Lecture Series

I did this illustration for the cover of Storyboard Magazine quite a few years ago. Characters like Scar and Hercules and Lilo were yet to come. I learned a lot during those years, just by animating a lot.

From my experience you can read about animation, its techniques and history, but you learn best by doing it.

How I go about animating a scene (from thumbnails to final tie down) will be the subject of my first 2015 online lecture with Virtual Animators this coming Saturday, February 21, at 11 AM US Pacific time.

I'll try and break down my working method as much as possible...and answer questions you might have.

If you are interested in joining me, go to Virtual Animators' web site:

http://www.virtualanimators.com/index.php/animation-insights

We are planning a new lecture about every other Saturday, covering all kinds of topics related to character animation. I look forward to diving into this new venture, let's have some fun!

Joe

I LOVE this drawing!
The way the pose is balanced, the feeling for fabric like the stiff apron and the soft chef's hat.
Guess what? This drawing does not appear in the movie Lady & Tramp. Animator John Lounsbery reworked the part where Joe lifts a sizable chunk of spaghetti with meatballs from a pot and slams it on to a plate.
The final film version shows him looking already at the plate during this part of the action. Who knows wether Lounsbery decided to make this change, he might have been asked by the director or Walt himself to alter the animation during a sweatbox session.
So much life and energy in the drawing, the sort of feeling you can only get from pencil animation.

I think I am going to frame this one.

For more on Joe and his buddy Tony, go here:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/10/tony-and-joe.html

Ken O'Brien

...is pictured second from the left in this group photo from 1965 showing Disney's top artists at WED (Imagineering). The more I find out about O'Brien's work the more I tip my hat to this artist. He worked on many Disney classics starting with Pinocchio all the way to Sleeping Beauty.
Great animator with draughtsmanship that is rooted in the rhythmic and charming drawings of Fred Moore.
Here are a couple of photo stats of Jim Dear from the production of Lady & Tramp, followed by Ken O'Brien's interpretations of the poses pictured.

O'Brien died in 1990 at age 74, I wished I had made the effort to meet him way back. 

If anybody knew him, feel to tell us about him and leave a comment.

A previous post featuring a couple of his drawings of Tiger Lily:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/11/tiger-lily.html

And this post includes a great group sketch from Lady & Tramp:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/01/young-lady.html

Eric Larson on Lady & Tramp

Eric Larson is flipping a scene with his character Peg for singer/songwriter Peggy Lee, who provided the voice for this sultry canine.
Eric usually downplayed his capabilities as a draughtsman when compared to animators like Kahl, Davis or Frank and Ollie. But his assignments for the film Lady and the Tramp show clearly that he was not only a great actor with a pencil, but that his drawings were right on par with the studio's high standards. Peg's animation during her song "He's a Tramp" is beautifully timed in its rhythm and elegant moves.
These rough animation drawings are loaded with appeal and flair.

The Beaver's footage was shared between Milt Kahl and Eric, and their scenes work seamlessly together. In the drawings below the Beaver tries to figure out a way to put on the dog muzzle, or as he calls it "a log puller". He is struggling to find a way how to put this thing on, and you can see that Eric struggles a little to work out the involved action. But it's a beautiful struggle, and in the end the drawings show great clarity in the scene's staging. A lesser animator would get all caught up in trying to figure out the technicalities of this piece of action. What beautiful drawings and what a beautiful scene.

Walt Disney and Benny Goodman

One of the best postwar Disney shorts in my opinion is All The Cats Join In from the 1946 feature Make Mine Music. It is only four minutes long, but highly enjoyable because of Goodman's energetic music and fantastic animation by Fred Moore, Milt Kahl and others. Each time I watch this short, it puts me in a good mood.

A couple of Moore model sheets with loose, but solid and appealing drawings.

I am not sure who story sketched the film, but these drawings presented terrific inspiration for the animators.

The one thing that doesn't quite work for me are close up scenes, where the characters' black dot eyes look somewhat unsettling.

A design concept for the film's poster.

My Dad, Walt Disney

Bits and pieces of this 1956 series of articles from the Saturday Evening Post have surfaced online, but since I have scans of all of them, I thought you might enjoy the whole lot (posted in increments). In the mid 1950s journalist Pete Martin interviewed Walt about his life and career. This resulted in a book, in which his daughter Diane talks about her famous dad.

I have had the chance to listen to the entire interview, and even though Pete Martin (who seems somewhat intimidated by Walt) asks the questions, Diane is present the whole time, giving input.

Walt's grandchildren Joanna and Christopher are pictured throughout the articles, and today they are "old" enough to remember their Grandfather. I have had the pleasure of speaking to them just recently. As much as the Disney family prefers to be private, they are very much engaged in their mother's mission to portray the life of Walt Disney sincerely and properly.

Here is the first installment of Diane's and her dad's reflection on how it all began.

Stuff I Drew in Art School

Here is another post with old student samples, ranging back from 1976 to 1979.
That's my landlord's son Rene in the drawing. He would stop by my rented room once in a while with friends. They sometimes watched cartoons while I sketched them.

A couple of life drawings. My art teacher encouraged us not to get used to our favorite tool. So I tried marker, pencil, brush and ink and even finger paint. It's always interesting to see what happens when you experiment.

A rough self portrait. A little too rough.

Studying anatomy and rhythm in old masters' paintings.

And then having the audacity to apply that to a cartoon girl.

Occasionally me and my student friends would get together and pose for each other. The models at school seldom got into poses that showed any motion.

More of Rene and his friends.

These are drawn from Super-8 film footage I took of dogs in action. Trying to get a feeling for anatomy in motion.

Playing around with poses for cartoon animals, anthropomorphic or otherwise.

An exercise in shape and line. After a few rough doodles I choose one composition to create flat graphics. I had just visited CalArts and assignments like these were exhibited on the school's classroom walls. So I thought I'd give it a try.

Studying the great Uderzo, of Asterix fame and other iconic comic strips. What an artist! Meeting him years later was un indescribable thrill.

Dabbling in semi abstract forms. Look at my signature on the bottom right, LOL. Any similarity to an American Animation producer is coincidental.

Looking back, I had a great time as an art student. There were two things that turned out to be essential to my future career:
Giving myself assignments that related to the art of animation, and having Hans Bacher as my "after hours mentor".
Here is more of my student work from a previous post:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/01/post-100-old-portfolio-stuff.html