Milt Kahl, Celine & Andreas

I have a mixed bag today.

To start off, here are a bunch of Milt Kahl ruffs of Merlin, King Louie, Shere Khan, George Hautcourt and Edgar from "The Aristocats".

These are scans of copies of the original key drawings.

Waaayyy back I had the chance to talk to Woolie Reitherman about Milt's work on 

"Sword in the Stone". Woolie said:"When I first saw Milt's animation of Merlin, I told him that theses drawings are so good, you could hang them in a museum. But Milt just said, aah you're full of it."   Except he didn't say "IT".

I would have to agree with Woolie, there is a perfection in Milt's drawings that is astonishing. They hold up beautifully as single pieces of illustration. 

But Milt also got criticized for this by other animators: 

"Oh, Milt is only interested in the drawing aspect, his acting falls flat."

Look at the drawings of King Louie, when I saw those for the first time, I noticed that here his eyes are smaller than the version in the film, and he has less hair on his head.

I asked Milt about this and he said:" Walt didn't like his beady eyes, he wanted them larger and he also asked for more hair on his head. I just threw the already animated scenes to my assistant Dave Michener and told him: YOU change it!" 

Switching gears again with a photo.

Alright...laugh you guys!!

Last March a few friends of mine were visiting from Paris, and part of their trip included a stop over to Las Vegas to see Celine Dion's show, amongst other things.

They invited me to come along, and I thought wouldn't it be cool to meet her before or after the show. I remembered of course that she sang the Pop version of "Beauty & the Beast" withy Peabo Bryson. 

So I turned to Disney for help to make this meeting possible. It all worked out and me and my six friends were ready to meet Miss Dion before her performance.

Because I didn't want to show up empty handed, I had prepared the drawing for her you see in the photo. The idea for the gift was to combine my character Gaston from "B & B" with her and that "other" hit movie she was part of.

When I handed it to her she said very seriously : "You know, I've been given things over the years, but this is very special. But let me ask you, is Gaston going to hold on to me or drop me in the ocean?"

She surprised me with that question, and the only answer that came to my mind was: "Well, he didn't get the girl in his last movie, so he's probably going to hold on to you...but be careful with that guy !"

There was a photographer standing by to take our picture, so we both held the drawing for a photo. All of a sudden Celine goes:"No, no, no.....let's do the pose from your drawing."

So here I am finding myself playing Titanic with Celine Dion. 

You can see from my grin that I had a good time, and her show afterwards was fantastic.

Captain Hook

Many of you would agree that Captain Hook is one of Frank Thomas' best creations. To some Frank is the best animator who ever lived. 

Personally I think there is no such thing as the one or the best in animation.

Look at other studios, Rod Scribner, Ken Harris, Ken Muse, Emery Hawkins...

the list of animation geniuses goes on and on. It's a matter of what turns YOU on.

But Frank Thomas most certainly is waaaayyy up there.

He used live action reference for a number of his characters. In this case it was character actor Hans Conried who provided the voice and acting reference for Hook.

Frank was very critical about the way other animators used live action. To him  the acting ideas were all you needed, but you still had to pass judgement on the footage and interpret what the actor gave you. His animation never has that roto,

floaty feel to it. For one thing Frank was way too talented and smart to let that happen. 

This is the intro of Captain Hook. The pencil test is the tied down version.

It's......incredible!

The photos of Hans Conried with character drawings on top of them first appeared in the book "The Art of Animation" by Bob Thomas.

I am not 100% sure, but those drawings could be by Milt Kahl, who wanted to do this character so bad, he could taste it.

In a future post I will show you how Milt envisioned this character. But Walt wanted Milt to focus on Peter and Wendy instead, and I think It was a wise decision.

So here  are a few layout and staging sketches by Frank for Hook's intro.

In some of those drawings you can sense poses by Hans Conried, but Frank's interpretation takes it to another level!

Liu Jiyou

Liu Jiyou (Chi-yu) is one of my favorite animal artists.

Quite a few years ago, then Disney visual development artist Chen-Yi Chang came back from China and brought me a booklet with Jiyou's artwork. It is breathtaking.

Later I got my hands on a couple more sizable publications, that included some information in English about his life.

He was born in China in a little village that was surrounded by nature in 1918.  His father was an established painter of animals. So he grew up with art all around him, and as they say " like father like son".

Eventually Jiyou developed his own distinctive style, combining western drawing and painting with Chinese calligraphic brush strokes.

I love the looseness in his work, based on accurate observation, and he always finds a pose that reveals the animal's characteristics. His compositions are very unique and interesting, a real master of his craft.

Jiyou died in 1983.

Mowgli

As many of you know Woolie Reitherman's son Bruce is the voice of Mowgli in the 

"Jungle Book".  He also acted out certain scenes as live action reference for the animators. 

I have had the chance to be involved in a few Disney events with Bruce, including

a panel discussion at the El Capitan theater to promote the latest DVD release of "Jungle Book". The two of us then joined songwriter Richard Sherman for its audio commentary. 

That was a morning at the studio I won't forget. How did I get here...to share memories and observations with these two celebrated gentlemen?

I remember pinching myself, but it was a blast to hear their recollections about their involvement in the classic Disney film.

Mowgli was animated by quite a few animators, and I noticed that each artist drew him just a little bit differently. Milt Kahl set the final design, but the majority of his scenes were animated by Frank and Ollie. 

Any variation in drawing styles are way too subtle to get noticed by the general public.

Here is a beautiful scene by Frank Thomas,  toward the end of the film.

Baloo is supposed to take the mancub to the village, but Mowgli thinks it's playing time. The animation is so convincing, there is real weight and honest emotion.

Frank did this scene without the help of live action reference.

The first part of the pencil test is missing inbetweens, but then it picks up and becomes pure magic.

To be honest with you, I didn't even know I had Frank's thumbnail sketches for this scene, they were hidden amongst the animation roughs.

I love all of Mowgli's little hops and steps, it looks like the essence of a real kid.

Frank blows me away!