dirk baksteen

not too much can be found on the internet about DIRK BAKSTEEN, 1886 – 1971. accidentally I saw one of his paintings and liked it so much that I had to find more about this artist and his work. BAKSTEEN was born in rotterdam, netherlands, where he attended evening classes at the art academy. in 1912 he settled in mol, belgium. mol becomes later the center of the MOLSE SCHOOL, following the successful BARBIZON SCHOOL earlier in france. the ‘school of mol’ becomes popular for their PLEIN AIR art, – besides BAKSTEEN, JACOB SMITS, PAUL MATHIEU and GASTON DE BIEMME are some of the representatives of the group. baksteen met american etching artist W.SHERWOOD who introduced him to all the secrets of the engraving technique. baksteen became member of the chicago etching society in 1924 and had an exhibit in the palais de beaux arts in bruxelles in 1935. I love the way he portrays nature in that part of europe, with its open wide fields and the simple cottages. too bad I did not know his work when I worked on ‘beauty and the beast’.

mulan findings 5

here is some more visual development artwork for disney’s MULAN. it was done sometime early 1994 before I joined the team

© disney enterprises, inc

look studies

© bilderfabrik

corto maltese

HUGO EUGENIO PRATT, june 15, 1927 – august 20, 1995, was an Italian comic strip artist who combined strong storytelling with extensive historical research. like his most popular creation, CORTO MALTESE, whose stories first appeared from 1970 on, pratt was a restless world traveller all his life. born in rimini, italy, he spent most of his childhood in venice, then moved with his parents to ethiopia. back to italy he became part of the VENICE GROUP, an association of writers and artists, one of the members – DINO BATTAGLIA. together with them he worked on several comic strip series until because of poor work conditions for comic strip artists in post war italy he moved with a few others to argentine in 1949, where he created numerous comic series for argentine magazines. then pratt taught for a while at an art school in sao paolo, brazil, until in 1959 le left for london to contribute his work to war picture libraries. he briefly moved back to argentine, but settled finally from 1962 on in europe, first in milan, italy, then from 1970 to 1984 in france, later in lausanne, switzerland where he died in 1995 of cancer.

pratt is considered to be one of the greatest comic artists, who cited ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, JOSEPH CONRAD, FENIMORE COOPER and JACK LONDON as influences, along with cartoonists WILL EISNER and MILTON CANIFF. pratt’s cult series protagonist, CORTO MALTESE, an anti-hero sailor-adventurer world-traveler, takes the reader to the most fascinating places in the world, from the WWI-era pacific islands and their smugglers and pirates to dramatic events during the russian civil war after the october revolution and the spanish civil war.

one of pratt’s stories, CORTO MALTESE IN SIBERIA from 1975, has been translated to the big screen as a traditional animated feature film. LA COUR SECRETE DES ARCANES released in september 2002 in france. directed by PASCAL MORELLI and with stunning backgrounds by FREDERIC BLANCHARD, GISELLA GIAMPIETRO, LUCIE TREMBLAY, OLIVIER VATINE and JEAN-FRANCOIS MIGNAULT, creates a believable ‘pratt-world’ with all his characters come ‘alive’. it must have been a challenge to go from comic to animation. it shows in some parts of the film, – what works in a graphic novel doesn’t necessarily work in film. but, compared to a lot of other animation, this film is a visual masterpiece. below some of the artwork.

© hugo pratt / ellipse animation / canal+

big day

I just found these historic color-slides hidden with 1000s others in one of my slide boxes. it was a big presentation in the disney studio that day, sometime in the fall in 1995 – the first presentation of the style designs for MULAN. we had mounted on boards some of the older paintings together with the latest look. that was as far as I remember the meeting where I was asked by some higher ranks if I could add a bit more detail to my designs, they looked too empty, the audience might think disney could not afford more elaborate backgrounds. oh well…

© disney enterprises, inc

more russell patterson

© russell patterson

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

albert hurter

ALBERT HURTER was the first visual development artist in the disney studio, most of characters and environments for the disney shorts in the thirties, the SILLY SYMPHONIES, but as well as for the features SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, PINOCCHIO, DUMBO, FANTASIA and THE RELUCTANT DRAGON were designed by him. born in switzerland in 1883 he studied architecture in zurich and went then for seven years to an art academy in berlin. probably because of the dangerous situation and the beginning of WWI he left europe in 1914 and went to new york where he was introduced to the animation film industry. in the barre-bowers studio he worked on the MUTT & JEFF cartoons and became very fast well known for his amazing drawing talents. around 1930 he applied for work at the disney studio where he was disney’s VISUAL SKETCH ARTIST for more than a decade, drawing whatever came to his mind, playing with the ideas of a new story and working on films they would be produced long after his death, like PETER PAN and LADY AND THE TRAMP. I am sure that he introduced the disney artists to european masters like HEINRICH KLEY, WILHELM BUSCH and the caricature artists of the SIMPLIZISSIMUS. in 1942 he died of a weak heart, and seven years later a book HE DREW AS HE PLEASED was pubished, put together by TED SEARS, one of the story artists hurter had worked with. the book has about 700 of hurter’s sketches throughout his years at disney, and a lot of them have always been my favorites. I post them below in a bigger size.

michael sporn has posted the complete book in 2 parts on his blog – you can find it here and here.

© albert hurter and disney enterprises, inc

russell patterson

my first post about RUSSELL PATTERSON’S work was in december 2009 – ‘the patterson girl’, you can see it here. below is now the complete collection I got from JOE GRANT.

© russell patterson

style 11.1

the look of the city has changed over the last centuries, some of them grew from small marketplaces in medieval times to huge sizes with tens of millions of people. the once atmospheric cosy environments turned into concrete jungle, with architecture not for people anymore. artists all over the world have captured these changes through their eyes in very different styles. this incredible variety is fascinating for me and it might influence your work as well, in case you need to get some ideas about URBAN LIFE.

moments 24

wolf erlbruch 4

all book-illustrations and calendar sheets were created by WOLF ERLBRUCH and published by PETER HAMMER VERLAG, wuppertal, germany

© wolf erlbruch / peter hammer verlag

king arthur

the illustrations below are from the 1962 published book KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE created by GUSTAF TENGGREN ( 1896 – 1970 ).

© gustaf tenggren

wilhelm m.busch 32

some more illustrations created by WILHELM M.BUSCH from a limited edition work catalogue published in 1983 by edition curt visel, memmingen, germany

© wilhelm m.busch / curt visel verlag

la rosa di bagdad

a while ago on june 30, 2010, I posted the recreated opening pan of the historic italian animated feature film THE ROSE OF BAGHDAD. since I have now a much better quality version of this film I recreated the full opening again. here is the beautiful background together with the main credits. you can find more information about the film in my earlier post.

© fiorella domeneghini

dragons

the screen captured scenes above are from a short 7 VERSIONS OF A FAIRY TALE the hungarian animator and director ATTILA DARGAY ( 1927 – 2009 ) created in the eighties. he started after his art studies in 1948 at hungary’s national theatre in budapest as a scenery painter, from 1957 on he worked as animator and created a number of shorts, in 1976 his first directed animation feature film MATTIE THE GOOSEBOY, followed by THE FOX in 1981 and THE CAPTAIN OF THE FOREST in 1987. the FAIRY TALE short starts with some picture book paintings showing heroic knights fighting dragons and saving the princess, then changes into a very different cartoony style to deal with the same content but in a very different way. the short is beautifully animated and full of great gags.

© attila dargay

the painter poet

that’s what CARL SPITZWEG was called, he lived from 1808 – 1885 in munich, germany, where he portrayed the daily life in humorous scenes, painted cartoons. you can read more about him in my earlier post from january 6, 2009. below some more of his artwork

© carl spitzweg

beauty

the reason why I recreated this stunning background from disney’s SLEEPING BEAUTY was pure curiosity, I hope the original is still in the disney archives ARL. it is a long and complicated combined pan with a camera-turn, must have been pretty long in three multiplane layers in original, I guess in 2 pieces, where the cut edges could have been covered by the foreground foliage. I explain some of the details in the first image. the tilted angle is the result of the camera turn – I started with the recreation in the normal horizontal position of the first frame, the second image shows the whole BG in a better readable angle. see the beauty of this piece of art yourself, the first reaction might be – incredible, all the detail! yes, but it doesn’t look overloaded like so many backgrounds today and the characters read perfectly clear, because the color range and the values are very close. amazing as well the composition – the cathedral-like trees that create the ‘background’ with the more irregular and curvy tree-shapes in the foreground. the foliage adds the playful rococo detail in front of everything. it is all controlled and looks so light.

© disney enterprises, inc

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

wilhelm m.busch 31

the selected illustrations created by WILHELM M.BUSCH are from a limited edition work catalogue published in 1983 by edition curt visel, memmingen, germany.

© wilhelm m.busch / curt visel verlag