Marc and Mary

A beautiful photo of animator Marc Davis with Mary Costa, the voice of Sleeping Beauty.

Mary was in her early twenties when she auditioned at Disney for the role of Princess Aurora in 1952. She was asked to return to the studio many more times to record dialogue and songs for the character, Sleeping Beauty was in production for an unprecedented period of seven years.

It is interesting to see that Marc Davis started out drawing her as a sixteen year old girl, the age she was supposed to be. The first image shows a youthful innocent girl with the facial features of a teenager.

For some reason though the final design ended up looking a bit older, reflecting Mary's actual age.

Aurora's proportions show a young adult woman, and her jaw was given more volume.

I have a feeling that Walt Disney himself might have had something to say about the look of the title character.

The rough animation drawings by Marc portray Aurora being distraught after being told by the Three Fairies that she has royal duties as a princess. She would never see "that young man" again whom she had met in the forest.

Loosely based on live action reference there is great clarity in the staging of this scene. The character styling of this film pronounces vertical and horizontal lines. 

And Marc Davis handled those head turns and angles beautifully. 

Though not a box office smash in its initial release in 1959, Sleeping Beauty is a Disney film that seems to hold up and look better each year.

TS Sullivant 5

Time again for a good dose of Sullivant inspiration.

As I said before, I can't get enough of his work. He surprises you with everything he puts on paper.

He still stands alone as the master of animal caricature and people as well. Thoroughly based on realistic observation, Sullivant's stylization and caricature to this day is groundbreaking and unmatched.

His outrageous sense for proportions is always very animal specific and appealing.

I'd love to see a documentary about this influential American master, wouldn't you?

Ken Burns, how about it ?

Attack

I haven't done many finished wildlife illustrations, but a few years ago I thought I'd try something more polished than just a quick sketch. 

There had been a program on one of the wildlife TV channels about African lions. I made a few drawings off the TV screen, and the one below became the starting point for a larger color illustration.

I played around with the staging a little for a more dramatic result (second image).

The final piece was fun to do, even though I don't know beans about watercolor. But sometimes it's a good idea not to be intimidated by a technique and just go for it.

Fox and Rabbit

I love enlarging sketches.

The vitality and power of a good rough sketch becomes magnified when the art is blown up in size.

That's certainly the case here with Milt Kahl's animation drawings of Brer Fox threatening Brer Rabbit. The images are scanned off small old model sheets. These larger sizes make you appreciate these fantastic roughs even more. 

Milt was about 36 or 37 years old when Song of the South was in production. Studying his work here proves that he was already an expert draughtsman and a master animator.

Dynamic staging, expressive acting and extraordinary drawing. 

Look at the fox's threatening right hand in the first image. It is based on a human hand, but exaggerated for animation. 

I love the fact that you can feel the weight of the clothes' fabric. The fox's shirt is light, there are soft wrinkles on the under side of the sleeves, it convincingly hangs from his shoulders. The vest is a different material and feels heavier.

While the rabbit is drawn with ultimate appeal, the fox's expressions are pushed to the limit.

Milt and the other animators had a blast animating these characters.

Battle of the Centaurs

A powerful illustration by Heinrich Kley, watercolor and pen and ink over pencil, 21 x 40.8 cm.

Everything is perfection. The muted colors, only warm and cold washes, the lighting from the top, sensational motion, yet there is beautiful detail in the foreground figures.

Not much more to add here, just to say that Kley would have made a heck of an animator, and he could have been of great help to Fantasia's Pastoral sequence.

There is only one week left to see Kley originals up close at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. (This piece is not part of the exhibit.)

Happy 100th Birthday, Frank Thomas!

When asked whether Frank considers himself a romantic:

"Yes, don't you? Aren't we all? You'd have trouble defining what a romantic is, but I think it has a lot to do , to me, living with your dreams and dreaming quite a bit about connections between things. Trees, the sky, the grasses, the birds, the animals and you being a part of the whole thing. 

A realist would have trouble with some of those concepts, but if you get into an imaginary field like animation, you'd better come equipped with that kind of nonsense."

Mad Medusa

This is an article I wrote for Sketches Magazine in 2004. Walt Disney Classics Collection was about to release a Medusa & Penny sculpture, and I was asked to write a little piece about the character and her animator Milt Kahl. 

As a bonus I am adding this rather peculiar pencil scene of Madame Medusa, which does not appear in "The Rescuers". 

The outtake pencil test was put together from copies of the tied down rough animation drawings.

During the make-up-removal-sequence Medusa is responding to a line from Penny: "You want me to find that diamond." The final film version has Medusa's dialogue "That's right, dear!" on a Penny medium close up.

Perhaps the scene ended up on the cutting room floor, because it doesn't really work, the acting looks  unnatural. Arguably that's very unusual for a Kahl scene. 

What was Milt thinking? 

I guess the first part works alright with her saying the words "That's right…"

But the word "Dear" isn't even pronounced in the animation, maybe Milt animated to a different dialogue take, one that was shorter. Still, the second half of the scene shows strange head bouncing and twinning hands action.

So this means that the man was human after all !!

Eric Larson

Drawing by John Musker

The previous post kept me thinking more about Eric Larson.

He was the first Disney artist I wrote to, and we even met in Hamburg, Germany, where Eric and his girlfriend Hazel had a stopover during a Northern European Cruise. 

My English was pretty bad at the time, and during my conversation with Eric 

I understood  maybe half of what he was telling me.

It was pretty darn frustrating. Words of wisdom lost in translation!

I remember Eric being somewhat shocked, when we (Hans Bacher was also there for the visit) told him that we travelled by car for over six hours to see him. He almost felt bad for having invited us, and said he had no idea that we lived that far. We just told him how thrilled we were to meet him.

This is the letter Eric sent me ahead of his vacation. Imagine, not only an invitation to meet a wise old man from Disney, but then his words of encouragement at the end of the letter.

I remember, that was a very good day indeed!!

Here Eric is surrounded by animation trainees, who all started the program before I did. Behind Eric is Lorna Pomeroy, then Heidi Guedel, Bill Kroyer, Dan Haskett sitting on the floor, Emily Jiuliano, Henry Selick and unknown.

In this shot you see Eric with trainees, who started at Disney soon after I did.

They are Bill Frake, Kathy Zielinski and Matt O'Callaghan. I loved these old Moviolas.

Hans Bacher took this photo during a dinner that included his late wife Hanne, me, and Eric with Hazel. We dined in a local restaurant in Pasadena during our first trip to LA.

What is Eric saying that made the waiter cringe?

One weekend, after I had started at Disney, a few of us surprised Eric at his home in Flintridge to wish him a Happy Birthday.

Behind Eric is Dolly Baker, me, Don Paul, Sue Frankenberger, Ted Kiersey and Carol Holman Grosvenor.

So what are the things I remember most when I think of Eric's teaching?

He always stressed observation because it allows you to put your own experiences into your work.

Entertainment was another big word. "We don't just move things around, we are here to entertain an audience" he said.

Eric talked a lot about Walt's philosophy and his high standards. Walt would never talk down to an audience, he always raised people up to where he was. In other words, he always gave them more than what they expected.

And it was very clear to him that being a Disney animator was the best job in the world.

No argument there.

This is the last character Eric supervised before moving into teaching.

It is Roquefort from The Aristocats. I always loved the quirky, real-mouse-timing in his acting and movements.

Eric Larson's Burrito

In  February of 1945 Disney Studios released the feature "The Three Caballeros".

The most charming sequence in the film is probably The Flying Gauchito. Frank Thomas did most of the animation of the two main characters, the Gauchito kid and the Burrito.

But Eric Larson did significant scenes as well. I can see why he was cast on the flying donkey, after all Eric had done a beautiful job with the flying horses in Fantasia.

These are his design sketches and a few animation drawings showing the Burrito taking off. Eric admitted to some of us that drawing didn't come easy to him, he actually had planned to become a writer. But when he fell in love with animation his career took a turn, and Eric worked for Disney as an animator (and later animation teacher) for the rest of his life.

There is a lot of work in these drawings. This is a fantasy creature, but the anatomy is based on a real donkey, and the wings move convincingly.

A few years later this photo was taken, showing Eric with actor Bobby Driscoll during production of  "So Dear to my Heart". Eric animated scenes with the Wise Old Owl and the Lamb Danny.

Even though Eric Larson's draughtsmanship might not have come up to the level of some of his colleagues, his sincere love for the medium shows in every one of his assignments.

Wilhelm M. Busch 1979

These marvelous life drawings and other doodles by Wilhelm M. Busch were published as a little sketchbook in Germany.

The occasional sexually provocative quality in them makes me want to name him the German Frazetta.

Busch's sense for anatomy with beautiful rhythm and composition is masterful, that's for sure. Every sketch is interesting, often the perspective is daring, and I don't see any drawing formulas here. No flashy shading or over confident lines. 

His proportions always show contrast, thick upper legs with thin ankles, for example.

I love the way he sees things. 

Everything is based on intense observation of human and animal figures.

This man knew stuff!

For more Busch illustrations go to Hans Bacher's blog:

http://one1more2time3.wordpress.com