mulan findings 2

before I became the official production designer for disney’s MULAN in december 1994 a small team of visual development artists had explored all different artistic directions for a possible style of that project. some of them had nearly worked on and off for 2 years on that. it was a challenge, the chinese typical painting-look was very difficult to copy for the use in animation. it still was supposed to be a disney movie but the studio wanted to come up with a story-typical style for the new projects. it had been successfully done with HERCULES, ALADDIN and LION KING where art-historic and geographic elements had been combined and ‘disneyfied’. below a few of the hundreds of paintings and sketches from that early stage of development. some more will follow

© disney enterprises, inc

mulan findings 1

you probably have made that same experience – you search for something and find tons of stuff way more interesting than what you were looking for. it took a long time since my archives has grown too big, but it was worth it. you will see a lot of it in my next posts. today I start with some of my oldest MULAN color designs, from 1995, a mushu cel set-up and a directional map with sequence numbers.

© disney enterprises, inc

mel shaw ( 1914 – 2012 )

MEL SHAW, one of the last DISNEY-LEGENDS, has passed away at the age of 97.

the picture shows him working on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in london, september 1989.

more information here
and here

mel shaw

MEL SHAW, born december 19, 1914, in brooklyn moved to L.A. in 1928. after an art education at the otis art institute he joined the HARMAN-ISING studios as an animator, character designer, story man and director. during that time he had a chance to work with ORSON WELLES storyboarding a live action/animation version of THE LITTLE PRINCE. WALT DISNEY hired mel personally after he saw him play in a polo match. before WWII interrupted mel’s career he worked on FANTASIA, BAMBI and WIND IN THE WILLOWS. after the war he started the ALLEN-SHAW productions together with former MGM animator BOB ALLEN, where he created toys and architectural masterplans like century city in california, as well as the illustrations for the first BAMBI children book for disney. mel told me the story where he was involved in the ( stone by stone ) move of the 1831 built LONDON BRIDGE from london to LAKE HAVASU CITY, ARIZONA, in 1968. the bridge was dismantled, every stone numbered and then shipped and trucked via long beach to arizona. what a project! in 1974 mel shaw returned to the disney studios where he helped the new artists on productions like RESCUERS, FOX AND THE HOUND, GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and THE LION KING. I met mel during our pre-production work for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in london in the fall of 1989 and had a chance to witness ( and videotape ) his incredible charcoal technique and the birth of dozens of beautiful paintings.

© disney enterprises, inc / mel shaw

mulan historic 1

as comparison here are some kind of ‘historic’ designs I did for disney’s MULAN in october 1995. starting with the very first rough black/white sketch, about postcard size, and together with my own logo for the fim, at that time after ‘the legend of fa-mulan’ as a working title ‘the legend of mulan’. the dragon survived in the final logo. then a step inbetween, a marker sketch, about 6 x 10 cm. and the final 12 field acrylic painting on cardboard. the last design in this post is the very first planned cover of the ART OF MULAN book by jeff kurtti. I like the final cover with the original powerful poster much better.

© disney enterprises, inc

special

a ‘merry christmas’ to everybody who is celebrating the event. for this special occasion I want to show you a selection of designs for several animated feature films created over the past fifteen years by some of the best in their field. PAUL FELIX and a few of his many masterful pencil sketches for disney’s MULAN, as well as some of his paintings and drawings for the shelved SNOW QUEEN project. further MARCELO VIGNALI with his beautiful visuals for MULAN and CHEN-YI CHENG’S ancestor group for the ‘mushu’s awakening’ sequence in MULAN. finally two more stunning jungle action scenes for TARZAN by JOHN WATKISS, and some of the amazing layout work for BALTO created by one of the best layout artists, now animator – BOLHEM BOUCHIBA. I hope you enjoy this very special gallery of the masters – happy holidays.

© disney enterprises, inc
© universal pictures / amblin entertainment

700

this is post nr.700. on december 31, 2010, I compiled a LIST OF CONTENT with the first 600 chapters of this blog. soon I will update that list up to this post nr.700. for several reasons I slowed down posting, 100 in one year is not what I had done the previous years since september 12, 2008, when I started ANIMATION TREASURES. but I guess, most of you have never seen all the 700 posts. find out in the LIST OF CONTENT what might be interesting and then find it in the SEARCH-function.

for today I collected some of the reasons why I started to work in the ANIMATION business. in the early seventies I began animating, about twenty years later with the help and advice of RICHARD WILLIAMS and DON HAHN I moved into the concept- and production-design area, where I had a chance to work on some historic animated feature films. and I was very lucky to meet and work with some of the artists who created the masterpieces of the past that had started my love for animation.

© disney enterprises, inc

concept art 1

below some concept art from disney’s MULAN, created by three masters – ALEX NINO, PAUL FELIX and MARCELO VIGNALI.

© disney enterprises, inc

alaska

below my production design for a diagonal pan in BALTO from 1993 ( feltpen and gouache ), followed by the final background painted in oil – could not avoid the reflections in the overlay cels.

© universal pictures / amblin entertainment

watkiss 2

JOHN WATKISS did rough studies like these to plan his big acrylic paintings during the pre-production of disney’s TARZAN.

© disney enterprises, inc / john watkiss

1987

in june 1987 I flew with HARALD SIEPERMANN to L.A. to do the storyboard for the TOONTOWN-sequence in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. we stayed as far as I remember five weeks, worked in a trailer right behind the AMBLIN ‘WHILE YOU WAIT’ – building on the universal lot, and created probably a thousand or more sketches. the final sequence was about 15 min long, what was with changes cut down to 45 sec in the final film. I remember one of the first assignments we got from DON HAHN, the assoc.producer, was to create a walk of eddie valiant through a part of toontown. we had to come up with all different light situations. harald did the sketch, that I colored from memory below, I painted then in 1987 the whole pan without the character and ILM used the whole set-up to create the light effects and the combination with the actor BOB HOSKINS as a test.

© disney enterprises, inc
© universal pictures / AMBLIN entertainment

fun creations 2

© disney enterprises, inc
© universal pictures / amblin entertainment

balto reference

here is some of the reference for BALTO. I collected hours of TV-reference about alaska and snow landscapes in general, analyzed them all and printed hundreds of color-videoprints. a selection is below, as well as some of my designs for the aurora borealis in wolf-shape for the ending of the film.

© amblin / universal pictures

alex nino 8

and more of ALEX NINO’S amazing inspirational art for disney’s MULAN

© disney enterprises, inc

alex nino 7

some more designs from the MASTER, ALEX NINO. they were done during preproduction of disney’s MULAN around 1995/1996. alex told us in one of his lectures here in the philippines, when he was a boy, about ten, twelve years old, his parents did not have enough money to buy him paper and pencils. so he went to the beach, not too far away from where he grew up, and practiced his drawing skills, drawing with a wooden stick in the wet sand.

© disney enterprises, inc / alex nino

Nr.444

as everything else the color is perfect in disney’s 101 DALMATIANS as well. responsible for the overall look and the production design, as well as the art direction of the film was KEN ANDERSON. but he relied on one exceptional artist for the right color choices in every single sequence – WALT PEREGOY. in hundreds of small mostly abstract color sketches he defined the right color combination of the characters and the backgrounds. see below some of his work compared to the final result in the film.

© disney enterprises, inc

ken adam

SIR KEN ADAM was born 1921 in berlin, germany. being jewish/german he relocated in 1933 to england with his family. after the second worldwar he started to work in the film industry, educated as an architect. in the mid-fifties he worked in hollywood on AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS and BEN HUR. it was there where he met his mentor WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES. the 1957 released and directed by JACQUES TOURNEUR – NIGHT OF THE DEMON ( one of my favorite films ) was his first major hollywood credit. it was in 1962 when his long lasting work on the JAMES BOND films started, with DR. NO. he designed all BOND films until MOONRAKER in 1979. inbetween in 1963 he was the production designer for STANLEY KUBRICK’S – DR. STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB. as well he was responsible for the look of another favorite of mine, the 1965 THE IPCRESS FILE. later GOODBYE MR. CHIPS, and – again with KUBRICK – BARRY LYNDON, for which he won his first OSCAR. these are only a few of the highlights I mentioned. ken adam is an amazing drawing artist with an unlimited imagination as you can see in the following sketches.

© ken adam

style 6

MARY BLAIR, born in 1911, was married to LEE BLAIR ( brother of PRESTON BLAIR, well known for his ‘how to animate’-booklet ). both became very well know watercolor artists, LEE even was at the age of 23 the president of the CALIFORNIA WATERCOLOR SOCIETY. lee blair joined disney in 1938 and became one of the art directors on PINOCCHIO. MARY BLAIR went to work for MGM – animation.

but in 1940 she left MGM and started at the disney studio as well, in the CHARACTER MODEL DEPARTMENT, headed by JOE GRANT. for joe’s idea of LADY AND THE TRAMP she created numerous watercolor sketches. during the early war years, in 1941, disney and a group of designers and animators went on a good will tour through southern america. mary blair joined the group and got walt disney’s attention with some concept designs for the by this trip inspired features SALUDOS AMIGOS and THREE CABALLEROS.

from the mid-forties on she designed most of the disney films, all the way through CINDERELLA, ALICE IN WONDERLAND and PETER PAN. in 1953 she left the studio to follow her own ideas in paintings, children books and other areas incl. some major advertising campaigns. disney asked her to come back in the sixties to design attractions for disneyland. she died in 1978.

mary blair’s influences were very different. they came from contemporary commercial art like european advertising posters, VOGUE fashion designs, NEW YORKER covers as well as folk art and the colorful southern-american culture.

© disney enterprises, inc

blog + book

only about three months ago on sept.12 I started this new blog. so far there were as of now 50.110 hits, that is incredible! I wanna thank everybody for your big interest!
as some of you might know, one year ago on dec.7 2007 the english version of my book DREAM WORLDS was published by FOCAL PRESS. so far I think it is the second printing. the japanese edition came out earlier, around the end of 2006 – the paper is nicer, the print quality better and the price three times as much. here is the cover of the english version…

now I am working on the next book about composition and color, maybe I will have it ready for publication next christmas. the cover could look like this…

thank you again – in case you want to comment on the books or the blog and send me an e-mail, please do… bilderfabrikinc@yahoo.com

more variety

© disney enterprises, inc
© bilderfabrik