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Best Snake Gag Ever

February 22, 2014, 6:32 pm
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Frank and Ollie talk about this Ken Anderson sketch in their book The Illusion of Life.
It shows Sir Hiss sulking in his basket, after some verbal abuse from Prince John. 
Ollie Johnston saw the comic potential for his animation right away, and he ended up using Ken's drawing for the final pose of the scene. 
I remember laughing out loud in the theatre, when I watched this moment in the film Robin Hood. The idea that the snake would get into this relaxed, human pose was surprising and came out of nowhere. The situation is funny, because of Ken's concept, but also because of Ollie's animation.
As Sir Hiss lifts up parts of his body, they land on the basket's edge with real overlap and weight.

These are a few of Ollie's quick thumbnail sketches that show how he approached the scene.



Four main key drawings, combined with the layout.





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Dramatic Dragon

February 24, 2014, 9:02 pm
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Eric Cleworth animated Sleeping Beauty's  breathtaking dragon in pursuit of Prince Phillip. Woolie Reitherman directed this sequence, and both artists were able to infuse high drama into the film's climactic finish. I have the feeling that Marc Davis had something to do with the dragon's final design, since it it based on Maleficent, the character he animated. It is interesting to see that early designs were influenced by the anatomy of a dinosaur. (This might have been Woolie's idea, who had animated a dinosaur fight in Fantasia). 
I am not sure if these are Cleworth's drawings, but they sure are powerful and show a great sense for design and animal body structure. 

The widescreen format was perfect for this type of a battle, you could actually show the entire dragon on the screen. And those sound effects are just incredible.





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Gaston's Chest Hair

February 27, 2014, 1:24 am
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That's talented French actor Alexis Loizon in the photo, who currently plays Gaston in Paris in the stage production of Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et La Bete). As you can see, Gaston still uses antlers in all of his decorating, and his chest hair is as predominant as ever.
When we were animating Gaston's song way back, one of his lines stuck out:
 "…and every last inch of me 's covered with hair! " I did not have the time to do that scene, so one of my animators in the Gaston unit gave it a shot.
The animation turned out to be fine, but when Gaston stretched his shirt to reveal his chest, the design of his chest hair looked a little odd to me. It seemed to have been combed from the center outward. I suggested we try a different look for the chest hair, and guess what…everybody had a different take on what the hair should look like. I encouraged my colleagues to submit a drawing that showed their idea of appropriate Gaston chest hair. After a while we had at least twenty different designs to look at. 
These are just some of them. 



Eventually I worked with an effects animator to create the final look, a mix of stubble and curls.

Probably the most unusual design issue I ever came across at Disney.


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From Ken to Milt

March 1, 2014, 5:28 pm
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Here is another design idea for Madame Medusa (and Penny) by Ken Anderson.
He definitely tried to incorporate the idea of the classic Medusa image with snakes growing out of her head. 



Milt Kahl eventually came up with his own design for the character. His Medusa resembles one of his earlier creations, when Madame Mim briefly turns into a beautiful woman. 



This Anderson sketch shows Medusa and Penny in an awkward embrace. Milt liked the situation and the way it was staged, and he made use of it in a scene toward the end of the film. “(Ah, ah, ah, Snoops, that is no way) to speak to our little Miss Penny.” 
The way Milt animated Medusa approaching Penny doesn't look like a person...more like a weather system. Amazing.











Milt liked showing soft skin when it gets in contact with something solid (in this case Medusa’s head). He once said, that he gets a kick out of seeing a nude in a Degas painting sitting on a hard surface like a wooden chair. It’s a chance to show contrast, the way flesh reacts to a hard surface.


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Three Nudes and a Hippo

March 3, 2014, 10:25 pm
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In this watercolor by Heinrich Kley a troubadour tries to move a hippo, who carries two baroque ladies resting on his back. Who knows if there is any special meaning to this situation or wether it reflects any social commentary during the early 1900s, when it was painted. Maybe the hippo represents the German economy, which wasn’t moving, who knows?
But by itself it’s quite a beautiful piece to study. The image was already somewhat faded when I got it, but with a little help from photoshop it’s possible to bring this scene back to life. The guy is giving all he’s got to make the hippo budge, while the two women wait comfortably for the ride to eventually continue.

Here is the link to my first post on Heinrich Kley a while back:


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King Stefan & King Hubert

March 5, 2014, 9:55 pm
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These two father figures from the film Sleeping Beauty were animated by Milt Kahl, John Lounsbery and other animators, but it was Milt who was responsible for the final character design.
This new stylized drawing style was right up his alley, even if it presented challenges. But there was nobody at Disney who enjoyed solving drawing problems more than Milt Kahl (even though he stated that this was always hard work for him.) He reveled in the fact that he was able to give new Disney characters the “That’s it!” look. Perfection that can not be improved. 
The Kings are configured of solid round and square shapes, their lines are either straight or curved. There is an architecture to this type of drawing. It’s one thing to come up with good looking designs like these, but then to be able to turn and move them around in space is astonishing. 
A few rare examples when Milt used color in his pre-animation research.



Milt refined the way King Stefan’s sleeves would be drawn. When an arm is bent, even the shape of the inside sleeve becomes a very unique design, while showing proper weight at the same time. A few years later Merlin from The Sword in the Stone would benefit from the same graphic sleeve treatment.




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Edgar

March 7, 2014, 9:15 pm
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The butler in the film The Aristocats doesn’t fall into the category of “Disney’s most evil Villains”, but that doesn’t mean that his character can’t entertain and delight as a milder, more gentle baddie.
When you have animators like Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and John Lounsbery bringing Edgar to life, you know that there will be some terrific performances on the screen.
The sheet above shows Milt’s character designs. I like the loose skin under his chin and in the back of his neck, which provides opportunities for sqash and stretch. Milt loved working on scenes with Edgar, because his personality called for strong emotions, from deep frustration when he finds out that the cats will inherit Madam’s fortune, to gleeful excitement, when he believes that he has successfully gotten rid of the cats.
That particular situation is explored in these sketches by Ken Anderson, who came up with fun ideas that show Edgar in a self-congratulatory mood.





Milt animated this scene, in which Edgar celebrates with a cigar and a bottle of champagne.
The way he casually lifts up the bottle, lets it twirl in the air before adjusting his grip is fantastic.

“Ha, Edgar, old chap. Get used to the finer things in life.”







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Edgar II

March 9, 2014, 10:20 pm
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Just to add to my last post, this photo shows Milt actually animating that scene with Edgar, the butler, from The Aristocrats (He is working on key drawing #33). Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day had just won an Oscar, and a photographer was sent to animators’ offices to take pictures of various artists posing next to the statue and the film’s poster. 
What’s more interesting though is what you see in Milt’s bookshelf: Two editions of Edward Muybridge photographic studies on animal and human locomotion. Those books are still available today and provide terrific study of how living beings move. I recall Milt commenting on these ancient photo collections from the era of the dawn of photography. In particular the animal edition had been useful to Milt whenever he was faced with animating somewhat realistic horses, deer or tigers. 
Check out Wikipedia’s page on Muybridge:


Here are a bunch of Milt’s extraordinary Edgar rough animation drawings from different scenes. He did not care much for the movie as a whole, nevertheless when it came to doing his part, he gave it all he’d got. Superb drawing, staging and acting!






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Wilhelm M. Busch 1963

March 11, 2014, 10:41 pm
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More Busch book illustrations. 
These are from the German 1963 edition of “Viechereien eines Poeten” (Too difficult to translate.)
For the book Busch illustrated short verses about animals. I love the compositions and those unconventional poses of people and animals. Gorgeous organic drawing!
And what great feeling of space.

It’s good to have artistic heroes, he is one of mine!







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Outtakes

March 13, 2014, 9:04 pm
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Back in 2003 I played around with animal designs that were influenced by TS Sullivant. Some of these drawings made it into my published animal sketchbook “A Different Stripe”.
Here are a few outtakes that didn’t make it. 
The one above should come with the caption:”Vilkommen, Bienvenue, Velcome!”

The story of Peter Pan portrayed by pig characters.



Other stuff.






Here is the link to a previous post about “A Different Stripe”:


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Ken's and Milt's Shere Khan

March 15, 2014, 10:29 pm
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Storyman Bill Peet had done just a few sketches of the villain from The Jungle Book before he departed from the studio. Ken Anderson picked up the pieces and tried to go beyond a typical, evil  Disney tiger. It was his idea to go for a personality traits like arrogance, self assurance and sarcasm.
When actor George Sanders was hired to do the voice Shere Khan’s character came to life, and everybody loved the concept. 
These are Ken’s design explorations.








Milt studied George Sanders’ facial features and drew Shere Khan resembling the voice actor.
Animating the tiger turned out to be one of Milt’s favorite assignments. He was originally concerned though that Shere Khan turned up so late in the movie.
After an early screening of the story reels, Milt turned to Walt Disney and said: “Don’t you think this would be a good time to discuss where we are going with the story, and at what point the tiger should enter?”
Walt petted Milt on the shoulder, assuring him that things would turn out alright. “You guys take care of the personalities, let me worry about the story.” (Milt recounted this episode during a 1984 interview).
Before Walt died in1966 he did see Milt’s pencil animation of Shere Khan interrogating Kaa, the python, about Mowgli’s whereabouts. He liked it and approved the sequence for final color.

Here are a few Milt’s key drawings from various scenes. I think he reached a new personal level of excellence with Shere Khan. He invented new expressions, which gave great authenticity to the acting. One for the ages! 










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Ollie's Reason and Emotion

March 18, 2014, 9:53 pm
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Ollie Johnston animated the two female parts in the 1943 propaganda film Reason and Emotion. (Milt Kahl did the sequence featuring the male parts).
For those of you who have not seen this short, there are two opposing characters inside the human head. One of them is Reason, proper and dignified, the other Emotion, intuitive and fun loving.
The film’s point is that only a good balance between the two guarantees a successful way to conduct one’s life.
This is one of the best War Time shorts Disney produced. The contrast between the characters makes for interesting conflict and fun situations.
Here are some of Ollie’s character layouts showing Emotion getting a hold of the driver’s seat.







I recall Frank Thomas suggesting way back that we study this short as character inspiration for The Black Cauldron. I know he felt that cartoony designs like these would be easier tho handle by a new, green animation crew. The designs Milt Kahl had suggested looked too familiar to him and too difficult to draw.

Reason and Emotion can be seen as part of the Disney treasures DVD called: On the Front Lines.

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Orville

March 21, 2014, 12:17 am
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Most of the personality scenes with the albatross Orville from the film The Rescuers were animated by Ollie Johnston. This is an interesting character, he is pilot and airplane all in one. Jim Jordan’s voice brought a confidence to the character despite his questionable flying maneuvers. 
For Orville’s take offs and landings Ollie used some live action footage as reference for his animation.
The Disney 1952 documentary Water Birds included scenes of an albatross’s awkward attempts to get airborne as well as his crash landings.
These design sketches are full of personality, and they show the character’s comical potential.







Milt Kahl took a shot at Orville’s design as well. His albatross is a little shorter in length. Milt was somehow able to add a funny baggy pants appearance, which is reminiscent of a vintage  aviator’s outfit. I wished that part would have been kept in the final design.





Never before published designs by Ollie and Milt. I hope you enjoy them.

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A Cool Guy...

March 22, 2014, 10:30 pm
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…named Milt Kahl would be 105 years old today. This photo was taken during one of my earlier visits to Marin County, where he spent the rest of his years after leaving Disney Studios.
I remember asking him if he was going down to LA to join a Snow White anniversary reunion organized by Disney, but he had no interest. Animation was in his past, now he enjoyed being remarried and seeing his children more often. He was a happy man, and I was happy and grateful that Milt took the time to see me and answer my many question about the art of animation.

Here are a few visual reminders of his extraordinary talent, covering the second half of his career.















There is plenty of Milt’s artwork to see on this blog. Here is the link to my first post on Milt:


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The Gang

March 25, 2014, 12:33 am
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Disney’s top animators got together sometime in 1973 for a photo shoot to promote their latest animated feature Robin Hood. Looks like Woolie just cracked a joke, for some reason only Milt Kahl and Les Clark are not laughing.
Most of the animators were involved in this production except a few. Marc Davis came over from Imagineering, his home since the early 1960s. Ward Kimball and Les Clark were involved in directing a variety of TV and theatrical specials. Eric Larson did a bit of animation on the film, but he started to focus on developing a training program for new talent.
Ollie Johnston loved his assignment to animate Prince John and Sir Hiss, Frank Thomas did not find a fun way to express himself in this film. Milt did beautiful work on Robin Hood and several other characters, but questioned the film’s story structure.
All of them were incredibly gifted artists, highly opinionated and critical. Marc Davis summed it up: ”I think that one of Walt’s greatest achievements was having all of us work together without killing one another.”

In other words they all knew that you had to be a team player in order to make these movies.

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Happy Birthday, Alice!

March 26, 2014, 4:13 pm
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The wonderful Alice Davis celebrates her birthday today. The photo shows her at last year’s birthday dinner. I have known Alice and her late husband Marc Davis for many years. Marc enjoyed the company of young artists and so does Alice. There is a reason why Alice has a lot of friends. Everyone loves her unique sense of humor as well as her positive outlook on life.
A while ago I had the opportunity to drive Alice to Anaheim to attend an event at Disneyland. Traffic was very bad, it was slow going on the 5 South. I tell you, I had the greatest time listening to Alice’s stories about Walt and the old studio.
Later, on the way back we had to deal with traffic again,  and the topic of conversation was Mary Blair, who Alice adored and had known very well. They both had worked together on the IT’s a Small World Attraction back in the early 1960s. It was a privilege to find out about Mary’s life, which over the years had its ups and downs.

Alice’s first job for Disney was to produce the dress worn by actress Helen Stanley, who performed scenes for the animators as Aurora for the film Sleeping Beauty. That dress is a marvel, the fabric creates the most graphic looking folds when in motion, and therefore helped to give Marc’s animation so much elegance.

Alice and Marc also worked together on Disneyland’s ride Pirates of the Caribbean.




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Marc Your Calendar

March 29, 2014, 1:13 am
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No, I did not misspell…Marc Davis is the subject of an exhibition at the wonderful Walt Disney Family Museum from April 30 to November 3, 2014. And I feel honored to be given the opportunity to help out putting this show together. 
Here is the Museum’s official announcement:


It will be a very good time to visit the museum, since another incredible exhibition on the art of Mary Blair is being presented until September 2014.


If you interested in the art of Disney Animation you need to see these two exhibitions.

The photo above was taken during production of the Mickey Mouse film The Prince and the Pauper. Joe Grant and Marc gave us notes after viewing the story reels of the film, early in 1990.

And by the way, I wrote a chapter for the upcoming book on the Art Of Marc Davis, which will be available in October!


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Marc Davis 101 Years Old

March 31, 2014, 2:18 am
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…as of yesterday. 101, how about that?
What better occasion than to post a few expressive animation drawings of his farewell character Cruella De Vil from the groundbreaking film 101 Dalmatians. Whenever there is a Top Ten of Disney’s best villains, Cruella is often Nr. One.
These drawings remind us why. Marc went far out on this character, no holding back. She is grotesque and beautiful to watch at the same time. Cruella arguably represents the most successful use of live action reference for any animated character. Marc said that the live action was helpful, but often he had a different take on the acting and told himself, now its time for YOU to create a performance.

Cruella De Vil is a very bold modern statement in her graphic presentation as well as character acting. 















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Remembering Aladdin

April 3, 2014, 1:14 am
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In my opinion Aladdin was one of the best features my generation of animators came up with. The photo brings back a lot of fun memories. From left to right:
Dave Pruiksma (Sultan), Glen Keane (Aladdin), Duncan Marjoribanks (Abu), Eric Goldberg (Genie), Will Finn (Iago), Randy Cartwright (Carpet) and myself.
Mark Henn (Jasmine) and Aaron Blaise (Rajah) were working at the Orlando studio at the time.

Just a few memories that come to mind:

Eric was the first animator on the movie, his incredible test animation of the Genie set the film’s animation style and standard. Quite intimidating!

The movie’s backgrounds impressed me so much, I sent a note -signed by all of the supervising animators- to the background artists. It said that we think their work is on the level of  “Peter Pan”.

All animators were walking around with a smile on their faces, we loved our assignments.

Jonathan Freeman’s nuanced voice recordings were a tremendous inspiration for Jafar.

We all loved the integration of CG (Tiger Head) with our drawn characters.

We also thought the songs and score were tremendous.

Frank and Ollie thought the films’s pacing was too hectic. Marc Davis questioned the contemporary references. Don’t know what Kimball thought of Aladdin.

After Aladdin the animation crew split into two units. One did Lion King, the other did Pocahontas.

It felt like our animation unit could move mountains.
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Bernard Garbutt Animal Sketches

April 5, 2014, 12:17 am
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Here are a few pages from Garbutt’s animal sketchbook, around 1940. I love his approach to drawing, he goes right for the essence of the animal. It doesn’t matter wether he is observing a mammal, a bird or a reptile, he tells you something that’s characteristic about this specific animal.
This kind of work makes me want to run to the LA zoo and sketch.
Disney was very lucky to have Garbutt as a teacher for animal drawing during animation’s golden age. With a project like Bambi in the works, these solid but lively sketches influenced the whole crew who worked on that film.

Find out more about about Bernard Garbutt in this earlier post:














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