Disney's Christmas Carol 1957

December 31, 2017, 12:46 am

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From Mc'Calls magazine, many years before the animated Mickey's Christmas Carol.
My guess is that the images were sketched by Bill Peet and then painted by one of the studio's background painters (some of them did illustration of Disney stories for Golden Books).

Happy New Year!

Here's hoping that this will be my year of the tiger...

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Frank Thomas and Dalmatians

January 4, 2018, 4:11 am

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Great publicity photo of Frank drawing a live Pongo at the studio. This pic was taken either during or toward the end of production of 101 Dalmatians. There are finished cel set-ups pinned on the story board behind him, as well as a drawing and cel from one of his lovely Perdita scenes.

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2016/05/perdita.html

Before Dalmatians Frank had produced beautiful animation featuring dog characters for Lady & the Tramp. One of his key sequences (aside from the iconic spaghetti eating moment) was when Tramp meets Lady for the first time, along with Trusty and Jock. Their character-contrasting interactions are priceless.
For 101 Dalmatians Frank animated many scenes with the lead dogs, but also a poignant scene at the beginning of the film, when during the birth sequence Nanny presents an unlucky puppy to Roger Radcliff and Pongo. That puppy was brought back to life through the help of Roger.
Later on another one of Frank's heartfelt animation moments is the Dalmatian reunion in the cows' stable.
Marc Davis might have stolen the show with his inventive and eccentric animation of Cruella De Vil, but if the plight of the Dalmatian family hadn't been portrayed believably and emotionally the story wouldn't have worked.
And Frank Thomas had a lot to do with that.

Ollie's Mowgli

January 8, 2018, 12:53 am

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Ollie Johnston animated practically the whole "Bear Necessities" song sequence from The Jungle Book. He had such a natural, instinctive feeling when it came to developing Baloo and Mowgli's relationship. It looks to me that he didn't overanalyze his animation, there is a strong gut feeling for how the characters' friendship evolved and changed. 

In this scene Mowgli mimics Baloo's actions, as he tries to pick a thorny fruit from a cactus. 

What a beautiful reaction when Mowgli pricks his finger. The whole head reacts first, his hair bursts, with his face wide open. He then shakes his hand, puts his finger in his mouth, then shakes the hand again. 

Actually the whole body is involved in Mowgli's reaction. His legs go up and down. This is intuitive, insightful character animation, with traces of Ollie's mentor Fred Moore.
These clean up lines were done right over Ollie's rough animation drawings.

Bald Mountain Art

January 12, 2018, 2:11 am

≫ Next: More Ken O'Brien Roughs

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A few pieces of art from "Night on Bald Mountain" that were sold by Heritage Auctions last year.
This segment from Fantasia remains animations' most nightmarish, astounding, horrific and beautiful moment.
Between Kay Nielsen's concepts and Bill Tytla's extraordinary animation, on top of the brilliant Mussorgsky's composition, there is a visual power that has not been matched in this medium since. Sheer terror without an ounce of comedy for balance.
Not every sequence in Fantasia came "together" in terms of story, animation and color, but Night onBald Mountain is one of those cinematic achievements that is absolutely perfect. It went all the way, nothing is compromised in its presentation. It is a benchmark for what animation could do in 1940, and a reminder of the power of Drawn Animation.

Check out this previous post on Chernabog:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2015/05/chernabog.html

More Ken O'Brien Roughs

January 14, 2018, 12:27 am

≫ Next: Designs for The Three Good Fairies

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I've written about animator Ken O'Brien before. On Lady & the Tramp he had the ungrateful task of bringing the human characters of Jim Dear and Darling to life. They were both based on live action reference, and a lesser animator might have ruined such an assignment.
But O'Brien knew very well how to work best with that kind of reference. He altered the poses from the live action quite a bit by strengthening body rhythm and overall movement. His drawing and animation is sort of a healthy mix of Fred Moore and Milt Kahl.
Look at the image above, he handled those 3/4 rear vews with such ease! I find myself working that kind of an angle on characters over and over. Its not easy, but look at O'Brien's approach! Intuitive and perfect.

Go here for previous posts on the talented Ken O'Brien:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2015/02/ken-obrien.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-ken-obrien-scene.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/01/young-lady.html


Images Van Eaton Galleries:
https://vegalleries.com/productions/walt-disney

Designs for The Three Good Fairies

January 17, 2018, 10:37 pm

≫ Next: Costume Designs for Sleeping Beauty

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These 1950s xeroxes come from Ollie Johnston's estate. He labelled them:

Don DaGradi character designs. I am not sure that these are by DaGradi, they look more like Tom Oreb sketches to me.

In any case, you can see that right from the beginning, during the character design phase, the crew was going for a style they had not done in feature films. Strong, graphic shapes that still needed to reveal distinct personalities. Frank and Ollie, who animated all personality scenes with the Fairies, were able to maintain the stylized designs in their work. But according to them, it wasn't easy to get used to. The idea of drawing your characters by applying flat shapes, while moving them dimensionally presented a challenge that was foreign to many animators.

My favorite sequence featuring the Fairies is when we see them inside a jewelry box, as they try to come up with a plan to counter Maleficent's curse. Every one of those scenes is worth studying closely. The acting is nuanced and believable, and the overall animation is fluid and graceful.

More on the Three Good Fairies here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/06/faries-combo-blogmov.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2017/03/i-havent-posted-vintage-disney-pencil.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/01/frank-and-ollie-animated-most-of.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/06/pierre-lamberts-sleeping-beauty.html

Costume Designs for Sleeping Beauty

January 20, 2018, 11:00 pm

≫ Next: Just a Great Drawing

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Marc Davis loved doing research for any given project he was involved with. All of these pages show his drawings. I imagine Marc had a whole bunch of books on medieval art and costumes nearby for inspiration as well as for historic accuracy.
These might be some of the first sketches he did for Sleeping Beauty during the early to mid 1950s.
After the production of Peter Pan most of his colleagues moved over to Lady and the Tramp.
But Marc skipped that film and instead began creating designs for Sleeping Beauty's minor characters, before focusing on the heroine as well as the villainess.
I love the simplicity in these drawings. Marc is already thinking about simple, uncluttered concepts that could be applied to full animation.

Here is a link to one of Marc's many color costume designs:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nP3fFyWYR-A/UNK5U36NjDI/AAAAAAAAEjk/KAvmON1BR-E/s1600/SBB-3.jpg

Just a Great Drawing

January 23, 2018, 2:05 am

≫ Next: Realism before Caricature/Animation

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Ever since I saw a publicity photo of a young Milt Kahl holding a drawing of Brer Rabbit, I realized that this man is an extraordinary artist.
There was nobody, at Disney or anywhere else, who drew like this. The mix of appeal, anatomical "cartoony" accuracy and overall insight into the character is breathtaking. And Milt maintained this level excellence for twenty-four frames per second. It is a shame that drawings like this one had to be cleaned up by an assistant. How wonderful it would be to see pencil tests of Milt's rough animation for Song of the South.
As Milt himself put it :"That picture was a high for personality animation."

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Realism before Caricature/Animation

January 26, 2018, 1:48 am

≫ Next: A Harper Goff Mystery

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These Ollie Johnston drawings popped up on Ebay recently. They are life drawings of either a Dalmatian or Ollie's own dog. I can tell from the drawing style that they were done during the latter part of Ollie's career, most likely in preparation for 101 Dalmatians.
All of Disney's animators sketched a lot of life dalmatians before getting into animation production.
You might think that this extensive research would not have been necessary, since just a few years prior the crew animated plenty of dogs for Lady and the Tramp. They already knew and had analyzed anatomy and movement for a variety of dogs. So why start all over again for 101 Dalmatians?
The answer is because it was a Walt Disney production. And the philosophy was that you can't animate an animal until you have studied the real thing.
I totally believe in this. No matter how stylized your final character design ends up, if it doesn't have  characteristics of the real animal or person, it won't be convincing.

A lot of realistic research of dalmatians was absolutely essential in order to achieve THIS for the animated film.

For more on studies of real dalmatians for the classic film, go here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/01/dalmatians.html

A Harper Goff Mystery

January 28, 2018, 1:38 am

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Sadly I never met Harper Goff, an artist who contributed in so many ways to Walt Disney's "mid century success".
He met Walt in 1951 in London in a model-making shop. They both wanted to purchase the same model train. To make a long story short, Goff joined the Disney staff soon after and became involved in the Disney's live action film 20.000 Leagues under the Sea. He designed sets for the film as well as THE Nautilus submarine. Goff also played the banjo as a member for The Firehouse five plus Two, a Dixieland band that included Disney artists Ward Kimball and Frank Thomas. He became an important designer for various Disneyland and Disney World attractions.

So here is where it becomes interesting. This painting, featuring Harper Goff and his wife Flossie was auctioned off a few years ago. The artist is no other than French painter Albert Brenet, who I posted about a few years ago, with no knowledge of any Disney connection.

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/search?q=brenet

I really don't know how these artists met, but it had to be in 1958 or before.
When it comes to Disney it's a small world between Animation and Fine artists.

Early Book Cover Idea

February 2, 2018, 9:11 pm

≫ Next: One More...

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This was an idea for the cover of my NINE OLD MEN book. For various reasons it didn't make the cut. It would make for a nice poster though. 

One More...

February 5, 2018, 2:41 am

≫ Next: Cruella's Last Scene

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Here's another cover idea for my NINE OLD MEN book, designed  by the multi talented Matthieu Saghezchi. I really like this one. 

But I totally appreciate your comments about preferring the final cover with my drawing of the Nine.

The publisher preferred it, too. 

I was just aiming for a more commercial cover. 

Cruella's Last Scene

February 9, 2018, 12:48 am

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A couple of drawings from what might be Marc Davis' last scene he ever animated. It is Cruella's last scene in 101 Dalmatians. Her car had collides with Jasper and Horace's truck. Now she gives the two Baduns hell. "You idiots...you fools...etc."

This scene is featured in my 9 Old Men Book (if I may say so), the main key drawings are included in the Marc Davis chapter.

But I think it's interesting to see that Marc drew Cruella full size on 16 field animation paper, before 

the animation was greatly reduced in size to fit in with the scenic layout. 

I still have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this animator at the peak of his craft left the medium to join WED. It's animation's loss and Disneyland's gain.

Cruella's fur coat with its many sections is a complex thing to track in animation. The heaviest weight is in her lower coat. All these different coat parts have their own way of moving and are timed differently. And then there is the overall design and the fun variety of shapes and volumes.

Like Color stylist Walt Peregoy said: " There will never be a villain like Cruella!"

We'll see....

Classic Disney Animation Roughs

February 12, 2018, 12:18 am

≫ Next: Edgar in a Panic

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Rough drawings from various Disney productions offered at recent a animation auctions.

I always find it interesting to see individual drawing styles by the animators. 

Marc Davis drew Maleficent very clean, as did most everybody on Sleeping Beauty. Because of the specific style in the characters' design the animators didn't trust their clean up artists to interpret their roughs. That meant drawing as clean as you possibly could.

A powerful Woolie Reitherman rough from the rat sequence at the end of the film.Woolie's last animation before becoming a director.

One of Milt Kahl's lovely Wendy drawings. He did not enjoy the assignment, but as usual he did an amazing job interpreting Kathryn Beaumont's live action reference.

Woolie also animated action scenes with Captain Hook and Perter Pan.
John Musker believes that this sequence is John Lounsbery's work. Nope, it's Woolie.

Oh boy, Eric Larson felt so bad about his animation of the prince in Cinderella. He told me he'd like to do it over again.

This drawing is from a Marc Davis Scene. (Not sure about the hand holding the letter.) But overall Marc's animation of Cinderella is breathtaking.

Fred Moore animated the Three Little Wolves in the this 1936 short film. Just beautiful!!

A clean up study by Iwao Takamoto over Marc Davis' animation. Shapes and lines in perfect harmony.

Bill Tylta animated the sequence before and during the "washing up section." Gorgeous animation that needed top clean up artists to finish it off.

A  Fred Moore rough animation drawing. So full of life, and such an intuitive feeling for the character.

  

We are standing on the shoulders of giants!!

Edgar in a Panic

February 15, 2018, 12:19 am

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This is the second half of a scene, in which Edgar, the butler realizes that he might be in trouble. After kidnapping the cats he had left behind his hat and umbrella at the scene of the crime.

Milt Kahl surely had some fun animating this close up dialogue scene. His extreme use of squash and stretch adds unique comedy to this character. And that wonderful feeling of loose, moving flesh on his face. Of course he knew when he could go this far, his animation of Madame Bonfamille by contrast is an exercise in subtlety and grace.

The dialogue leading up to this moment: "They (the police) wouldn't find a clou to implicate me. Not one single clou. Well, I'll eat my hat if they...MY HAT, MY UMBRELLA!"

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Anastasia

February 22, 2018, 1:34 am

≫ Next: Words of Wisdom

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A beautiful rough animation drawing by Ollie Johnston. It looks to me that this scene was based on live action footage. Many scenes with the stepsisters in Cinderella were handled in a cartoony way, something Ollie regretted later on. He thought he might have gone too far occasionally portraying them as broad animation personalities. And...I probably agree.
There is a drastic difference between the realism of the Stepmother and Cinderella versus the broad animation of the Stepsisters.
But the two sisters represent much needed comic relief within the story, and they do perform as such beautifully.
Cinderella remains one of Disney's best storytelling. I do love this movie.

Words of Wisdom

February 24, 2018, 12:30 am

≫ Next: Prince and Dragon

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...from Don Graham, Disney's prime art teacher during the Golden Age of animation. All of the animators valued his classes enormously. This is a magazine article from December of 1940.

Prince and Dragon

February 28, 2018, 3:21 pm

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I posted about this dramatic sequence from Sleeping Beauty before. Here is some more material showing aspects of the production process.
Actor Ed Kemmer (1921 - 2004) acted out action scenes for animator Ken Hultgren, who drew most of the Prince footage, as he fights the growing thorns and the Dragon.

A number of scenes were animated with a variety of dragon designs, before the final appearance became finalized. Eric Cleworth animated most of the Dragon, but I am convinced that Marc Davis added some graphic strength to this character. Drawing # 21 looks very much like Marc's work.

These are earlier posts on the same subject:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/02/dramatic-dragon.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2017/05/more-on-cleworths-dragon.html

More Wilhelm M. Busch

March 8, 2018, 1:35 am

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 Can't get enough of the extraordinary work by German Illustrator Wilhelm M. Busch.
The compositions, the intense search for portraying human anatomy in its most fascinating way...
so much to admire. Most definitely one of my favorite artists from the last century.
I so wished I could have met him when I was still living in Germany.
Art that makes you think about your own approach to seeing the world.

More of Milt's Penny

March 12, 2018, 2:28 am

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I created these "model sheets" of Penny scenes animated by Milt Kahl...a long time ago.
Way back when production began on Oliver & Company I started doing experimental animation of the character of Jenny. What better inspiration than a girl character of the same age animated by Milt?
So much to learn from these drawings. When to draw the jaw line all the way to the ear and when not.
How subtle facial features like eyes, nose, lips work in perspective. Hands, clothing, and simplified anatomy in general. There is a lot to love here.

I didn't end up animating on Oliver and Company, (except for a handful of scenes with the dogs, Roger Rabbit was calling), but these sketches still present to me a standard of excellence when it comes to animating a young girl like Sarah in my film Mushka.