talk about his animation technique, he preferred to be more philosophical about his work.

I started to ask him about the balance of straight versus curved lines in his drawings, I swear, he didn't know what I was talking about.

"You need to draw well", that's it. But he did talk about how much he enjoyed developing characters, "Song of the South", Merlin and Mim, Shere Khan and Madame Medusa being some of his favorites.

The photos below show us at later get togethers at the "Spinnaker" restaurant

in Sausalito.

The animation drawings speak for themselves and show a graphic change,

from the round volumes of Pinocchio to the sophisticated lines of Medusa.

Medusa was drawn as a gift to animator Art Stevens on Milt's last day at the studio.

I have a couple of his pencil tests for you, the famous Pinocchio skip, and then

the Sheriff of Nottingham walking toward camera with a lot of weight.

Marc Davis II

Before getting to the next post I just want to address a few comments and questions.

How long would it take Marc to draw one of those Maleficents ?
I really have no idea, to be honest. All those guys could draw and animate pretty fast in general, on "Sleeping Beauty" though the pacing was slower because Walt wanted moving illustration for this film.
I had a chance to talk to a clean up artist many years ago, who helped clean up the personality scenes with the prince on the horse. He mentioned that he was able to do ONE DRAWING A DAY, and that was acceptable, because certain scenes simply needed to look perfect.

How did Marc use live action reference footage ?
Very carefully, would be the short answer.
He told me once that he looked at the reference as a rough animation first pass .
Meaning, something is already there, but it needs to be refined:
Strengthening of the main poses, more contrast in the timing, pushing for more weight, exaggerating follow through on hair and clothing.
Often only parts of the live action are useful, the rest is animated from
imagination.

How do I use live action ?
I worked with  live action video footage for characters like Gaston and Hercules,
as well as for one dance sequence with Mama Odie.
What I didn't work with were photos or photostats. I viewed the footage on a monitor many times, and then made small thumbnail sketches to claryfy for myself, which parts I could use, and which parts I couldn't.
Based on this acting "blueprint" I began animating.

Is anything happening with Marc's book project on animal anatomy ?
Not much at the moment. The original title is "The Anatomy of Motion".
Marc and Alice tried to get it published, but so far it hasn't worked out.

Blog reader Andrew Lee has turned the Maleficent scans into a pencil test.
Check it out, it works beautifully. Thanks, Andrew.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1vObeiRoBM

Marc Davis

Marc was a lot of fun to be around. He and his wife Alice enjoyed the company of young artists, 

and it was always a treat to get invited to their house in the Los Feliz area of LA, very near the location of the old Hyperion Disney Studios.

Marc loved telling the story when he bought the house in the mid fifties and told his boss : 

Hey Walt, I bought a place near the old studio, to which Walt responded:

Hell Marc, we're not moving back THERE !

His home was and still is a museum. He loved the designs of New Guinea artifacts,

and had brought them over from the islands. His own sketches depicted their costumes and rituals.

I thought you might enjoy more animation from "Sleeping Beauty".

Marc had skipped "Lady and the Tramp" in order to focus on two characters,

Aurora and Maleficent.

Both very difficult to animate because of their degree of realism. But by that time Marc had become somewhat of an expert in animating female characters, or Leading Ladies, like he called them. 

Starting with Snowwhite herself, Marc had supervised her clean up look and did a little bit of animation. He later designed and animated Cinderella, followed by Tinker Bell and Alice.

So animating the female form wasn't anything new to him, but Maleficent turned out to be a challenge. Marc would say that she stood around and gave speeches in most of her scenes. 

That means not much is happening physically with the character, so you need to work with facial expressions and hand gestures in a very subtle way.

Frank Thomas thought that a lot of the drawing power in Marc's Maleficent animation got lost in clean up.

Below are scans of a few animation keys. Maleficent is about to leave the prince alone in the dungeon. The raven became a nice "prop" and gave her something to do with.

The pencil test shows Aurora, when she tells the fairies that she is in love.

I can't get over the way Marc designed her hair...Art Deco curls.

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Frank & Ollie

I want to thank everybody for visiting the blog and for posting the nicest comments!

You guys sure know how to flatter this animator. I am a little overwhelmed by

the reactions from around the world.

That means the pressure is on to surprise you with posts that will knock your socks off.

So, I continue with FRANK & OLLIE !

I met them both for the first time in the spring of 1980 at Disney, during a visit to LA, before I started to work at the studio. Eric Larson took me to their office.
They were working on "The Illusion of Life" at that time. The walls were covered with storyboards, holding original art from many Disney features. Backgrounds, designs,animation drawings....I almost fainted.

Curiously though when posing with them for this photo, I seem to project an attitude

that says : May I introduce you to my two assistants, Frank and Ollie.

The nerve...

The pencil test shows two scenes from "Sleeping Beauty" in continuity.

The first scene was animated by Ollie, the second by Frank.

I purchased all of the original ruffs from Ollie many years ago. After scanning

them and adding sound I couldn't believe what I was watching.

Acting and drawing are so utterly convincing, completely alive!

Ollie stages his scene very clearly, three characters interacting, but the focus is on

Flora's finger. And Frank's close up of Merryweather shows a mood change with stunning subtleties.

The way her head anticipates ever so slightly the word "frost".

This is the kind of stuff that still brings me to my knees....

Eric Larson

Here are three examples of Eric's work.

The first one is Pedro from "The Flying Gouchito". Frank Thomas animated most of this character,

but Eric did some fun scenes at the end of the short with the kid and the donkey. I will post more drawings from that part of the film later. 

You don't see it here, but very often Eric used multiple charts, in order to control different parts of the character. 

His Cinderella wasn't as tightly drawn as Marc Davis' version, but his animation sure had life.

Eric knew how to use life action and how to avoid that rotoscope effect. 

The dance movements with the prince don't "float", because of the animator's ability to translate realistic 

motion into graphic statements. There is real weight here.

He told me way back that the nice thing about Cinderella is, that you always know what she is thinking

in every scene.

Welcome to my new Blog!

Finally....
I've been meaning to start blogging for a long time.
The reason is that I want to share with you my collection of classic animation artwork.
As far as the blog's title, you can blame my friend John Canemaker, who came up with it.

What you can expect :
Scans of rough animation drawings, thumbnail sketches and character designs, mostly the work of
Disney's Nine Old Men. The majority of this art has never been published.
I will write short comments and explain, what makes a particular piece unique.
Since I was lucky enough to hang out with Frank and Ollie, Mark, Milt, Eric and Kimball
for many years, I will also tell you anecdotes and stories that they told me.
Some of them are pretty hilarious !
These guys were all geniuses, but it's so interesting to discover their human side. Trials and errors,
triumphs and failures, professional jealousy and even insecurities were all part of their lives.
Of course John's amazing book "Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation"
gives you already great insight into this group of artists.
I will add to that by showing you beautiful images and hopefully some insightful infos.

Occasionally I will post the works of other artists who inspire me, such as Heinrich Kley, TS Sullivant,
Wilhelm M Busch and others.

You will also find some of my own stuff as well.

Just to get started, here is a photo from 1980, when I got accepted into  Eric Larson's Disney Animation Training Program. Eric was the most patient teacher. Some of his words of wisdom
didn't sink in until much later.
Observation was one of his favorites. "Look around you and observe things, you will need it !"