here we go – another year. hopefully a good one, – I doubt it – too many dark clouds on the horizon! anyway, I want to start the BLOG-year with some beautiful artwork, already over fifty years old but for me better than most of the film-design artwork I see today. the disney animated feature film 101 DALMATIANS was released january 25, 1961, the first of the disney films that had a very different style. the animation was xeroxed and showed for the first time most of the original drawings of the animators. the corresponding backgrounds matched the loose lines of the animation perfect, the background details in line were xeroxed as well and the cels placed over the slightly offset gouache colored backgrounds. stylistically a masterpiece. following are a few layout drawings with the recreated backgrounds.
© disney enterprises, inc
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 45 years I lived and worked in exciting places around the world. after 7 years of teaching in singapore I am back at my homebase in manila, working on a few more books.
One1more2time3's Weblog 
Stunning.
Beautiful!. Is great to see that they didn’t put mechanically the line over the “soft” elements of the colored background: snow, fogged buildings, horizon, moon…
Knowing how to draw, even in this day and age is imperative when creating good art. These are just stunning,
these pencil drawings looks as a mix of Disney and Ronald Searle.
Among all the disney animated features, this picture has one of the most “adult” approach concerning design.
Happy New year!
Hey Hans!
Check out this hand-drawn animated short by Minkyu Lee~ I think the backgrounds and animations is simply amazing, but would love to hear your opinion on it!
from hans –
thank you for the link – I think the look and the animation is outstanding. hope I can see the finished full short soon.
These images are wonderful. I so miss seeing traditional artwork on the screen these days. Not that artists are not doing wonderful CGI work. For me, digital still feels so artificial.
It’s simply beautiful to see the lines next to the final colored versions. And I agree, this is still one of my favorite film styles yet!
Wonderfull,Thank you for sharing.