Pinocchio comes to Life

Here once again are a couple of panels (I call them updated storyboards) from the film Pinocchio that demonstrate how the Blue Fairy brings him to life. These are snapshots from the original 35 mm pencil tests, which Walt would review during sweatbox sessions. Some images show key drawings, others are in-betweens (they usually look a little cleaner), there are rough animation drawings and occasionally clean ups. I think these prints are beautiful...

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Marc Davis at the Walt Disney Family Museum

I am off to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco for the opening of the Marc Davis exhibit, Leading Ladies and Femmes Fatales: The Art of Marc Davis.Marc’s expertise in developing and animating female characters will be the theme of this this show:http://www.waltdisney.org/marc-davisThe photo montage above is a book cover design that I came up with while still at the studio, when I was exploring the idea of doing a single book on each of...

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Disney Articles

Not so many years ago there were hardly any books available relating to animation. Today of course every new animated feature comes with its own book on The Making of.Back then magazine articles were the only source of information about new projects from Disney, and occasionally photos took you behind the scenes of the studio. There was nothing more exciting than finding out about the next project from Walt Disney Productions.&nb...

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Mowgli Studies

“You eat ants?” Mowgli asks Baloo in disbelief. The scene from the film Jungle Book was animated by Ollie Johnston. Milt Kahl drew this sketch of Mowgli’s face as a suggestion for what the kid’s expression might look like during that line of dialogue. I think he nails the idea of the thought “How gross!”There were other times where Ollie got some help from Milt in depicting Mowgli. At the beginning of the film Bagheera and the boy argue wether...

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Heinrich Kley's Reynard, the Fox

The stories about Reynard the Fox go back hundreds of years. There are French, German and Dutch versions, who all portray the character as somewhat nasty, but also clever and charismatic. He gets into all kinds of trouble,  but usually finds a way to come out on top.Here are book illustrattions that show how famous German artist Heinrich Kley portrayed Reynard’s world of anthropomorphic animals. It’s interesting to see that most of the characters...

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Walt Stanchfield

Not many animation artists make good teachers, but Walt Stanchfield was a heck of an inspirational instructor to many folks who worked at Disney during the 1980s and 90s. In his life drawing classes he did not want you to copy the model on paper, he wanted you to interpret the model’s pose for animation. Go further with the body’s rhythm, push the action line, feel the weight.He frequently went over young artists’ work by helping them to find the...

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Disney Colors

Traditional animators generally don’t deal a lot with color. We express ourselves with black pencil lines on white paper. That doesn’t mean though that most of us don’t have great appreciation for excellent color, and the way our scenes look like on the screen in finished form.Some of these images were sold at auctions recently, and they are outstanding examples of Disney’s incredible use of color over the years.In this Mary Blair sketch of Hook’s...

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TS Sullivant 10

My 10th post on the breathtaking art of Mr. Sullivant. who influenced so many artists that followed him, Disney’s animators, Walt Kelly, Ralph Bakshi, to name a few. One thing that amazes me is the fact that his characters are so expressive, even when  drawn with relatively small eyes. Animation industry: Please take notice! Please!&nb...

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