The Duke

Continuing on with posts about Cinderella, here are some marvelous drawings of the Duke by Milt Kahl. Milt animated this character along with the King during the ball sequence. In an earlier part of the film Norm Ferguson and Woolie Reitherman animated the introduction of the Duke and the King.Milt was dissatisfied with the way they were drawn by these two animators, so he redrew the main animation keys for the whole sequence over a couple...

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Where Cinderella Lives

I love these exploratory sketches for Cinderella's living quarters. They are modest and hardly comfortable, but there is still warmth and charm in these sketches which reflects the title character's personality.The artist is most likely Ken O'Connor, somebody might correct me on this one.I have always been in awe of talented layout people, who create beautiful worlds for the animators' characters. So looking at these drawings I decided to be a layout...

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Kimball Mice

This photo was probably taken in 1949 when Cinderella was in production. I don't know who the visitor is, but he is a lucky guy to be taken to Ward Kimball's office for a visit by Walt Disney himself.The movie was perfectly cast in terms of animation. Marc Davis and Eric Larson drew the title character, Frank Thomas animated the stepmother, Ollie Johnston did the comic stepsisters and Milt Kahl was responsible for the King, the Duke as well as the...

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Kiss the Bunny

Milt Kahl often pushed the contact between two characters in order to achieve physical believability, but also comedy. In these animation drawings Maid Marion acts out a romantic encounter with her playmate hero, Skippy. From the moment the characters' faces make contact you see how their facial features react, especially their cheeks, because they are soft.For the final kiss Milt even squashed Maid Marion's muzzle, which is surprising because...

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Marc and Mary

A beautiful photo of animator Marc Davis with Mary Costa, the voice of Sleeping Beauty.Mary was in her early twenties when she auditioned at Disney for the role of Princess Aurora in 1952. She was asked to return to the studio many more times to record dialogue and songs for the character, Sleeping Beauty was in production for an unprecedented period of seven years.It is interesting to see that Marc Davis started out drawing her as a sixteen year...

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TS Sullivant 5

Time again for a good dose of Sullivant inspiration.As I said before, I can't get enough of his work. He surprises you with everything he puts on paper.He still stands alone as the master of animal caricature and people as well. Thoroughly based on realistic observation, Sullivant's stylization and caricature to this day is groundbreaking and unmatched.His outrageous sense for proportions is always very animal specific and appealing.I'd love to see...

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Attack

I haven't done many finished wildlife illustrations, but a few years ago I thought I'd try something more polished than just a quick sketch. There had been a program on one of the wildlife TV channels about African lions. I made a few drawings off the TV screen, and the one below became the starting point for a larger color illustration.I played around with the staging a little for a more dramatic result (second image).The final piece was fun...

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Fox and Rabbit

I love enlarging sketches.The vitality and power of a good rough sketch becomes magnified when the art is blown up in size.That's certainly the case here with Milt Kahl's animation drawings of Brer Fox threatening Brer Rabbit. The images are scanned off small old model sheets. These larger sizes make you appreciate these fantastic roughs even more. Milt was about 36 or 37 years old when Song of the South was in production. Studying his work...

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