Peter Pan & Dalmatians BGs

A few samples of production backgrounds from Peter Pan, painted in gouache. 

To me everything is painted in a dreamlike atmosphere, soft and illusive. Even the sequences outside of Neverland, like the Darling family home. You are in a dream from the get go. 

BG artists were: Ralph Hulett, Ray Huffine, Art Riley, Thelma Witmer, Al Dempster, Dick Anthony, Eyvind Earle, Brice Mack and Art Landy.

A completely different aesthetic for the art direction and backgrounds in 101 Dalmatians.
Intricate thin black lines on top of washes of paint. I understand that they used thinned down cel paint in an effort too create a strengthened unity between BGs and character cels. I am not entirely sure though if this is true. It sounds like this might have been something Ken Anderson experimented with during pre-production.
101 Dalmatians has a modern story line with no magic in it. The backgrounds reflect that modern realism. Its graphic 'bite" originates from illustrations and fine art typical of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

BG artists: Al Dempster, Ralph Hulett, Anthony Rizzo and Bill Layne

Either style stunning in itself!

These background paintings are currently available for purchase at Van Eaton Galleries:

https://vegalleries.com/productions/walt-disney

After You've Gone 1946

This animated short gem was part of the musical feature Make Mine Music.

The song was written by Harry Creamer and Turner Leighton. It was performed by Benny Goodman's quartet, with Goodman on the clarinet, Teddy Willson on the piano, Sid Weiss doing bass and Cozy Cole on drums. 

I love this short. It features nothing more than than a variety of anthropomorphic musical instruments interacting with each other and dancing to Goodman's music. I would call the animation semi abstract, with exhilarating timing and color styling.

I am not sure who sketched these story/color continuity pages, but they are lovely and make for good study as far as how Disney was breaking down a piece of jazz music with entertaing visual results.

Here is a magazine article featuring tis segment from Make Mine Music.

Albert Uderzo R.I.P.

A giant in the world of comics has died. Albert Uderzo drew the legendary Asterix comic albums that became a part of millions of childhoods as well as adulthoods. I was -and still am- in love with his work on Asterix and other characters. Genius!

I did one post on Uderzo a while ago, but since then have found more pics from our lunch in Paris, around 1995. I was working on the Mickey short Runaway Brain at the French Disney studio in Montreuil, just east of Paris.
On the left is Didier Ghez, who arranged this get together. On the far right is his daughter Sylvie.

Uderzo stops by the French Disney studio. That's animator Catherine Poulain in the middle, and animator Sylvain Deboissy on the right.

A few of us had lunch with Uderzo after the studio visit. Animator Yoshi Tamura is in the back.

On the left are Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, who would later direct the Firebird sequence in Fantasia 2000.

Here is the link to my 2014 post on Uderzo:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/09/albert-uderzo.html

Samson

This is a scene by Milt Kahl with Prince Phillip's horse Samson. At first I thought the drawings correspond with the film frame above, but they don't. In the color image Samson reacts to the forest animals stealing the prince's cape, hat and boots. 

It turns out that the actual scene in the film shows broader animation than what you see below. 

I believe this scene was cut from the movie. It might have been Mitl's original version, before being asked to re-animate it with a much stronger reaction.

It is interesting to see Milt applying multiple images to the horse's muzzle when he shakes his head. He did this off and on when his characters moved very fast. (Pongo jumping on Roger's lap, Kaa uncoiling before falling down a tree).

Occasionally these motion blur type lines were ignored by the inkers and painters and eliminated, other times they made it on to the final cels.

You can imagine Milt finding out that his animation was altered....lots of colorful language.

Honest John

That's Norm Ferguson animating the fox Honest John in Pinocchio.

(I feel like telling Ferguson: Don't touch your face, and wash your hands...!)

I am literally mad about this character, and I think not enough people are talking about him in terms of outstanding acting and personality development. Every single scene he is in just shines.

Not ONE missed opportunity to present ultimate entertaining moments.

Any of the key poses he strikes are inventive and full of character. Other animators who did fantastic work on Honest John are John Lounsbery, Hugh Fraser, Preston Blair and Shamus Culhane.

Quite the crew!!

Prince Outtake

There is delicate perfection in this Milt Kahl key drawing from a scene that was cut from Sleeping Beauty. Prince Phillip is leaning against a tree in the forest, probably talking to his horse Samson about that beautiful voice he just heard. 

That scene was eventually re-staged with Phillip sitting down as he takes off his boots.

What is also interesting to note is that the drawing represents Milt's earlier design of the character.

The tip of the nose comes to a point, which was a design feature Walt Disney disliked. Milt altered the nose slightly for the final version.

This is actually a small drawing, the guy is about 5 inches tall on paper.

More on Prince Phillip's design development here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/10/prince-phillip.html

Animators' Footage on Jungle Book

This is a beautiful scene by Frank Thomas. Milt Kahl offered some help with drawing the characters on model.
And here is an interesting, rare document I received a while ago from the W. Reitherman estate.
It looks all too familiar to me, because we received these weekly footage updates as well at Disney.
Management needed to keep track of how animation production was progressing.

Here you can see what the animators' average footage was between May of 1966 (when animation officially began) and the end of December of that year (which was the time of Walt's death.)
Not surprisingly Ollie Johnston was the fastest, followed by Hal King and Frank Thomas.
Milt Kahl comes in fourth with almost nine feet per week. That's about SIX seconds of film. Milt of course would argue that he could have been a lot faster if other animators didn't bug him constantly for drawing help on their scenes.
In any case, these numbers are incredibly impressive, considering the top notch quality of Jungle Book's character animation.

Milt Kahl Outtakes

These are a couple of rough animation drawings by Milt Kahl from a scene featuring the character of Frou Frou  from The Aristocats. This scene was not included in the final film, perhaps the action was re-staged. There is a similar shot in the film depicting the mare as she reacts strongly to Edgar slapping a newspaper on her rear.
I am not entirely sure if the two are connected.
In any case, any rough animation drawing by Milt Kahl is a revelation, as it shows the master's mind at work. I remember him talking about this character and that he had a hard time with the design and her personality.
Nevertheless the work he did on Frou Frou is just beautiful!

A little more about this character here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2016/06/milts-aristocats-drawings.html

Cinderella in Pencil

You've got to see this...several times! At Disney Animation Twitter.

Animation by Marc Davis, effects by George Rowley. Sure, it is based on life action, but man....

https://twitter.com/i/status/1228752296692965376

Lounsbery Outtakes

These are Aristocats animation drawings by John Lounsbery showing the Italian cat Peppo, as he is preparing a Roquefort omelet or something of that sort.

The scene (perhaps two scenes) was cut from the film, and it is a shame that a pencil test of the animation doesn't exist, at least to my knowledge. But who knows, the remaining drawings might surface sometime in the future. In the meantime enjoy these two Lounsbery beauties.