Ken Hultgren

Ken Hultgren lived a short but very productive life. 

He started his career in 1936 at Disney , where he eventually became an animator on the short film Farmyard Symphony. Hultgren then moved to the Bambi unit, where he did character design and animation. As you can see in these two model sheets, he was a very gifted draughtsman.

Lots of appeal in these drawings. Hultgren is comfortable sketching the animal from every angle.

He was only 24 years old when he did these.

I remember talking to Milt Kahl about Ken Hultgren, and that I was very impressed with the way he drew animals. Milt recalled that Ken had animated a few scenes with the Stag, Bambi's father. "I had to redo those, they weren't working."

Be that as it may, Hultgren put out a great book in 1950 called "The Art of Animal Drawing".

Early on as an art student in Germany I found it quite difficult to draw animals at the zoo.  When I got my hands on a copy of this book and flipped through the pages several light bulbs went off. For the first time I saw realistic drawings of animals in motion with an animator's point of view.

The way he divides the body into three parts, then twists and turns those parts to get rhythm and motion was a revelation to me. It really helped to get a logical understanding of animal anatomy in motion.

Hultgren is particularly great with horses and deer (even if Milt disagrees).

The book has been in reprint for decades and is available at Amazon. I highly recommend it. 

You don't want to draw just like Hultgren, but you can benefit from the clarity of his anatomical sketches.

He doesn't always get it right though. This deer walk is flawed.

It is the rear leg contacting that releases the front leg ON THE SAME SIDE of the animal, not the opposite side as it is falsely shown here.
You can still use this walk for reference, just flop the front legs.

After leaving Disney in 1943, Hultgren animated for many other companies in town. He also made a name for himself as a prolific comic strip artist, illustrating stories for Disney and characters from other studios. In the late 1950ies Hultgren returned to Disney to animate on the short Paul Bunyan and the feature Sleeping Beauty.

He died in 1968 at the age of 53.

Marc Davis & Frank Thomas on Walt Disney, Acting Coach

Another excerpt from a UK TV show featuring the life of Walt Disney.

In this clip Marc Davis and Frank Thomas describe what an asset Walt was when it came to getting a hold of an animated character. 

I remember Ollie Johnston telling me how Walt acted out Baloo's entrance, dancing, finger snapping and singing. Next time you watch that sequence from The Jungle Book think about Walt Disney as the inspiration for the character.

If you want to know who Walt Disney really was, just listen to the artists who worked with him.

They are the ones who tell you the truth !!

More Disney Staging

Here are a few more staging studies I did a while ago. 

All of them fantastic examples of outstanding draughtsmanship with focused arrangements of shapes and lines. Milt Kahl drew most of them except for the last two images.

Madame Bonfamille is offering Frou Frou a sugar cube. 

There are plenty of lines which connect the two characters visually. Madame's reach is supported by the coat folds in her upper arm. And what beautiful hands, the open one, but also the one holding the package. Those bars from the coach ending at the horse's neck and the reigns guide you toward Frou Frou's head, which is tilted downward toward the hand.

A graphic masterpiece.

Robin Hood and a wolf composed in a dynamic triangle.

A lot of the line work points upward to the area where the swords make contact, but the characters' heads communicate back and forth. Robin's hat and the feather, his ear and his nose point to the wolf, and the wolf's ears and the lines in his hood revert back to Robin.

"You are too soffft!" 

Medusa wiggles Snoop's nose, and that's what Milt wants the audience too see clearly.

Medusa's arm seems to create a little detour toward the area of interest, but all other lines support the overall staging. Her neck, the flow of her hair and the direction of her nose. The back of Snoop's body connects with the temple of his eyeglasses which points to Madusa's face.

The King from the Island of Naboombu ellbows the Secretary Bird.

Plenty of lines lead to the characters' contact . Hysterical reaction on the bird.

Roger and Anita during a playful moment.

The drawing style is very shape oriented, but because there is great variety in the shapes' forms and sizes, nothing looks flat and awkward. It is almost like a carefully assembled mosaic with an end result full of rhythm. And what great profiles on both of their faces!

John Lounsbery animated this scene with Mim as a snake threatening Merlin as a mouse.

Snake bodies always give you an immediate, positive direction. Merlin's straight uprise pose contrasts the snake's  curviness. It says something about their personalities, too.

This is a lovely Ollie Johnston scene.

Baloo and Mowgli are having a great time in the water. Their body language signals a sort of explosion. All limbs are stretched outwards to emphasize a particular musical beat.

Bernard & Bianca

What a challenge this must have been. How do you design interesting looking mice for a new Disney animated feature, produced  in the mid seventies?

Over the years animation studios had used an endless variety of mouse characters, so to come up with new concepts for these rodents wasn't easy.

Newcomer and story artist Fred Lucky had spent some time developing The Rescuers as an animated film, and these are some of his design suggestions.

They might not show a lot of appeal yet, but at least they are different.

For more info on Fred Lucky go to this link:

http://jimhillmedia.com/columnists1/b/floyd_norman/archive/2007/06/12/toon-tuesday-remembering-fred-lucky-of-wdfa-s-story-department-1938-1999.aspx#.UZV87pVMj8s

Here is a look at how Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston approached these two characters.

Milt Kahl tried to incorporate some of Fred's ideas into his own design research.

Milt is definitely trying something new here, these sketches almost look like he drew them left handedly.

Proportions and volumes look  a bit more solid in these pages.

Just an awesome sketch, period!

Still a long nose, but chubbier than earlier versions. I do like this Bernard quite a bit.

The idea here is to treat the eyes like real mice, just large black dots.

It limits the range of expression somewhat, and tends to look kind of spooky.

Milt then applies what I call the Robin Hood formula, only the ears and the tail remind you that these are mice.

After the noses got shortened these versions were approved as final designs.

Frank Thomas explores early design concepts.

These pages show how Frank stages the situation in which Bernard and Bianca meet for the first time. Simple scribbles that reveal acting possibilities.

A few charming Thomas key drawings from an actual production scene.

Ollie Johnston tries out various proportions for anthropomorphic mice.

And this is his take based on Fred Lucky's sketches.

Then Ollie explores a concept that for some reason resembles Basil of Baker Street, a character that would make it to the screen quite a few years later.

Bianca in 1970ies outfits.

Ollie's chubby, long nosed version.

Again, these huge black pupils wouldn't have worked.

Bernard as he appears in the film. Beautiful solid sketches.

A rough production drawing.

It is interesting from a psychological point of view that people are freaking out when they see real mice, but ever since Mickey Mouse audiences don't seem to get enough of them when they are animated.