Deep in the Forest by Nicholai Kornilovich Bodarevsky (1850-1921) |
Saturday, August 15, 2020
Deep in the Forest by Bodarevsky
Friday, August 14, 2020
How to get unusual animal poses when working from life?
Thursday, August 13, 2020
Portrait of Smooth (Who Doesn't Hold Still)
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Etchr Lab Interview
Here's a new interview with Ânia Marcos of Etchrlab.
Link to Etchrlab website. Watch on Youtube
Monday, August 10, 2020
The Rise and Fall of Betty Boop
Mel says: "The Hays Code literally led to Betty Boop's untimely death. They made her button up her mouth and her dress. And in the end, even her proportions changed, as she travelled down the road that led to the Uncanny Valley. I just spent a miserable afternoon watching Betty Boops Final cartoons. Betty’s image is very popular today, but few of those who wear her image on their clothes and fashion accessories actually know her story.
"To put it in a 'mutt-shell,' she began life as a dog, and not a particularly attractive one. Here she is in making her first appearance in a cartoon called Dizzy Dishes. Bimbo too looked different then.
"Soon, Betty transformed into a human. Nonetheless, she still chose Bimbo as her boyfriend. Here they are, Ahem, in bed.
"Soon Betty got much better looking, This image below presents her at her most perfect, Of all the images of betty Boop this one remains for me the most iconic. I used it on the box for a Betty Boop doll I designed half a century ago. At that moment in time, 1970, she had become virtually unknown. Thus, this was the first Betty Boop product to appear since 1939. I stumbled across one of these in mint condition on eBay, just the other night. For Twenty dollars I couldn’t resist buying it.
"Betty Boop’s career spanned a short nine years, from 1930 to 1939. Halfway through her journey, in 1934 the Hays Bureau clipped her wings. The comparative drawings below graphically demonstrate how they compelled Betty to change.
"Nonetheless, she carried on for a five more years with her attire and innocent sexuality toned down. In spite of this, her delightful voice and sparkling personality remained the same. In this latter part of her career, she stopped hanging out with animals and clowns. Bimbo and Koko both disappeared, and her world was suddenly populated with human beings of the same species as her own. She also got a puppy called Pudgy, who often stole the show. Slowly, it was all downhill from there.
"The official model sheet below conveys how Betty had changed by 1938. Her head became much smaller, she also became taller, and her proportions were more conventional. Her original outrageously stylized proportions had been easier to accept than this newer version. Now with a body that was more anatomically correct, her slightly oversized head seemed uncomfortably out of place..
"Bettys final cartoons are hard to watch. In this one from 1938, Betty, looking spanking clean, attempts to discipline a monkey. That was a high point compared to what was to follow in 1939.
"In a short titled, “Musical Mountaineers,” Betty encountered hostile hillbillies who were definitely not of the Beverly Hills variety. Fortunately, she survived, Her career was not so lucky.
"Worse still, was a 1939 cartoon called, Rhythm On The Reservation. By any standard it would be considered outrageously racist. In it, Betty wins over a menacing tribe of Native Americans by teaching them how to play musical instruments. This image reveals how dramatically Betty’s look had changed.
"In what amounted to the final indignity, the studio forced Betty to introduce her own replacement, “Sally Swing.” It appears that the studio saw Sally as a big deal.
"They even created a poster for her. They hoped that Sally would take Bettys place for the next decade. Sally’s voice was purported to be that of 15 year old Rose Marie.
"Here we see the two of them together, along with Sally’s poster, upon which Betty appears in name only."
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Thanks, Mel Birnkrant for sharing these fascinating guest posts about popular culture in the 1930s. For more stories of vintage character toys and the art of toy invention, visit his website.
This series:
Part 1: Materials and Workmanship of 1930s Toys
Part 2: 1930s Toys, Comic Types and Characters
Part 3: Why Did Animation Flourish in the 1930s?
Part 4: What They Cut from King Kong
Sunday, August 9, 2020
What They Cut from King Kong
Mel says: "I guess you would call it Escapism, or getting away from the monstrous reality of the Depression to embrace reel monsters instead. Compared to 1930s reality, Frankenstein was barely scary. The ultimate cinematic Monsterpiece that set the bar sky high for all the creatures that followed after was King Kong.
"King Kong was not quite the pussy cat that millions thought him to be. When the film was re-released in 1938, Hollywood censors cut out several scenes that they considered to be either too violent or too sexy. Thus many of us grew up thinking Kong was not a ruthless killer, but essentially a nice guy who was just misunderstood.
"In 1972 a copy of the original movie was discovered in England, and copies of the film with the missing sequences restored have since been released. One of the most stunning aspects of these missing scenes is the contrast in quality. The copy found in England was dramatically superior to the copies of the movie that had been copied and recopied over the years.
"The missing sequences include this shocking scene, in which Kong exercises his dentures to masticate a tribe of natives, gnawing them to death, then, stomping on them for good measure.
"Another sequence that is genuinely horrible is this one in which Kong reaches into a high-rise window and pulls out the wrong girl, upside-down. When he realizes it isn’t Fay Wray, he casually drops her to the ground.
"The most fabled of the missing scenes is this, in which Kong playfully undresses Fay, then, sniffs his digits.
"There was also a legendary lost spider pit scene that was repudiated to be removed after the first showing, at the time the film was released in 1933. In 2005, Peter Jackson recreated the scene in the style of the original, based on a few surviving stills and drawings."
This series
Part 1: Materials and Workmanship of 1930s Toys
Part 2: 1930s Toys, Comic Types and Characters
Part 3: Why Did Animation Flourish in the 1930s?
Part 4: What They Cut from King Kong
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Why Did Animation Flourish in the 1930s?
"Throughout the Great Depression, the enchanting pages of the Funny Papers offered the world a welcome diversion, and one that was nearly free. These pleasant personalities snuck into our lives, hiding among the pages of the daily newspaper, and they appeared there in glorious full color every Sunday. This simple form of in house entertainment was the TV of its day.
"Meanwhile, the movie industry had been growing dramatically, throughout the 1920s. Even in the depths of the depression, many families could afford the modest fee that was required to spend an entire evening escaping from reality at the movies once or twice a week.
"This ignited the Golden Age of Animation, and the World would never see the likes of it again. Sadly, the Second World War abruptly snuffed it out."
This series
Part 1: Materials and Workmanship of 1930s Toys
Part 2: 1930s Toys, Comic Types and Characters
Part 3: Why Did Animation Flourish in the 1930s?
Part 4: What They Cut from King Kong
Friday, August 7, 2020
1930s Toys: Comic Types and Characters
I asked toy collector Mel Birnkrant: As you get into the 1930s, was there a difference in the imagery, the sorts of characters, and the "attitude" of the comic types?
Today, it’s hard to visualize how small the toy industry really was for the first half of the 20th Century. What in those days would be considered a bestselling toy would qualify as a flop today. Most toy designs tended to be generic. Then, starting in the 1920s, comic character toys began to appear. For the most part, these images were derived from the Funny Papers. Thanks to which whole families of popular personalities appeared on America’s doorsteps every day.
Here is the complete set of bisque figurines based on 1920s comic strip characters. They were referred to as “nodders,” and were made in Germany, in 1928.
1920s Comic Characters also generated a growing repertoire of tin windup toys., colorful and always sculptural.
With the introduction of sound movies in the 1930s, a great explosion of creativity took place. With it, came the Great God Mickey. His image dominated the toy industry for the next 10 years. Compared to him, the Funny Paper personalities of the 1920s seemed tame. They were politely whispering, while Mickey Mouse and a growing number of his animated friends were shouting at us from the silver screen.
Throughout the 1930s, Mickey was the undisputed King of Toys. This 1937 cover of Playthings Magazine celebrates The Eighth Year Of His Reign.
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Read more at Mel Birnkrant's website
This series
Part 1: Materials and Workmanship of 1930s Toys
Part 2: 1930s Toys, Comic Types and Characters
Part 3: Why Did Animation Flourish in the 1930s?
Part 4: What They Cut from King Kong
Windows to Forgotten Worlds
Thursday, August 6, 2020
1930s Toys: Materials and Worksmanship
"Throughout these years, toys were also made in the USA. Early in the 1930s, new materials were introduced here. Dolls might now be made of rubber and also of a paste like material, called composition. Each of these new materials enabled a unique look that altered the appearance of the original subject matter, in some instances for the better.