Contract Negotiations

Director John Musker came up with this hilarious cartoon panel featuring Jeffrey Katzenberg and myself.After I had completed my work on Roger Rabbit I returned from London back to the Burbank Studio.At that time management decided to put key animation personal under contract. But I was seriously considering to return to Europe to work in animation over there. To my bewilderment and surprise I started receiving gifts from Jeffrey’s office, usually...

Read More

Ward visits Fred

In this rare photo of Ward Kimball and Fred Moore, taken sometime in 1941, Ward is showing Fred some kind of gag drawing. It looks like Moore is working on Mickey and the Beanstalk, which later became part of the film Fun and Fancy Free. According to the model sheets the project at that time didn’t have a title yet, it was simply called “Mickey Feature”.In the end the film’s running time was only 29 minutes. After many story treatments the crew just...

Read More

Milt Kahl's Tigers

If there is one animal that presents a true challenge to an animator, it would have to be a tiger. Moving a large cat around is difficult enough, wether the design is cartoony or realistic. But to have to keep track of all those stripes adds another level of complexity to the assignment. The good thing is that when placed correctly over the animal’s body, the stripes can help define perspective and volume to the anatomy. But for twenty-four...

Read More

How They felt about each other's Work

Back from France, where I had a blast visiting friends. Didn’t go to Annecy, just hanging out around Paris, which to me is the most beautiful city in the world.I will be without tech help for a few more days, so here is another post without images.Since I knew seven of the Nine Old Men (Les Clark and Lounsbery had already passed away when I started at Disney) it was always interesting -though sometimes a little awkward- to hear their comments and opinions about the other ones’ work.Frank and Ollie often brought up the subject of Milt Kahl’s superb...

Read More

Blog Break

I will be in Europe for a short while, so I thought I might offer these links to previous posts, that could be worth revisiting. These close up pencil tests of Tramp by Frank Thomas and Milt Kahl are pretty amazing:http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/search?q=tramp+A spectacular Captain Hook pencil test by Frank Thomas:http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/08/captain-hook.htmlCharacter designs for Robin Hood by Milt Kahl, a celebration of the art form:http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/04/archery-tournament-characters.htmlInspiring Fred Moore...

Read More

Rabbits

The development of Sleeping Beauty’s animals followed a certain path, from one artist to another. Character stylist Tom Oreb started out by defining these characters with definite, clear shapes.As you can see in these rabbit drawings, the triangle seems to be the one shape that dominates the designs. Beautiful modern graphics that have very little to do with the round, chubby look of Thumper from Bambi.Milt Kahl maintained Oreb’s shape language and...

Read More

Heinrich Kley was crazy...

…in the best sense of the word! He was a compulsive draughtsman, and it seems that any white blank surface, however small, called out to him to be drawn on.His wife Fanny had a a collection of books. At that time it was common to have a sticker on the book’s front page that would read: Ex Libris (from the books - of-). You would add your name, so in case the book is loaned to someone, the original owner is easily identified.But Kley instead created...

Read More

More Freddie Girls

…to get your week started. Charming, attractive and sometimes naughty, but always beautifully drawn. Fluid lines on paper by a young artist whose talents peaked so soon. Unfortunately he was unable to develop his great natural skills further, but we are grateful for the stunning and important work he did during Disney’s Golden A...

Read More