King Richard

How do you establish a character who only has one scene in an animated film?

Appropriately portrayed as a lion (Richard the Lionheart) King Richard appears for a brief moment at the end of the movie Robin Hood, having returned from the Crusade.

I look at this one scene, and I immediately get a sense of his personality.

King Richard is beloved, he is big and powerful, but also kind with a sense of humor.

Beautiful acting. As the King approaches the church entry, Friar Tuck kisses his robe respectfully.

"Ah, Friar Tuck, it appears that I now have an outlaw for an inlaw. Not bad!"

He uses his walking stick as a prop to point toward Robin Hood and Maid Marian before both characters share a hearty laugh. 

Here are copies of a few of Milt Kahl's roughs from this lovely scene.

Prince John & Sir Hiss Pencil Test

Ollie Johnston animated this sequence, which introduces the comic villain and his sidekick snake.

Somehow the pencil test seems to reveal more subtleties in the animation than the final color footage, most of us are used to.

This is clean up animation, Ollie's original roughs were a bit looser. Also, Prince John's  crown with all its diamonds was finalized by an effects animator. Ollie just drew the main shape of it.

What beautiful dimensional animation!

Pardon the picture quality here, this was part of an old TV show from the early 1970ies.

The clip starts out with the story reel version, and it looks like Ken Anderson drew those sketches. 

The Sheriff of Nottingham

The process of visual development for a Disney character during the 1970ies involved only a few steps compared to much earlier Disney films.

For productions like Snow White, Pinocchio and Fantasia many artists, who were part of Joe Grant's Model Department, contributed endless designs, sculptures and rough model sheets that eventually led to the final look of the characters.

After the completion of Sleeping Beauty a lot of artistic personal was let go in order to streamline future productions and to save money. By the time the 70ies came around, the animation staff had gotten even smaller. There were only FOUR supervising animators, who carried a lot of weight and responsibility.

Ken Anderson would start out with rough character designs such as these marker sketches above and below.

Once a certain personality type emerged, Ken's drawings went straight to Milt Kahl's desk.

Milt then polished the design 'to make it animatable" as he put it. Putting his own personal stamp on to the look of the character didn't make things easy for other animators, because nobody could draw like he did. 

Model sheets were made up of drawings from Kahl's early animated scenes…and that was it.

No construction sheets, no head or body turn arounds like in the old days.

The Sheriff of Nottingham has always been a sort of enigma to me.

I love the way he moves and acts, and his personality is interesting….it's just that he doesn't resemble a wolf, he looks like a huge rat. His soldiers are caricatured wolves, but not the sheriff.

These Milt Kahl sketches show how he developed the character based on Ken's work.

A few roughs from a scene in which the Sheriff argues with Friar Tuck.

"Now take it easy, Friar. I'm just doing my duty."

Beautiful stuff!

Bre Melvin created this pencil test:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/9bc3a5830d537c16f6d4edb8f66c9e62/tumblr_mgmkv01NSa1qdbhwwo1_r1_500.gif

Young Lady

This lovely story sketch was drawn by Joe Rinaldi, whose work is frequently mistaken for Bill Peet's.

Both artists show a lot of confidence and flair in the lines they put on paper.

They were also able to get the essence of a situation into one sketch.

While Lady & Tramp was in production, Peet developed story sequences for Sleeping Beauty.

The drawing below from the opening sequence of the film is Rinaldi's as well.

Animator Ken O'Brien was inspired by live action reference for the scene in which Lady is being presented as a Christmas gift. The actress in the photo is Jane Boyd, who was an artist in the effects department. (When I started at Disney in 1980 Jane was doing effects for The Fox & the Hound.)

As you can see, O'Brien did beautiful work on the film's human characters. There is a nice cohesive and rhythmic quality to his drawings.

This article from Look Magazine talks about singer and songwriter Peggy Lee's involvement with Lady & Tramp.

The Collie

The Collie in 101 Dalmatians was animated by Julius Svendsen and voiced by actor Tom Conway who was the brother of George Sanders (Shere Khan).

Milt Kahl drew these beautiful designs to explore the final look of the Collie.

It isn't an easy thing to humanize a dog like this one, the long snout makes it difficult to portray a smile. The edges of the mouth need to move close to the eyes, which could look awkward.

But if anybody could pull it off it would be Milt. He had to deal with a similar challenge on characters like Bambi's mother, Prince Phillp's horse Samson and Frou Frou in The Aristocats.