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Happy Halloween!
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Chuck Jones Drawings
A small gallery of Chuck Jones sketches from some of his short films or otherwise. I love the kind of tension going on between lines and volumes. He is always trying for the "Unusual", making what might seem ordinary look extraordinary. And personality is the key, as well as entertainment. The energy found in his work just floors me.
There is something to be learned from every Chuck Jones drawing, which makes him a master draughtsman in a classical sense.
Most drawings Heritage Auctions
Here is a previous post on the one and only:
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A Must Have
I mean it. This new Ueber Coffee Table book by Taschen is one of the best books on Disney Animation ever. There is so much new visual material, it will make your head spin. I did not write any of the book's chapters, but I was a consultant on it. A true labor of love by everyone involved.
I posted a couple of key drawings from this scene with Ferdinand and the Matador, clearly inspired by the story sketches:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/05/ferdinand-and-matador.html
The visual material includes all stages of production, from designs and story sketches to final film frames. There are also notes from story sessions, screen credits and behind the scenes photos.
The book weighs a ton, 624 pages with over 1500 images.
Christmas came early this year!
Here is the link to Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Film-Archives-1921-1968/dp/3836552914/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=R5CFFTJKBJKEQWDBCDQ1
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Mirko Hanak
"Mirko Hanak was one of Czechoslovakia's most popular illustrators of children's books. He studied at the Academy of Arts in Prague and published the first of his dozens successful books in 1951. Hanak's love of nature has often taken him into the wilds with his sketch book to capture birds and animals in their natural settings. It is for these animal pictures that Hanak is famous in his native land and abroad."
A brief write up from one his illustrated books. I am very fond of Hanak's art, because it combines Asian painting techniques with Western sensibilities.
Just imagine...for a moment, an animated feature influenced by his art! It would be entirely possible as a mix between hand drawn and CG animation techniques. But for now we are stuck with nauseating realism. As for myself I am trying my best to offer a new look for my film Mushka, combining drawings with CG rendering.
I will post more of Hanak's stunning work soon !
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Van Eaton Galleries
I have been purchasing animation art from Van Eaton Galleries here in LA for many years. Once in a while the owner Mike van Eaton comes across pieces that I want to own. Sometimes I feel like I overpaid for certain artworks, other times I underpaid. But Mike always surprises me with Disney animation art that you'd think doesn't exist anymore. It has been an absolute pleasure to do business with him over the years. Just look at these recent offerings, amazing!
Here is the link to Van Eaton Galleries:
https://vegalleries.com
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More Hovarth Art
More info on Hovarth here:
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Ferdinand_Hovarth
Images Heritage Auctions
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Mirko Hanak 1964
More of Mirko Hanak's beautiful children's book illustrations. These images are from an English edition, titled Sing a Song of Everything. What amazes me about his work is the endless variety of textures he is achieving with watercolor. I have quite a few of his books and will post more of Hanak's art once in a while.
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Soft Hands
Milt Kahl animated this scene with Georges Hautecourt from The Aristocats. This close up is a great example of loose, moving flesh during a dialogue scene. Hautecourt thinks he is holding Madame Bonfamille's hand as he comments: "Ah....still the softest hands in all of Paris." Of course he has grabbed Duchess' tail instead. I love how far his face is sunken into the cat's tail, before he inhales to say the line.
For part of the scene his eyebrows are covering the eyes completely. An idea he probably got from Ronald Searle. I posted about this a while ago:
I will be at CTN this weekend. Feel free to approach me anytime with your questions.
You will find me on the Beauty & the Beast panel, as well as the presentation about The Genius of Frank Thomas. And then there is this surprise I am going to unveil...
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To Kill a Mockingbird/ Busch 1962
Illustrations by Wilhelm M. Busch from the German 1962 edition of To Kill A Mockingbird.
Beautiful line drawings that define mood, depth of scenery and personality. I am eating this stuff up.
These compositions are rock solid and a delight to study. My film Mushka is somewhat influenced by Busch's style. As I mentioned before, it is fascinating to see what the artist puts down and what he leaves out!
Book illustrations at its finest. Damn!
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Wondergirl
My friend Tom Bancroft has this thing for Wonder Woman and Captain America. He keeps a sketchbook handy and asks other artists to sketch their version of those characters. I did this drawing for him the other day.
I wonder what Stitch would look like as Captain America. That's a drawing for Alex Kupershmidt.
Check out Tom's blog:
http://tombancroft1.tumblr.com
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Mary Blair
Much has been written about Mary Blair and her work on Disney films as well as Disneyland attractions. There is a sophisticated simplicity going through her work that Walt Disney was attracted to, and so are we. This lady was a trendsetter, who helped define modern art and color in animation during the post war era and beyond. Here are a few candid photographs toward the end of her career at Disney, followed by Peter Pan development art.
Did you know that she sewed many of her own clothes?
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A Great Lounsbery Scene
John Lounsbery animated this hilarious moment from The Jungle Book. Colonel Hathi prevents the Bugler elephant from sounding the alarm prematurely.
Bugler forms the instrument with his trunk, and responds to Hathi:"Yes, sir!" He then blows the "horn" before Hathi's trunk blocks the air flow. What a crazy idea to have the now trapped air backfiring, filling up Bugler's cheeks. At he end they deflate with a silly sound effect, his ears wiggling.
Great drawing, great timing, great comedy, (before the gag was re-used in Robin Hood).
I love the way Louns works with all that loose flesh during squash and stretch.
Everyone of these drawings is priceless.
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Studying Sullivant
I did these sketches based on T.S. Sullivant's illustrations a few years ago. When a particular artist fascinates you, it's a good idea to take a closer look and analyze why the stuff looks so amazing.
By re-drawing, not tracing, you can absorb the unique line work, shapes, rhythm, forms, and proportions in a way that makes you think. Maybe there is something there that you can incorporate into your own work. It's not a question of wanting to draw like this artist, but instead letting yourself be inspired.
I applied this method to Heinrich Kley, Albert Uderzo and others.
Some people call this: Standing on the shoulders of Giants.
Here is the link to my first Sullivant post, many more followed:
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Bruno Bozzetto
Bruno Bozzetto is an Italian genius! This photo shows him outside the Disney Animation building with Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and Eric Larson sometime during the late 1970s.
Bruno has won acclaim and many awards over the years for his exquisite feature films as well as short subjects. Signor Rossi (below) is a character I enjoyed watching on German TV as a teenager.
He is your everyday Italian man, who copes with life's challenges.
Wonderful design!!
Bozzetto produced and directed several animated feature films such as The SuperVips (My Brother the Superman) from 1968. Limited animation used brilliantly.
Probably his most famous animated feature is Allegro Non Troppo from 1976. This film is a tribute/satire on Disney's Fantasia, and it is "fully animated", 12 to 24 drawings per second. After I saw the film as an art student I was mesmerized by its craftsmanship, its intelligent storytelling and its beauty. I wrote Bruno a fan letter with an added sketch, and he responded by sending me a letter with an added sketch!!
Ward Kimball loved this film. He told animation students to study the Ravel/Bolero sequence. To him it included some of the best animation ever done.
A frame from the film's the Sibelius/Valse Triste sequence. So brilliant!
The Bolero illustrates the beginning of life on Earth...the Bozzetto way.
For the love of God, if you like hand-drawn animation, get a DVD copy of Allegro Non Troppo:
https://www.amazon.com/Bruno-Bozzettos-Allegro-Non-Troppo/dp/B00014NE6M/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1480571699&sr=1-1&keywords=allegro+non+troppo
Try Ebay as well. The film is a masterpiece!
I had the chance to meet Bozzetto on a couple of occasions. He is one of the nicest men still working within this art form, and my conversations with him continue to stimulate me.
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Jafar by Nik Ranieri
Nik animated a bunch of great scenes with Jafar way back. He also did this sketch of - I think you know who. This was late in production when we were animating Jafar with a Sultan hat.
I sure wish Jeffrey well in his future endeavors.
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More on Milt's Merlin
These sheets were put together during production of The Sword in the Stone. They show partial Milt Kahl drawings, focusing on Merlin's head as well as his hands. At that time Milt couldn't be bothered with creating model sheets that show the character's construction, turn around etc.
He would start off with a few scenes for a character, then it was up to one of his assistants to arrange poses for model sheets. The tricky thing is that other animators like Frank, Ollie and Lounsbery had to figure out by themselves what the exact proportions are and how to work with Milt's graphic shapes dimensionally. Not an easy thing to do!
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More on Milt's Sir Ector
As Frank and Ollie noted in The Illusion of Life, the human characters in Sword in the Stone were animated without life action reference. (Though a few scenes with Wart were actually filmed, performed by two of director Woolie Reitherman's sons).
Here are a few rough animation drawings by Milt, taken off the Sir Ector model sheet. They appear in the film during the dish washing sequence. Well worth studying frame by frame.
There is this great scene where Kay is trying to get his father out of the wash tub, before he ends up in it himself. Great comedy animated with terrific weight.
And the drawings themselves aren't half bad either!!
Another one of those sheets that somebody put together with Milt's rough animation drawings.
Go here for my previous post on Sir Ector:
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More on Milt's Sir Kay
In this scene Kay walks away from Wart at the end of the dishwashing sequence. Wart is defending Merlin's magic, while Sir Ector proclaims that young Hobs instead of Wart is going to be Kay's squire.
Kay adds:"Ah, that'll teach yah tah pop off, yah little pipsqueak!" He lifts up his sword in anticipation of cutting a broomstick in half (during the next scene.)
Look at how Milt has Kay's near foot coming through, as the heel is leading. A Kahl signature piece of movement.
Great rough animation drawings (even though these are copies of copies), before Milt's assistant would clean them up on the same sheet of paper.
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Even more on Milt's Sword in the Stone
One more in a series of posts regarding Milt Kahl's work on Sword in the Stone.
Milt loved working on this film, because his character design sensibilities and overall draughtsmanship dominate the movie. (This is the only time he got character design credit, along with Bill Peet.)
He did plenty of drawings for fellow animators to improve the characters' appearance.
The following two sketches were done for Frank Thomas scenes.
This one is for an Ollie Johnston scene.
Being the fisherman that he was, Milt probably enjoyed designing the villainous pike.
Milt drew these poses of Madame Mim as a rhino, ramming into a tree, for John Lounsbery.
A sequence of drawings from one of his own scenes. Sir Ector is arguing with Merlin over the issue of Wart's education: "I'm running this place, and if you think you gonna fiddle (with my schedule, you better pack up your bag of tricks and be gone!)"
The scene was re-used and extended later on in the film when Ector is wearing armor.
A final frame including both characters.
By the way, if you want to see a pristine HD version of The Sword in the Stone, check out Amazon Prime TV. Disney's DVD release years ago already looks very nice, but to see it in such high definition on Amazon is pure joy. For the first time you can fully appreciate Walt Peregoy's incredibly inventive color scheme for the film.
Unfortunately I can not recommend the film's Blu-ray release, I find it unwatchable. The characters look like they were animated with thick sharpies.
For more of Milt's drawings from the film, go here:
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Bavarian Tigers
A while back when I was studying the style of American cartoonist superstar T.S. Sullivant, I came up with a few graphic exercises like this one. I tried to apply his complex illustration style to new ideas that came to mind.
In Germany, specifically in Bavaria, we have this dance, where folklore dancers slap their knees as well as each others cheeks for no reason but to entertain. So here are a couple of tigers, wearing lederhosen having fun in front of a Bavarian setting.
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