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Fred Ludekens
Fred Ludekens (1900 - 1982) was an American illustrator and a member of the founding faculty for the "Famous Artists School" (Art courses through mail correspondence.)He was also a mentor to a young...
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Tytla
Let's celebrate an Ukrainian-American artist who changed the face of animation forever. Volodymyr Peter "Bill" Tytla worked at several east coast animation studios before joining Disney in 1932. He...
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Early Gaston
I have never gotten into storyboarding very much during my time at Disney. I found it too difficult. Staging scenes in continuity doesn't come easy to someone like me who had been focusing on drawing...
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A Milt Kahl "Book Illustration"
Just recently a copy of Christopher Finch's 1973 book The Art of Walt Disney was offered at an auction in the UK. I love this book. Beautiful oversized reproductions of vintage animation artwork. What...
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Styling The Sword in the Stone
Here is an interesting experimental pre-production cel set up for one of the early scenes from Sword inthe Stone. The photo shows a lot of cel reflections, but it still makes for some fascinating...
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A Lilo Story
I don't think I have ever told this story before. It is a bit personal. But to me it was also kind of revelatory when it happened. In 1999 I was working on the character of Lilo at Disney's animation...
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Another Milt Kahl Birthday
Milt Kahl was born on March 22, 1909. He is one of a few giants in the animation industry. At Disney he set a standard for excellence in drawing that would be unique to that studio. As Dick Williams...
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Ollie's Thumbnail Sketches
I am not sure if Ollie Johnston thumbnailed his story- and staging continuity for all of his animated sequences. But he sure did a lot of this kind of scene planing for the film Robin Hood. Ollie...
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Doodles for The Fox & The Hound
These are various sketches by Ollie Johnston for his final animated film The Fox & the Hound (1981). Iremember him saying that at the time his drawing hand wasn't steady anymore. Even more...
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Busch Catalogue
I just purchased this beautiful booklet with drawings by Wilhelm M. Busch. It is a mini catalogue for a 1984 exhibition of some of his circus sketches. Busch drew this gorgeous original sketch right...
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A Visit from Darleen Carr
Some of you might have heard the news that the next grand exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum will be: Walt Disney's THE JUNGLE BOOK, Making a Masterpiece. I had the honor of guest curating,...
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Raven Studies
I am not entirely sure if Marc Davis drew these analytical bird studies. They do show a sense for observation and research that reminds me of Marc's anatomical explorations. But the writing on these...
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Disney in 1978
In 1978 concept artist Mel Shaw was working on several potential future animation projects. Among them Catfish Bend, The Little Broomstick, Musicana and The Black Cauldron. At that time The New York...
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Visual Development
Imagine as a Disney animator looking at these terrific development visuals for an upcoming feature! How can you not get super excited, you just want to get to work! The Dance of the Hours from Fantasia...
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A Visit from Clint Howard
Actor Clint Howard stopped by a few weeks ago for an interview about his role in Disney's classic film The Jungle Book. Clint voiced the baby elephant, also known as Hathi jr.The interview will be a...
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Mark Adlington
Mark Adlington is a terrific contemporary animal artist from the UK. I came across his beautiful work by accident online. He draws his subjects in their natural environments, before refining the...
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Alice
A photo from quite a few years ago, taken at the home of Marc Davis. Alice Davis is giving a tour of Marc's art on display in their home. A visit to the Davis home is like walking through a museum,...
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Another Look at Sleeping Beauty
Marc Davis draws Maleficent. This is not a scene from the film Sleeping Beauty, the sketch was made for publicity purposes. As I pointed out before, Marc worked on this film longer than any other...
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A Medusa Cel
What a great cel of Madame Medusa from The Rescuers. Milt Kahl was very concerned about how the final cels with his animation would turn out. In the end he was very happy with certain visuals that...
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1990 at Disney Animation
We had just screened a work in progress version of The Prince and the Pauper for two Disney icons, Marc Davis and Joe Grant. Here they are commenting on story, animation and general entertainment....
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