Animation &Animation Artifacts &Fleischer &Layout & Design &Models 10 Oct 2012 05:54 am
More Fleischer Models & Things
- Continuing on with the Vincent Cafarelli collection of artwork, I ran across some more Fleischer/Paramount models. One piece among them, I think, is something of a rarity. Here they are:
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This seems to be a rarely seen model. “Wags” the dog from Gulliver’s Travels.
I think this was cut from the film, at least I’ve never noticed him.
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This, of course, is not Fleischer but a later Famous short.
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This appears to be from a later Paramount cartoon.
(Thad Komorowski identifies this as Bill Tytla’s
HECTOR’S HECTIC LIFE in the comment section of this post.)
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- Here is something even rarer than that Gulliver “Wags” model sheet.
Apparently, new hirees at Famous Studios (at least in 1956) would go to an art school, of sorts. The following drawings are on reduced animation paper (although they’re the actual pencil drawings, not copies) and stapled – with two staples, one on either side – to black illustration board. Each has additional registration marks drawn at the bottom. Each is one of two drawings that are slightly different from one another. Presumably, they were designed to teach inbetweening. The pencil drawing line work is particularly thin, so I suspect these were projected with an overhead projector. I’d guess that the art student, new employee, would copy the projected drawings and then have to inbetween the pair of drawings.
The drawings start with simple lines and get progressively more difficult until it’s a full sized image of Popeye ready to throw a punch. For the sake of space, and since the first drawings aren’t very interesting, I’ve enlarged only the last half of them. The thumbnails for the first group are small, so you can see them and enlarge them, if you like. If you’re new to the field, try copying and inbetweening at least the last five pairs. It’s amazing that Vincent Cafarelli saved these, and fortuitous for us to be able to see them. Have a look:
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on 10 Oct 2012 at 3:02 pm 1.The Gee said …
These are all interesting.
The puppet model sheet is for a Famous cartoon? It doesn’t seem familiar. Was it actually puppets or just a gag for the story?
That lesson is interesting to see, too.
on 10 Oct 2012 at 3:23 pm 2.Michael said …
The Popeye as puppet film is “Puppet Love“
on 10 Oct 2012 at 6:56 pm 3.John said …
It’s interesting to look at the 1938 Betty Boop model sheets and the final result. In the final version of “Sally Swing”, the Willard Bowsky unit narrowed the size of her head even more and gave her ‘elfin’ eyes, I suppose as a way to try and cuten up the character (a look that lasted all the way through her final cartoons in 1939). They also modified Sally, dying her hair blond and elongating her face and eyes, probably for the same purpose.
Can’t tell if the dog is supposed to be Pal, from the Little Audrey series, but it looks like it. The in-betweening test is interesting in part because it apparently was done right at the time Al Eugster’s unit was moving the studio towards a more angular design in it’s animation, so we get the older characters with the more standard ‘look’ next to the new designs that would become the norm just a short time later, when the budgets were cut and Paramount went to far more limited animation.
on 10 Oct 2012 at 10:59 pm 4.The Gee said …
Thanks!
on 11 Oct 2012 at 10:58 pm 5.Thad said …
The modelsheet is for Bill Tytla’s HECTOR’S HECTIC LIFE released in 1948 (indicated by the “Three Pups” assignation). Brilliant post!