all my best wishes

1.1998

both illustrations were sketched by CHEN-YI CHENG and then inked and painted by me. the first one was for publication, the color piece created in january 1998 was the planned cover for the JEFF KURTI coffee-table book about disney’s MULAN, before FRED TIO together with MICHAEL HOBSON, DEREK SHIELDS and DANIEL CLARK designed the poster for the movie and it was decided to use the same stunning motif for the book cover as well.

© disney enterprises, inc

calling

from a seventies commercial animated by RICHARD WILLIAMS ANIMATION – the good old days!

© richard williams animation

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

wilhelm m.busch 25

some more selected artwork created by WILHELM M.BUSCH over a span of about forty years, that shows his incredible versatility in all different techniques – watercolor and etching, simple ballpointpen, pencil and rendered pen+ink. and they look so effortless done, just written down…

© wilhelm m.busch

empty

another one for the book

alex nino 11

ALEX NINO created the following illustrations for the comic novel …JUST PASSING BY! in 1999. in my opinion it is the best work I ever saw from him. he allowed me to xerox the oversized originals before they went into printing and the text bubbles were added. unbelievable artwork, all drawn with a simple pen, hardly with any corrections on the total of twenty pages. the masterpiece was published in july 1999 in FRANK FRAZETTA FANTASY ILLUSTRATED, vol.1, number 7.

© alex nino / quantum cat entertainment

as expected

portrait study

another study for the book…

denis rich

during the pre-production of disney’s MULAN I had a chance to work with some amazing talent. like DENIS RICH (1930 – 2007), who did visual development and storyboard work. his drawing style was very precise, with a knowledge of costume design and props. with his vast experience from numerous films he had worked on (supermann 1978, three musketeers 1993, son of the pink panther 1993, return to oz 1985, dark crystal 1982, for your eyes only 1981) he immediately understood what we needed for our film and he came up with incredible atmospheric and rich in detail scenes during the hun attack sequence. we talked once in a while about his work in the pinewood studios in england with some legendary filmmakers, he had some stories to tell. after his mulan work he went back to england and storyboarded on a lot more live action films, some were – harry potter and the order of the phoenix 2007, harry potter and the goblet of fire 2005, harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban 2004, finding neverland 2004, anna and the king 1999, the avengers 1998. below is some of his work on the hun attack in MULAN.

© disney enterprises, inc

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

even more edelmann

the following illustrations were created by HEINZ EDELMANN in the seventies and eighties for the FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE MAGAZIN, the magazine TWEN, the WDR ( westgerman tv ) and ATLAS FILM.

© heinz edelmann, frankfurter allgemeine magazin, wdr, twen, atlas film