Ken Anderson Vis Dev

Ken Anderson was was an  artist who enjoyed exploring environments as well as characters for Disney films. In his days that was somewhat of an exception, most artists at the studio focused  on one of the two categories.

I guess today studios demand again that a Vis Dev artist is capable of not only developing backgrounds but also personalities for a film.

Here are a few wonderful examples of Ken's talent.

They show how to place characters in an environment in a way that presents mood combined with character development.

The films are 101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood.

I was lucky, I got to know Ken a little, he was somebody you could have stimulating conversation with about animation, art or whatever was on your mind.

Medusa on the Phone

This is one of many great close up scenes of Medusa animated by Milt Kahl.

At the beginning of the scene she has just changed expressions, her mood went from gleeful anticipation to angry disappointment. Not only hasn't Snoops found the diamond yet, but he saw Penny sending a message in a bottle.

Her response is :"You bungler!" 

So let's go through some of these keys. On #91 Milt draws her with a wonderful mad asymmetrical expression.

Then she turns her head, and her lips form a strong  yOU. You can feel that loose skin forming the mouth shape. The  face points downward, shoulders go up.

Her expression intensifies as she turns screen right, and the lips form a B.

As her upper head starts to lead the move upwards, shoulders and right hand start to drop down on #119.

Here's what's interesting: Milt does NOT use the open mouth shape for bUngler to move her head to the highest point, this would have been a typical stretch to help the head mass move fast and smoothly.

He keeps her lips closed through #123, THEN follows a broad open mouth shape.

By showing this strong shape change after the arrival of the head in its high position, when the overall motion is relatively calm, it makes the dialogue read that much better.

The end position shows Medusa starring at the phone (she is really starring at Snoops). Her mouth is slightly open to form the R for bungleR. Shoulders and hand have moved up from their lowest position, which supported a stretch in her upper body.

And of course every drawing is a masterpiece.

Hercules

Barry Johnson, a very talented story artist who I worked with on a few projects, posted this partial rough model sheet on his blog recently. I had forgotten about it, but it reminded me to do a post on Hercules.

I animated adult Hercules in the movie, and the assignment was a shift from my previous characters Gaston, Jafar and Scar, all villains. I wanted to do a different character concept this time around, so I asked if I could do the title character. 

Even though the film's cast was going to be inspired by the graphic style of British artist Gerald Scarfe, I knew that Hercules needed to be animated subtly and convincingly.

As a matter of fact, Gerald Scarfe drew him in a very exaggerated way and told me:" I just don't draw Hercules the way he needs to look in the movie."

Still, a very cool sketch.

Eventually Gerald and I got together to discuss design issues. All the other units had pretty much finalized their characters, and it was time to nail the appearance of Hercules.

So we both talked and doodled at the same time until we quickly came up with this sketch.

The main idea was to go back to images of Greek sculptures, athletes or Gods, and incorporate some of the facial features into our design.

Still looking for the right shapes and forms.

Thumbnail sketches for my first production scene. Herc has just offered Meg a ride on Pegasus, and confirms that the horse wouldn't mind. Then from up above an apple hits Herc on the head.

These sketches were made in front of a TV set, I was studying life action reference by actor Robert Gant, who gave me great ideas for acting.

More thumbnails for a scene, late in the film. Megara has died, and Hercules rushes into frame and in disbelief picks up her body.

A couple scenes later he lowers Meg slowly to the ground.

These poses are my first rough pass, the last image is tied down. Animator Ken Duncan, who supervised Meg, helped me to keep her drawing on model.

Turn around sheets in clean up and rough form. As you can see, there is quite a bit of line mileage on this character.

A color model sheet.

I have to say I really enjoyed animating Hercules. Tate Donavon's great voice performance had a mix of innocence and awkwardness, but also bravery. After a few scenes under my belt Herc also became a lot of fun to draw. The design was stylized, but he needed to move with weight and subtlety. There are plenty of scenes I'd like to do over again, but I look back with fond memories of how much fun we all had creating these characters.

By the way, initially I was asked to animate the villain Hades. At that time he was thought of as a Jack Nicholson type.
I am glad Nik Ranieri ended up doing this character, he did a splendid job with him.

A fun caricature by Eric Goldberg of me as Hercules and Eric as Phil.

Bill Peet's Song of the South

Bill Peet was a very interesting artist. He had the most fun when working on projects he was in charge of as far as story develpment. During his long career at Disney there were three such projects. Song of the South (the animated sequences), 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone.  Peet storyboarded these films single handedly. 

Whenever he worked with a sizable story crew on movies like Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan, he felt that in the end there were "too many cooks in the kitchen", which led to painful compromises.

The animal characters in Song of the South are incredibly well developed with their contrasting personalities. The story sketches gave the layout department wonderful sets, and the animators were able to use just about every pose Peet came up with.

Look at the vitality in these sketches, appeal, acting and storytelling, it's all there.

I understand that Bill Peet never watched the final versions of the films he worked on in fear of being disappointed. I hope that's not true.

Go to Michael Sporn's blog for scans of complete Peet storyboards:

http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=3909

In this early sheet Milt Kahl explores proportions and expressions for Brer Rabbit, based on Peet's sketches. Have you ever seen anything more appealing?