style 9.6

style 9.5

artists have always been inspired by other artists. otherwise impressionism or cubism had never developed and been explored by so many different artists. in animation disney first used children book illustrators like tenggren and nielsen as inspiration for the style of the first feature films. UPA was smaller and could afford to experiment with new looks, using modern art like dufy and modigliany, but as well upcoming cartoon and caricature stars like steinberg, searle and kurtzman for inspiration. later john hubley went even further with his shorts and a complete abstract look influenced by picasso, shahn and prestopino. I could continue this until today, where modern filmmakers get excited by art they accidentally find on the internet. it is so much easier today to look for reference or inspiration, everybody has a vast collection of art from museums, books, auctions or collectors at home available on the world wide web.
I was always interested to find out how looks were developed in the past. it was like a guideline for my own work, to find ways for developing new styles. now I am trying to teach those secrets to new generations. difficult, because you have to first learn about all the existing art in the world, figurative and landscape or environmental art, get enough knowledge about films of the past – and, experience by analysis how the look of the most interesting films was developed. the real challenge starts when you try to develop your own style for a project. one piece is already tough, but then the problem is to create a whole series of environments in the same style.

early spring 1993 london

over christmas I had some time to dig through my archives, and I found a lot of historic stuff that you might like to see. it’s amazing to look at drawings again after so many years, lots of memories come alive. I want to start with BALTO, an animated feature film about husky dogs in alaska and the famous iditarod dog-sled race. I worked on it from 1992 on, production started in 1993. all that in london, acton town, a very interesting and ‘alive’ part of london. the following designs were all done by a young kid, early twenties, french, one of the most amazing character designers I ever met, and a brilliant animator as well – you might have seen his work in recent films from DREAMWORKS, like the trained dragon and the panda series. I am talking about a master – NICOLAS MARLET. there will be more, especially from CATS. but for now BALTO, or as it was called at that time SNOWBALLS…

© nicolas marlet / universal pictures / amblin entertainment

mulan findings 10

that’s how MUSHU looked like around mid 1995. CHEN-YI CHENG came up with that version. as you can see the design is very much influenced by chinese dragon pictures and sculptures, the cartoony touch is missing. disney had given me the opportunity to invite comic strip artists from all over the world, artists who could give us different ideas about the look of the film MULAN. REGIS LOISEL was the first comic strip ‘giant’ I invited. you can see his designs in some of my earlier posts. another artist who joined us for 2 weeks was vietnamese born belgian comic strip artist and painter VINH KHOA. and in summer 1995 my former partner on the ALFRED J.KWAK comic strip and tv-series, HARALD SIEPERMANN, came to L.A. for a few weeks. harald concentrated on MUSHU, and as you can see below, added the missing cartoony touch to the character.

© disney enterprises, inc

two for tea

DAAN JIPPES did this limited edition poster around 1981 in connection with the publication of his comic strip album TWEE VOOR THEE. daan is a master in the art of visual storytelling, he created numerous covers and stories for the dutch DISNEY comic magazine, spent some years at disney publications in L.A. and from around 1989 at disney animated feature film. we worked together for many years, at disney and amblimation. he is an incredible artists, can draw like ‘hell’ and is a good friend.

© daan jippes

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

muk+luk

the animation thumbnails and character studies of the two bears MUK and LUK were created for BALTO in 1993 by an incredible talent, NICOLAS MARLET, at that time in his early twenties. he has become one of the most creative character-designers in the animation world, as you can see in his work he did for DREAMWORKS over the last fifteen years.

© AMBLIN / UNIVERSAL pictures