Fred Moore from the Back

As far as I'm concerned there aren't enough photos of Fred Moore around.This is the guy who changed the look and feel of character animation during the 1930s in a big way.The photo above was taken in Fred's office at the Disney Hyperion Studio. It looks like Walt is dropping by with guests Leopold Stokowski and Deems Taylor, and Fred is giving a demonstration on how animation works by flipping a scene with Mickey from The Sorcerer's Apprentice.This...

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Bambi Vis Dev Art

In their 1990 book Bambi, The Story and the Film, Frank and Ollie don't identify the artist who produced these magnificent poetic renderings. They probably didn't remember.The use of light gives the settings a magical, dreamlike quality. There is subtle shading on the characters, even though the final appearance of Bambi, Thumper and all the others would mostly consists of thin ink lines and flat cel paint. Nonetheless these drawings sure helped...

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Busch Circus Sketches

More spectacular gesture drawings by German artist Wilhelm M. Busch.Throughout his career as a prolific book illustrator, he kept going to the circus to study animals interacting with their trainers. I am astounded by his ability to find golden moments in front of his fast moving objects.You can tell by the line work that each sketch took only seconds to put down. This man continues to amaze and inspire me. He is the real de...

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From Live Action to Final Frame

These black and white photostats show clearly how the actors' performance influenced the Disney animators. To me it is always fascinating to find out what parts were kept and which ones were changed. Young dancer/actress Marge Champion, who had just finished acting out the role of Snow White for the animators, also performed as The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio.By the way, today at age 93 Marge looks as beautiful as ever. I had the good fortune to...

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Disney Owls

There have been so many owls over the years in Disney animation that I can't list them all in this post. Their personalities range from warm paternal to comedic types. Some of them took on the role of a teacher, educating other characters or the audience on a certain subject matter.A lot of photographic research went into Bambi, to inspire styles for the environments but also the characters. The picture above is part of that research. Walt sent a...

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Don Towsley is Amazing!

He really is!!Towsley was mostly a Donald Duck animator, but he also worked on some of the early Disney features such as Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo.He created the most dynamic model sheets like the one above for Disney stars like Donald, Mickey and Goofy. His short film credits start with the 1934 Two-Gun Mickey and end with 1948 Drip Dippy Donald. Towsley went on to work for other studios in Hollywood as an animator and director.The animation...

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