9 Old Men Exhibit

Just a reminder of this phenomenal exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum. It will run until early January. Beautiful, inspiring and occasionally shocking (to realize just how good these guys were.) I believe for animators this is a once in a lifetime experience.

Just look at these drawings!

Woolie Reitherman. This study sheet for El Gaucho Goofy is part of the exhibit. The following images aren't.

Milt Kahl 

Eric Larson

Marc Davis

Frank Thomas

Ollie Johnston

Les Clark

Ward Kimball

John Lounsbery

Johnny Appleseed II

As many of you know, Mary Blair created many works regarding color and background styling for a great variety of Disney films. Seldom did her personal vision make it to the screen though. Background painters as well as animators didn't know how to incorporate Mary's simplified almost abstract style into the film's final look. More often than not through the animation process compromises were made, and the project ended up looking like the familiar Disney house style.

Johnny Appleseed (1948) is one exception. This final background above could have been painted by Mary Blair herself. Her naive, childlike expressiveness actually made it intact to the screen, as far as art direction.
The character styling is still round and dimensional though, a quality that would change a decade later with Eyvind Earle's artistic contribution to Sleeping Beauty.

A cel from an Eric Larson scene.

A couple of Mary Blair color concepts.  

A cel set up from the film. The character cels show some airbrush shadow areas, something that was done at the studio before being offered for sale to the public.

Here is the link to Johnny Appleseed I:
https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/10/johnny-appleseed.html

Busch Magazine Covers

For this post I am borrowing illustrations by Wilhelm M. Busch from Hans Bacher's blog:

https://one1more2time3.wordpress.com

I think they are magnificent. Sternchen (Little Star) was for a while a supplement children's magazine within Stern, a leading weekly German publication still operating today.
These illustrations helped visualize stories that were included in each issue.
Staging, composition, draughtsmanship...there is so much to admire here. Busch (1908 - 1987) was a fantastic storyteller, and I wished I could hire him for one of my upcoming projects.

More Bernard & Bianca Sketches

These photocopies of Milt Kahl's character designs for the mice leads in The Rescuers are currently offered by Heritage Auctions. Milt is exploring various outfits, but he is mainly trying to come up with new design concepts for animated mice. Not an easy task.
Bernard's nose eventually shrank to a more conventional, smaller size.
I do like the sketch in the the upper right corner, even though this looks like a British character.

Here is the link to my previous post on designing Bernard & Bianca:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/05/bernard-bianca.html

Jungle Book / Weekly Animation Productivity

This is a true "behind the scenes" document, detailing the animators' animation output during the last week of 1966. Walt had died just two weeks prior to year's end. So the mood in the animation department was somber, to say the least. Most of the animators took the time off between Christmas and New Year's.
It is interesting to see what the average output was up to that point in production by each animator.
Ollie did just over 15 feet a week. That is about 10 seconds.
Hal king was pretty prolific, too, with 10-03 Feet.
Milt Kahl just short of 9 feet, average. (Of course, according to him, he could have been much faster, if he didn't have to do so many drawings for other animators.)

Funny, it looks like they were 10 frames ahead of schedule for total output.

Woolie's Student Life Drawings

I am always thrilled to do a post on Woolie Reitherman, because there isn't a whole lot of his art available, at auctions or elsewhere. 

Years before he animated Timothy, the mouse in Disney's Dumbo, Woolie attended art classes at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1932 and 1933. (He was hired by Disney on July 31, 1933).

Here are a few samples of his life drawings from that time. I see a student who is in search of anatomy, form and motion, but also in search of a personal style.

A great start to a legendary career in animation.

In 1937 Walt Disney became involved with Chouinard by offering classes in animation, taught by top talent from the studio. In later years Ward Kimball and Marc Davis would join the faculty.

In 1961 Chouinard and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music merged into the then brand new California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts), located in Valencia, north of Los Angeles.

Drawings/Bob Reitherman, brochure pages/Howard Lowery.

Ken's Shere Khan

There are MANY posts on this blog regarding Shere Khan from The Jungle Book, and there is a reason for it. I believe that this character represents a late breakthrough in Disney character animation. Ken Anderson came up with an "above it all" villain, at a time when the rest of the animation crew was scrambling to develop a unique approach to this tiger. It could have gone in so many different directions.
A physically overbearing, threatening, vicious villain would be the most obvious way to go.
But once director Woolie Reitherman saw Anderson's sketches, the idea of hiring actor George Sanders for the voice came to mind. And the rest is history.
Milt Kahl was completely on board with the concept of a tiger, who is suave and acts in a restraint manner.
The final result is a villain for the ages. Designed with graphic sophistication and animated with just the right amount of realism.

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/03/kens-and-milts-shere-khan.html

Images courtesy of the Reitherman family, with many thanks.

Magic Mickey

A beautiful rough drawing by Fred Moore from Fantasia's Sorcerer's Apprentice, just recently offered by Heritage Auctions. Moore was animation supervisor on this short film, I don't think he animated much himself while working on it.
What's interesting here is to observe that Mickey is portrayed with his vintage black oval eyes. You can see it in the pre-production color sketch as well. So sometime during production the idea was discussed to give Disney's superstar eyes WITH small pupils.

And this is what he ended up looking in Fantasia, and pretty much from that time on, as far as eyes are concerned.

The story source material for The Sorcerer's Apprentice was as beautiful as the final film.

A finished cel set up from the film, though it might have been produced for publicity purposes.

A dramatic cel image for a final scene. Sometimes I wonder, what is it about Disney character colors?
They are stunning, just by themselves, without a painted background.
The Disney Color Model department really was the best in the world!

Frank & Ollie

I just found this photo of Frank and Ollie online, and it brought back some memories.
It looks like they both are promoting the release of Snow White on home video.
Frank is wearing a Bambi sweater, while Ollie chose a Jungle Book shirt. Well, I gave Ollie that shirt, which I purchased years ago in Germany. The images are from scenes, he animated. And they were beautifully embroidered. (The Jungle Book still holds the record in Germany for most movie tickets ever sold.)
This is really how I remember both of them, in their retirement,  still full of passion for animated drawings. I miss them.

Kley's Artistic Evolution

Here are three Heinrich Kley magazine illustrations that show how his art evolved over the years.
The first one is titled "Summer Solstice in Heidelberg". I would date this piece sometime during the 1890s, even though there seems to be a later date indicated on the upper left side.
The depiction of men, women and children is realistic and rigid. It is a pretty illustration, but undistinguishable to other artists of that era.

The next one is titled "the late Hour" from 1896. A lot more going on here in terms of dynamic composition, inventive poses and personality. Just beautiful!

The third sketch represents what Kley became famous for. Fantasy illustrations that show, what Walt Disney would call "The Plausible impossible". Surreal, caricatured situations, drawn in a believable manner. In this case a violinist fiddling away while being eaten by alligators. Luckily the drawing shows the process' early stage.

Kley's work at this time also included assignments for the German steel company Krupp. Some paintings show plane architectural (but beautiful) renderings of their factories. But even in those environments he would occasionally include oversized evil, satyr-type or other characters.
His imagination is sometime difficult to figure out, since we always look for the meaning behind such unusual work.
What is easily accessible though is his drawing virtuosity. Way ahead of his time he could depict the most absurd situation and make it look beautiful and believable.

 

Kahl Witches

Heritage Auctions recently sold these design sketches by Milt Kahl from the movie The Black Cauldron. I believe that in the original books by Lloyd Alexander the three witches keep exchanging their outfits in order to confuse the group of lead characters.
This story concept isn't easy to get across in just a few drawings, but if anybody might have pulled it off in animation, it's Milt.
Great drawings, though in principle the characters borrow heavily from the designs of Madam Mim as well as Madame Medusa.

You can see a Tim Burton concept sketch of the three Witches here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-witches-of-morva.html

Mike Peraza

My multi-talented friend Mike Peraza created this beautiful poster design. I just love it. Check out Mike's blog:

http://michaelperaza.blogspot.com

One of Milt Kahl's last Drawings

Just a few days ago I found out that this little gem of a drawing was offered at Heritage's Comic Strip auction, which took place in January. It was sold for just about nothing (or an "apple and and an egg", like we say in Germany). I truly believe that the amount would have been 10 to 20 times larger, had the sketch been offered at one of their Animation Art auctions.

This of course is a Milt Kahl drawing, done for a fan on his last day at Disney, on April 30, 1976.

I think Milt spent most of that day doing sketches like this one. Many of them featuring Madame Medusa, his final character for the studio. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQtfBXm5VfwSetgckJq5yAugKB5175cGJm5sp0-tdgftP-snxR5Mws2sd37ohpCBMepr-lueg-wmNZ0HPcM1NLg0ilE3XNsokoCcRpy94OkmkmgisCqadx4-ebZcdFgP7huPX5CpCZWA/s1600/MK-14.jpg

PS. I re-read this lot's description, which says that this is a signed print.
Now I wonder where the original might be...

Why isn't he finished yet...

 ...because our team is relatively small, and it takes time to maintain quality. We were thinking earlier this year, if  everybody gives it an extra push, perhaps we could finish the project by the end of this year. But this would mean compromising here and there in order to get it done. That's not going to happen. So we will go into next year with the hope and intention to finish by mid-year.

To be honest. there were times when I thought, what't wrong with a seven minutes format?
The fact is, I need 25 minutes to tell this particular story.
And we are making progress, with five sequences in final color very soon.

The scene above shows Sarah after she arrives in Eastern Russia. She is sent upstairs to her "room".
The camera follows her as she walks across her new home. She trips, then runs into a spider web before arriving by the window on screen left, where she opens her suitcase.

Milt & Roger Miller

Great behind the scenes photo of Milt Kahl and Roger Miller, the voice of Allan-a-Dale, the rooster from Disney's 1973 film Robin Hood. As far as character designs, this is one of my favorites. This character needed to be depicted in some kind of period costume. How do you do that with a rooster?
Milt did have some experience with clothing on poultry, having designed and animated Ludwig von Drake in the early 1960s.
For an extensive post on Allan-a-Dale from 2011 go here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/09/allan-dale.html

Geppetto Head Studies

I should have put in a bid on these two sheets that were just up for auction. I was busy animating and forgot about S/R's animation art auction. Most of you know that Art Babbit animated the character of Geppetto in Pinocchio, but I believe these drawings are by Fred Moore.  

What do you think?

A Family Affair

The opening night for the Nine Old Men exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco was magical. Most of the Nine's families showed up, and to talk to them while visiting the various galleries...what can I say, once in a lifetime.
Wherever you are in the world, if you can afford it, come to SF to see this exhibit. It is the largest the museum has ever mounted. I was planing to take a ton of photos, but ended up talking to family members instead.

Here are three generations of the Kahl family. Milt, Sibyl, his daughter and Zoe, his great-granddaughter, who did inherit Milt's artistic talent (she is super creative, winning awards in all kinds of art competitions).

Go see this show!