Animation Artifacts 04 May 2006 07:35 am
Grim Ruffs
- These drawings are a cycle from a Cheerios commercial animated in the late 50′s by Grim Natwick for Drew Robert Lawrence Productions. This again highlights the importance of a good assistant for 2D animation. Tissa David assisted Grim on this spot, and her cleanups are sensational. You can see all the detail that Grim actually includes in his drawing when you look at how the clean-up person properly does the job.
There’s a large shark on another level chasing the girl. I’ll post those tomorrow.
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(Click on any image to enlarge.)
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on 04 May 2006 at 11:18 am 1.Gabriel said …
Thanks for those Michael, they’re a real treat! Grim Natwick is my hero.
on 04 May 2006 at 5:49 pm 2.Amid said …
BEAUTIFUL drawings! So great to see examples of Natwick’s work from this period. The only thing I’d add is that I think the studio was called Robert Lawrence Productions. I think Lawrence is still alive too. He was mostly a live-action producer, but had a pretty busy animation division that employed Natwick, Duane Crowther, and Cliff Roberts among others. He also was the backer of the West Coast animation studio Grantray-Lawrence, started by MGM animators Grant Simmons and Ray Patterson, and he also helped Ernie Pintoff start his studio (it was originally called Pintoff-Lawrence before Ernie split).
on 05 May 2006 at 7:30 am 3.Michael said …
Of course you’re right. If Tissa had been in NY, I would have backed up my poor memory.
on 05 May 2006 at 9:33 am 4.Frank said …
I like the similarities between these drawings and Natwick’s character designs in the Willie Whopper and ComicColor cartoons for Ub Iwerks in the early-mid 1930′s.