Robin Hood Roughs

More of Milt Kahl's work for "Robin Hood".

The first sheet shows designs for Maid Marion and Lady Cluck before animation began.

The drawings look like they are just about to "click", meaning they are waiting to be animated in order to establish that perfect Kahl look.

The following Milt roughs were done for an Ollie Johnston segment of the film, the last part of the archery tournament.

Maid Marion seeking comfort from Lady Cluck presents a staging challenge, and Milt's sense for clear silhouette and pleasing shapes combined with the proper emotion helped make this a better scene.

The last image with Robin and Marion could have been problematic in terms of believability.

After all it shows two anthropomorphic foxes being in love. Again Milt's subtle draughtsmanship and sense for appeal prevent this from being a corny situation.

Skippy & Co.

A little late as an "Easter Post",  but I hope you will enjoy these drawings of Skippy, his sisters and friend Toby Turtle from "Robin Hood".

Milt Kahl drew these development sketches based on character concepts by Ken Anderson. At first glance they look like typical Disney formula designs from the 1960ies and 70ies.

But the magic is in the subtle proportions, especially in the faces. The older bunny sister is particularly appealing with her slightly elongated upper muzzle. Without Milt's touch these characters might have looked overly cute and generic.

Actually a lot of scenes in the film, animated by a variety of animators, don't look this good. The acting is ok, but they lack the charm and appeal you see here. 

Then again, everybody knows that Milt's designs were often tough to follow.

The sequencial drawings are from a Kahl scene, they show how he brakes down a fun bunny hop.

Steinlen

That's animator Eric Larson in this beautiful vintage photo, taken around 1938 or 1939, during production of "Pinocchio"

Eric is working on Figaro, the cat. As you can see, he surrounds himself with all kinds of cat related inspirational material. There are magazine articles with photos of cats pinned to the cork board, and he has early as well as final model sheets of the character to reference from.

Next to his exposure sheet you see a book titled Steinlen.

Theophile Steinlen (1859-1923) was a Swiss born French Art Nouveau painter.

When you google his name, you'll find a great number of his stunning drawings and paintings. Many of these works are depicting house cats in carefully observed poses. A variety of French magazines of the time published Steinlen's humorous illustrated stories that show continuity like a comic strip. He was a real master of the "feline form".

Even though Figaro is drawn in a cartoony style, his motion is based on real cats. 

I am sure Eric got a lot out of studying Steinlen's sketches, like the ones below.

Experimental Bambi

This is a scene by Milt Kahl which doesn't appear in the final movie "Bambi".

It looks to me like the scene was either cut from the film, or it was just a piece of test animation, done before actual production began.

I created this pencil test a few years ago and showed it at the Academy's tribute to Milt Kahl. There were a bunch of in-betweens missing, so I drew those based on the key drawings' charts.

When I watched the pencil test for the first time, I wasn't sure if the timing is 100% accurate. There was no exposure sheet to go by, so I just timed the drawings based on their numbers.

I do know though that occasionally (especially in the old days) the numbers don't always give you the final timing. In other words, drawings numbered on ones could be exposed for two frames for the final scene.

Also, it seems to me that Bambi is interacting with some other character, possibly a few bunnies.

Still, even just like this it is a gorgeous piece of animation to look at, done when Milt Kahl was about 30 years old.

There is full knowledge and control over the motion range of a fawn's body. And Milt knew how to combine that with the emotions of a little kid.

Animated gold!

 

Hal Ambro

I never met Hal Ambro, but I sure know his work, and I ilke it a lot.

He started to work for Disney in 1946. Even though he never reached the status of supervising animator there, his animation can often be found in sequences that were lead by such animators like Ollie Johnston (the opening section of Johnny Appleseed) and Milt Kahl (Ambro animated almost half of the footage of The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella).

I am quoting John Canemaker from his book "The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy" from 1977:

Hal Ambro, in his early sixties, stops by the studio to pick up and deliver some Babette scenes. Ambro, a gentle Santa Claus look-alike, started at Disney and remained there until 1966. He decided to free-lance because "there is only so much room at the top of the ladder at Disney", and he wasn't going to reach those rarefied heights occupied by a select corps of Disney animators.

"I've had a lot of training in the human area in Disney films. Humans are most difficult in the sense that you have to elaborate- exaggerate is a better word- in their actions. But not too much. You don't make a face look like Jell-O, but you can do an action that reflects a stretch in the whole posture."

Ambro animated the character of Babette in that film, which was directed by Richard Williams.

During the years past Disney he also worked for Hanna Barbera and Chuck Jones.

He passed away in 1990.

Hal Ambro could draw. Look at this gorgeous drawing from one of his scenes in Lady and the Tramp. You can tell, this was drawn by somebody who loved what he was doing.

Animation Master Class in Montreal

I will be in Montreal for a couple days of classes on June 2 and 3.  It will be fun to share my "animated experiences" and cover all aspects of character animation, technical as well as artistic.

Thanks to Samantha Youssef for inviting me.

If you are interested in attending, here is the official link:

http://www.studiotechniquemontreal.com/events/

The Other Milt

That would be animator Milt Neil, who worked at Disney Studios as a character animator from 1935 to 1944. You can see his work in features like Snow White, Fantasia and Dumbo. 

Milt also did terrific animation on Donald Duck. During the war the studio produced quite a few short films with Donald including "Der Fuehrer's Face". 

I really like his animation in this short, acting as well as drawing are fantastic. Very gutsy and confident.

Milt died in 1997.

Here are a few beautiful rough drawings of Donald by Milt Neil, followed by an interview with him that I found on youtube.

TS Sullivant 4

For your viewing pleasure, a short story illustrated by Sullivant. The humor is charming, but beware, there is a cruel ending. As usual, every pose of the animals is a gem. Look at the pushed smile of the elephant, the tiger dancing and the giraffe standing on her head. Cartoony poses with real anatomy.

A feast for the eyes !