Pinocchio Art

Just like the personality animation in Disney's Pinocchio the world that was created for the characters to live in is spectacular. Many different locations had to be explored, from an Alpine village and an amusement park island to the bottom of the ocean and the inside of a whale.Vis dev art as well as layouts were carefully planned and rendered with light that reminds me of Rembrandt. Every piece of art you see from this film indicates just...

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Happy Birthday!

Today is Kathryn Beaumont Levine's birthday.All best wishes, and remember, Kathy, tomorrow is your un-birthda...

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Tigger Outtake

These are a few scenes with Tigger and Pooh that ended up being cut from the feature film Winnie The Pooh. As I mentioned before Tigger's entrance used to be very different from the final version. Just like in the original shorts, he was always looking for something or someone to bounce on.We animated the whole sequence that way, but after a screening it became clear that Tigger really wasn't that interesting just bouncing around. So the sequence was rewritten, and new and different business was added which included a red balloon. It turned out...

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Mel Shaw's Beauty & the Beast

Mel Shaw was a very cool guy.He was funny, and he could draw everything…really well…really fast! He was a wizard with pastels.I first saw his art when I started at Disney in 1980. His office was overflowing with incredible Vis Dev work for a proposed sequel to Fantasia, then titled Musicana. As I mentioned before, the whole concept for that film was stunning!Behind Mel in the photo are sketches for the Scheherazade sequence (top) and for Finlandia.Mel...

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Character Designs from Long Ago

Going through my archives I keep finding drawings I didn't know I had.Like these peculiar design sheets that bring back a lot of memories.Way back I was on the original crew for Oliver & Company. The idea of replacing some of the original human characters with animals sounded very appealing to me. I did a first pass on most of the main characters, including Fagin, before story work was put on hold. I eventually left the project to work on Roger...

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Pierre Lambert's Sleeping Beauty

I need to recommend this new coffee tablet/art book by Pierre Lambert, who in recent years has published several extraordinary volumes on Disney animated features.For now Sleeping Beauty is only available as a French edition, but believe me, even if you don't speak the language, you will be amazed.There are endless top quality reproductions of backgrounds, cel set ups, vis dev work, layouts and animation drawings. A few pieces from my collection...

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Мушка Update

It's been very busy around here, making a movie!The story of "Mushka" is roughly storyboarded all the way through. It's a great feeling to be able to follow the whole story visually for the first time instead of reading the script.That's me in a recent story meeting with scriptwriter Myka (sitting) and Matthieu Saghezchi who helped me draw the first rough pass. As soon as we were done sketching this early version, we started on corrections and...

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Joe Grant Sketch

I don't have much time tonight for a post, still, I want to put up something.I find this sketch showing early versions of Pinocchio and Honest John absolutely fascinating.Evil and innocence in one drawing. The tone here is much darker and more severe than what we see in the final film.The fox's expression reminds me a little of Joe Grant's designs of the witch for Snow White.It is a haunting image, no trace of comedy whatsoev...

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Fantasia Maquettes

I have always been in awe of Disney's character model department. Joe Grant was the head of this unit during the Golden Age Of Animation. Not only were rough model sheets produced here, but also three dimensional sculptures to help the animators visualize their characters.The chosen poses for these maquettes always showed beautiful movement, appeal and expressiveness. The final look in the film might differ a little from these early representations,...

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