Joe Rinaldi

Joe Rinaldi was one of Disney's great story artists. He was a very gifted draughtsman, too, and his boards are a pleasure to study. As I mentioned before, because of the appeal and those confident lines his work often gets mistaken for Bill Peet's.Rinaldi's first Disney story credit was for Dumbo. He worked on many short films and features up until Sleeping Beauty. Born in 1914 he unfortunately lived a short life, he died in 1974 at the age...

Read More

Robin Hood as a Stork

Ken Anderson drew this terrific concept sketch of Maid Marian and Robin Hood, disguised as a stork. I love the difference in hight between the characters, it makes the staging more interesting than what you see in the film, where the Stork is drawn a lot shorter.Maybe the taller version made it too difficult to have him communicate with Maid Marian, Prince John and the other characters.Milt Kahl tried to figure out how this costume would actually...

Read More

Beauty and the Beast Outtakes

I was looking through my files and found these design drawings I did way back for the early version of "Beauty and the Beast". The scans are xeroxes colored with markers.At that time we had Maurice's sister in the story. She was part of the household and insisted that Belle marry the wealthy Gaston, so the whole family -especially herself- would benefit from the marriage.It created an interesting dynamic, but everybody felt that a selfish, cruel...

Read More

Ken O'Connor on Cheating Perspective

This is an interesting mini lecture by Disney layout artist and art director Ken O'Connor on how to cheat perspective effectively.Ken worked on many of the Disney classics and shorts for a period of over thirty years.I had the chance to meet him on a couple of occasions when he gave talks at Disney Animation.The man knew what he was talking about. He was extremely skilled and enjoyed problem solving when planning layouts for animation. Born in Australia in 1908, Ken moved with his family to the US in 1930. He started at Disney in 1935...

Read More

Wartime Short Films

Many of you know that the Disney Studios produced a number of propaganda animated shorts during WWII.In "The Winged Scourge" the Seven Dwarfs demonstrate how to fight the spread of mosquito born malaria.The sketches above by Milt Kahl show a rough layout for Dopey and Happy. The kid on the same sheet is from "Education For Death", him and his classmates are being brainwashed in Nazi philosophy.Years ago Charles Solomon and myself conducted a...

Read More

Dalmatian Art

The more I think about it, the stronger I feel that "101 Dalmatians" is the most modern of all Disney animated features.  Artistically this is the peak, right here. A film which embraces modernism and a gutsy graphic style never attempted before or since. It is almost surreal to remember that this movie is over 50 years old! So why hasn't Disney Animation advanced even further in the decades following Dalmatians? I think part of the reason...

Read More

Archery Tournament Characters

These wonderful character studies for the movie Robin Hood were drawn by Milt Kahl.Ken Anderson again provided rough sketches first, and Milt refined the designs.To me these are among the best looking characters for any Disney film from the Xerox era.The draughtsmanship and charm in these knock me out.Every one of these personalities has star qualities, something I call magnetism. You can't take your eyes off them. And the way Milt is able to draw...

Read More