Rien Poortvliet

In the US Dutch artist Rien Poortvliet is probably best known for his lavishly illustrated books on Gnomes.

But his real passion was to create paintings of everyday life on a farm, and sceneries depicting a hunter’s experiences. He loved the Dutch countryside, which he portrayed endless times in beautiful oil and watercolors.

Poortvliet was self-taught, he never attended any art classes. His goal was through observation to improve as an artist every day. As a young man he found jobs in the advertising world, but by the late 1960s he was able to make a living as an independent illustrator.

In 1992 his oversized book on the story of Noah’s Ark was published in the States. Here are a few studies of animals and landscapes from that edition.

© Abrams/Poortvliet

Rien Poortvliet died in Holland in 1995 at the age of only 63.

On the whole I would have to say that his work is occasionally a little too photorealistic for my taste, but I do admire his incredible technique and his love for painting and storytelling.

Here is a link to an informative interview, conducted in 1994 in his studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbqBPiI7nEo

References for this post: Wikipedia

Sculpted Drawings

Milt Kahl and some of his colleagues had a way of drawing and animating characters that seem to inhabit real space. Individual parts of the body connect organically, and there is a flow from one form into another. A full understanding of the character’s anatomy as well as perspective is the key to achieving this type of dimensionality. 

Rough drawings, like the one above, often indicate how the animator solved drawing problems. They also show where time was spent and effort put into carving out correct, believable and interesting poses. In this sketch Milt was concerned with Bambi’s head in a down position, and how it connects to the body. Fascinating brain work.

Lady’s head is a pretty complex arrangement of basic and very subtle volumes. Her eyebrows sit on dimensional and flexible muscle parts, and her eyelids and lashes overlap the eyeballs. Every line is put down to give a three dimensional appearance.

This 3/4 back view could look awkward or boring, but by figuring out the correct angle with all its subtleties it comes off as a beautiful drawing. 

Volumes in motion. What great rhythm from one form into another.

A potentially complicated pose reads very easily instead. The arrangement of Bambi’s mother’s front legs could present an elaborate anatomical study, but Milt found the simplest solution to make it look natural and elegant.

This doodle sheet shows great understanding of deer like, balanced poses.

It looks like Bambi just  caught his balance in this awkward, but beautifully designed figure.

You can almost see the wobbly steps that would have preceded this pose.

Any twist in the overall body or head turn is helped by the indication of the center line, from tail to nose. 

After animating in this rounded, sculpted style for a couple of decades, Milt and several others in the animation staff were ready for a change. Films like Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians had the animators focus on line and shape to achieve a much more graphic representation of their characters.

The Wolf

The film Make Mine Music, which includes the short “Peter & the Wolf”, wasn’t released until 1946, but this model sheet dates all the way back to February of 1941.

I love these drawings (a lot)! Who would ever think of caricaturing a wolf like this? With a very long snout and overly articulated anatomy. This artist could draw and had a flair for cartooning. Look at the exaggerated perspective, so eerie, just fantastic! I would guess that Disney story artist/ designer James Bodrero came up with these concept sketches, but I am not sure.

The rough layout poses below maintain the scary, creepy quailties from the model sheet.

The final cel-painted version comes close to the earlier concept, but looses some of its power due to the clean lines defining the character.

Ronald Searle 1952

This Searle illustration, probably done for a magazine, is fascinating to me. You have to go back as far as the early 1950s to find a tattoo artist depicted like a university professor.

Searle creates an incredibly detailed backdrop for his two subjects, but your eye still stays on the two men, who are drawn with less line work. This type of realistic and thoroughly observed work informs you about Searle’s solid drawing knowledge, which served as a basis for his much more caricatured book illustrations. A true master, who continues to influence many artists to this day. 

Mr. Snoops

This post on Madame Medusa’s partner in crime Mr. Snoops is long overdue. 

Brilliantly drawn and animatedly by Milt Kahl, his part in the movie The Rescuers is relatively small. This is due to the fact that actor Joe Flynn, who voiced the character, died in 1974 during production of the film. Director Woolie Reitherman decided to build Snoop’s role around the already recorded dialogue, instead of using a sound-alike actor for further development. 

Snoop’s design is based on animation historian and teacher John Culhane. Milt had given a talk at his class in New York and was inspired by John’s appearance. 

Joe Flynn

John Culhane (from a magazine article in “American Film”)

Snoops is one of many Kahl masterpieces. He is a chubby man, dressed in a baggy suit, wearing oversized glasses and 1970s platform shoes. Milt took great care and delight in defining the character’s bulgy anatomy. His arms are relatively short in contrast to his big pear shaped body. 

As in all of Milt’s characters, Snoop’s chubby hands are beautifully defined. They are worth studying frame by frame, because…they are just plain fun to watch in slow motion. There is as much personality in these hands as there is in Snoop’s expressions.

Here are a few of Milt’s roughs.

Snoops pretends not to be intimidated by the aligators Nero and Brutus…but he is.

This leads to some funny walks as he is trying to avoid them. 

A couple of Milt’s thumbnail sheets.

I have more material on Snoops for another post.

To see a previous post on Nero & Brutus go here:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/06/nero-brutus.html

Frank & Ollie's Last Assignments

By the time I stated at Disney in August of 1980, Frank and Ollie had already finished work on their last film The Fox and the Hound. The rest of the studio was still wrapping up sequences, correcting rough animated scenes and trying to meet deadlines for clean up animation. 

But Frank and Ollie were still around at the studio, upstairs in the animation building, working enthusiastically on their first book The Illusion of Life.

For the film Frank had animated the section in which Tod and Copper meet in the woods for the first time as cubs. Ollie had focused on the sequence with grown up Tod getting to know Vixey.

Both animators worked together as they always had, talking over the acting for particular scenes and exchanging drawings. (They also layed out continuity sequences for young artists to animate). 

Overall they thought that the type of personalities and situation in the film didn’t challenge them like previous animal assignments. It seemed to them they had done similar work on earlier movies with fresher results. Frank and Ollie were ready to let young people take the medium and develop it into new directions. 

But as you can see in these final drawings, they both still had that sincere, emotional touch with character.

These are Frank's drawings: