Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Here are some more model sheets from Cinderella. #4 through #12 are drawn by Mary Blair. There are a couple by Marc Davis that are in among the remaining group. You can check with Hans Perk‘s resourceful site A Film LA. There you’ll find the drafts for the film, and you can find out who did what.

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The Duke

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The King

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More Mice

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- Here are some storyboard drawings from Cinderella. A number of them are by Bill Peet (known as “William Peed” on this film

May I suggest that you check with Hans Perk‘s excellent site A Film LA to find the drafts for the film. You can use those to find out who animated what scenes.

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- Here are some preliminary drawings from Cinderella. These are pictures of the mice, the cat, the dog, the Prince and the horse. Sorry the low res of some of the images doesn’t allow me to get large enough – particularly with regard to the model sheets.

After viewing these models, take a look at the animator drafts whch are being posted by Hans Perk on his commendable site, A Film LA.

- More images collected from Cinderella. But first, let me start with this email my sister, Pat, sent me. She’s always sending
me funny email jokes, and this one seemed to come at just the right time – in time for this post. It just reads:

The Prince and Cinderella is one thing but the two sisters’ dresses. That’s where this comparison takes the cake.
Anyway, I thought you might enjoy it if you haven’t already seen this.

Now, onto more Cinderella art. This all started with Hans Perk‘s wonderful blog, A Film LA and the Cinderella drafts he’s posting. Take a look. They’re a treasure (as is everything Hans posts.)

We start with a couple of finished BGs and move onto to models and designs for Cinderella’s room, house, and castle.

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The Stepmother

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The Stepsisters

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- I continue, here, with more images from Cinderella.

I think of this series of posts as an outgrowth of the Cinderella drafts Hans Perk is posting on his excellent blog, A Film LA. Check them out if you haven’t already.

Many of the following drawings are better drawn than some of those in the first post. Others almost look as though they’re frame grabs rather than the preliminary sketches (See #9 & 10) they are. I hope you enjoy them. If you know who did any of the art, don’t hesitate to let us all know.

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I just read a great little quote by Wilfred Jackson in Didier Ghez‘ book Walt’s People Vol. 6. I thought I’d share it. It comes from an interview with Jackson by Steve Hulett:

Pinocchio was the last picture I worked on that was done so strictly under Walt’s guidance. All during the thirties it was that way. Then he backed off and began throwing more responsibility to the rest of us. He figured we should know our business well enough to help him make pictures instead of being extra fingers on his hand.

And it’s my personal opinion that this accounts a great deal for some of the difference that you see in the spirit and the heart that you see in the pictures during the thirties. That gradually, it got a little less evident until it got to the point, in my estimation, where the Disney pictures became superb technically, but a little lacking in a joyous creative spirit you’ll find in those early pictures. As time went on, it was more and more diluted by the influence of others . . .

- It all starts with a drawing. Bambi is, to me, one of the most beautiful of animated features. Collectively, the artists at the Disney studio pulled together to create some wonderful artwork which produced a wonderful film.

The initial work went through many phases, as would be a natural state for animation. However, all of the artists seem to be trying for a higher plane, and oftentime they reached it.

To celebrate the latest release of this film, the Blu-Ray/DVD version, I’ve pulled a lot of the drawings from the film and post them here. It’s amazing how much nifluence Marc Davis had early on. I can only ID the artists of some of the sketches. If you know, let me know.

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David Hall

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(above and below) Marc Davis

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David Hall

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(above and below) Ken Peterson

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David Hall

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Marc Davis

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Murray McClelland

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Fred Madison

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(Probably) Gustaf Tenggren

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Frank Thomas

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Marc Davis

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Lynn Karp

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Ken Peterson

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Ken Hultgren

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(above and below) David Hall

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A Tyrus Wong pastel sketch.

- It’s been a while since I posted more of Albert Hurter‘s magnificent book, He Drew As He Pleased (Simon and Schuster, 1948.) This gem is a rare book, indeed.

Albert Hurter was one of the European illustrators Disney brought into his studio for Snow White and Pinocchio. Hurter was the his own master, drawing designs which would be used generally to further the design of the features and Silly Symphonies.

He truly shaped the design of those early features, and his constant reference to features which didn’t get made until generations later, such as Peter Pan, indicate that there was some influence he had on those films, as well. Just look at all the ownderful pirates in this installment.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for the loan of the book’s pages and the arduous task of scanning these illustrations.

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“Here we go again.”
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“Notes on transportation.”
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“PeterPan . . . suggestions for Captain Hook’s Buccaneers.”
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“Including a few even Peter Pan never saw.”
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“Pencil Wanderings”
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“Assorted trolls.”
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“Senility can be fun.”
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“Tame ones.”
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“Wicked ones.”
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“And a few fancy pups.”

- I have the CU drawings done by Richard Williams for a small scene from Raggedy Ann & Andy. I believe the original animation was done by Spencer Peel, though I’m not sure. It may have been Gerry Chiniquy.

For the first half of the film, Dick spent much of the film holed up while assisting and inbetweening many of the animators at the film’s start. In doing this, he was also able to rework and retime the animation and, thus, have control over it all.

The problem was that the director has bigger things to do that affect the big picture.

This scene, beautifully cleaned up, is typical of these scenes. And yet, as far as I can see this was eliminated from the final film. I don’t have time to check the actual film, but the drafts indicate that scene 2.1 / 16 was taken out of the movie. I’ll look at the film just to make sure, but it looks pretty obvious to me.

This is a model sheet taken from a similar scene in Raggedy Ann.
It’s obvious that his POV has shifted from left to right, and that may be
the reason for eliminating the scene pictured below.

The scene started out with 32 drawings, but it seems that Dick eliminated three of them (27-29) to hit an accent a bit harder than was done in the original animation.

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Here’s a QT of the cycle with a mix of one’s and two’s.

- Karl Essex read on my blog about Glen Keane‘s poses and saw some negative comments about Andreas Deja which I rebutted. He had a number of artwork pieces that he sent me to post. There’re no cliched poses among them; I like Deja‘s work.

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Hercules 1

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Hercules 2

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Hercules 3

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Hercules 4

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Lilo from Lilo & Stitch

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Jafar from Aladdin

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from Deja’s sketchbook King Triton from The Little Mermaid

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Roger Rabbit

- Sempé is one of the great living cartoonist/designers. Tissa David recently gave me this poster-sized collection of original drawings that he did for her when designing a commercial which she animated. She kept the piece of artwork over her drawing board until the spot was finished; then she rolled it up and put it away in her closet. It’s my good fortune that she cleaned out that closet.

The spot was done for R.O.Blechman‘s THE INK TANK in New York, when they were still in business.

Here’s the full poster of models:

The inks have faded a bit, and I’ve tried to make up for
that in photoshop without damaging the delicacy of his lines.

Here are some reconstructions of some of the models so you can have a closer look:

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The Charlie Chaplin character – used as the mascot for the commercial series.

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The animated Pitchman.

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Here are two QT ads done at the studio in Sempe’s style during this
time (1986-87) sent to me courtesy of J.J. Sedelmeir. Many thanks.

TIGHTROPE

MARTIN MARIETTA