Inspector Cleuzo

Sandro Cleuzo Animation Reel

2012-01-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

Sandro Cleuzo Animation Reel Updated from Sandro Cleuzo on Vimeo.

Design Reel

2012-01-02T15:16:00.001-08:00

Sandro Cleuzo Design reel from Sandro Cleuzo on Vimeo.

Selected designs.

Merry Christmas Feliz Natal

2011-12-22T02:36:00.000-08:00

I did not do a Christmas card this year so I decided to post a couple I did while at Disney during the productions of the Emperor's New Groove and Home on the range.

Eu nao fiz um novo cartao de Natal esse ano entao resolvi postar dois cartoes antigos que fiz quando estava trabalhando na Nova Onda do Imperador e Nem Que a Vaca Tussa.

Merry Christmas and a happy and "animated" New Year to all of you.

Um feliz Natal e um feliz e "animado" Ano Novo para todos voces.

What a Bull

2011-12-18T16:52:00.000-08:00

One of my all time favorites animated characters in a Disney film is the Bulldog from Lady and the Tramp. It was the work of master animator John Lounsbery, who was also in charge of doing the great Italian duo, the cook and Joe, the proprietor of the Italian Restaurant.

You all know that I am a big Milt Kahl fan but in Lady and the Tramp, the bulldog steals the show for me in terms of animation.
First of all, it's a very complex design to draw and to animate with appeal and a lesser animator would have trouble to keep him well drawn and consistent. Lounsbery not only animated him perfectly but kept every drawing in every frame beautiful.
The dialogue is specially good and the scene where he sings alongside the other dogs in the pound is superb.
Below are a few great rough drawings from one scene. The quality is not the best as they are copies of copies but still good to study them.

Below are some key cleaned up drawings from a great scene where he scratches himself as he talks.

I never heard or read anywhere but I am sure that Milt kahl must have approved Lounsbery's work on the bulldog.

More Characters

2011-12-01T02:05:00.000-08:00

Internal News Disney Style

2011-11-28T17:03:00.000-08:00

The way we got internal news at Disney in the 90's was through a newsletter called The Twilight Bark, a name taken from the 101 Dalmatians movie. It was a weekly publication and it was great fun to get it and to read about all the production news and upcoming lectures and events.

It was cancelled while I was still there. First they change it's name to just Weekly News or something like that and after a while it was cancelled all together.

When I return to Disney for The Princess and the Frog, we had the news digitally on line and it was nice too, but I always missed getting the late paper The Twilight Bark newsletter.

Bellow are some random pages of some issues of the bark so you can have an idea of how we would receive the news of Feature Animation.

O jeito que recebiamos noticias internas na Disney dos anos 90 era atraves do jornalzinho semanal The Twilight Bark. O nome foi pego do filme 101 Dalmatas. Era muito legal receber o jornalzinho toda semana e ler sobre as producoes e as palestras e eventos.
O jornalzinho foi cancelado enquanto eu ainda estava la. Primeiro mudaram o nome e depois de algum tempo cancelaram totalmente.
Quando eu retornei a Disney para trabalhar na Princesa e o Sapo, as noticias internas estavam on line, o que era legal, mas sempre senti falta do jornalzinho de papel.
Abaixo estao algumas paginas de alguns exemplares do Bark pra voces terem uma ideia de como eram dadas as noticias internas na Disney Feature Animation.

Characters

2011-11-25T13:15:00.000-08:00

The Emperor's New Groove's Characters That Never Made

2011-11-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

The Emperor's New Groove had many story changes and versions and many characters were created and designed but never made into the final film. These are a few of the model sheets I did of characters that never made. They were all designed by Joe Moshier and I just did the model sheets. They were really fun characters to draw and the one in the middle was going to have Adam West (TV Batman) as the voice and it could had been great but it was dropped when the story version that had him changed.

A Nova Onda do Imperador teve varias mudancas e versoes e muitos personagens foram criados para logo mais serem rejeitados e acabaram nao aparecendo na versao final. Aqui estao alguns model sheets com personagens que acabaram cortados. Eles foram todos criados por Joe Moshier e eu somente fiz os model sheets. Eles eram bem legais de desenhar e o personagem do meio ia ter a voz de Adam West da antiga serie Batman da tv mas foi cortado quando uma nova versao foi escrita.

The jaguars above were kept and made into the final version. Again, designed by Joe and I just did the poses and model sheets.

Os jagares acima foram mantidos e aparecem na versao final. Foram criados por Joe e eu somente criei as poses e fiz os model sheets.

The character above was named Nina and she was in one of the story versions. She was going to be a love interest to Kuzko and there were great ideas of Kuzko as a lama hitting on her and I think it could have been really funny. I was going to supervise her but it was dropped when the story changed again. I did one animation test with her and I should have it somewhere in my reel.

A personagem acima era chamada de Nina e fazia parte de uma das versoes. Ela iria ser uma garota pela qual Kuzko iria se apaixonar e dar em cima. Havia grandes e divertidas ideias com o Kuzko, transformado em lhama, dando em cima dela e sempre apanhando e acho que poderia ter sido bem engracado. Eu iria supervisionar a animacao dela mas foi cortada quando uma nova versao foi escrita. Eu animaei um teste com a personagem e devo ter em um dos meus reels.

Home on the Range Stuff

2011-09-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

This character above is Rico, a bounty hunter. The design was created by Joe Moshier and I just helped doing some poses to develop him further and help the animators.

Esse personagem acima e Rico, um cacador de recompensas. O design foi criado por Joe Moshier e eu somente ajudei com desenhos para desenvolve-lo mais e para ajudar os animadores.

One of the characters that I supervised was the sheriff and it was a fun character to do. Below, seven extremes from a short scene.

Um dos personagens que supervisionei no filme foi o xerife e ele foi bem legal de fazer. Abaixo, sete extremos de uma pequena cena do filme.

Below is a character that did not make it into the final film. It was going to be the Sheriff's horse. It was based on a design by Carter Goodrich.

Abaixo esta um personagem que acabou nao aparecendo no filme. Ele teria sido o cavalo do xerife. Ele foi baseado em um design de Carter Goodrich.

Sinfonia Amazonica

2011-09-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

To be an animator and to work in animation, you have to be a little crazy. Only a crazy person will choose a career where you have to spend hours sitting down doing thousands of drawings that are similar to each other and then shooting them in order so they appear to move. There's also the drawings of the layout and backgrounds, then color and sound and so on.

I consider myself a little crazy too but the thing is: When you get bitten by the animation bug there's nothing different you want to do, animation becomes your religion.

One person who I really admire and has been an inspiration since I started was one of these crazy animation artists (in a good way). His name was Anelio Latini Filho (Pictured above) and I think he was crazier than most artists I know because he made a "whole full length animated feature on his own", no crew whatsoever. He had help from his brother, Mario, who operated the camera as well and some of his family but the majority of the work was done by him. No layout department, no team of animators, no background artists, just him.
He created and designed the characters, did the layouts, animated the characters and effects, painted the BGs, shot on the camera, you name it. The film is called "Sinfonia Amazonica" and it was a big success when it premiered in Rio de Janeiro in 1953.

There's no much information about him and his films which is really sad. There's so much I still want to know about him and his only feature film. As far as I know, he only did a short film and the full length feature Sinfonia.

The pioneer of the Brazilian animation, Anelio was from Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro. He was a big admirer of Walt Disney and his films, specially Fantasia and he decided to mix the Disney style that he loved with a Brazilian theme to make Sinfonia.

He had very limited resources to make the film and because of the lack of formal training in animation he had to come up with his own techniques and did everything by feeling.
He worked hard from 8 AM until 4AM for 5 years to complete the film. Because of this work routine his health suffered and he became ill, which later aggravated and developed into a cancer.

According to one source, the money to make the film came from the sale of Anelio's fine art paintings, but I do not know if it is entirely accurate.

The film tells the story of seven folk tales from the Amazon region and feature classic music by Wagner and Medelsohn and Brazilian music too.

Anelio's niece, Marcia Latini is trying to get this very important Brazilian film restored and preserved which, here in Brazil could be an almost impossible task. I wish her all the best in doing this and hopefully, someone from the ministry of culture of Brazil can help.

You can see some great footage of Anelio working on the film and scenes of Sinfonia on Youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gK0nhMk8P8&feature=related
There's great footage of him working at around 6:24 mark until 7:33.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDUoMiishqE&feature=related

As someone who's trying to make a 5 minutes short for years, I think about Anelio's work making Sinfonia and I feel ashamed that I can not even finish 5 minutes.
I am also developing a feature film project with the Amazon theme and I am and will always be inspired by the "crazy"Anelio and his Sinfonia Amazonica, a "one man's full length animated feature".

Bate Papo

2011-09-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2011-08-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

These are from a scene in Robin Hood and as you can see, Robin is drawn very different that the final version. They had a hard time deciding on the final design for Robin and I suspect this is from the first design that Milt created. I like the final design but I think this is more fun.

The animation here is amazing as always and lots of stuff happening in terms of animation principles which is great to study. Bouncing ball, squash and stretch, overlap, follow through, silhouette, etc. You name it and it's there. Design wise is also brilliant in every drawing. It's a great scene to study.

Esses desenhos sao de uma cena de Robin Hood e como podem ver, Robin foi desenhado bem diferente da versao final. Eles tiveram muita dificuldade em decidir num design para Robin e eu suspeito de esse seja o primeiro design que Milt criou antes de mudarem. Eu gosto do design final mas acho esse mais interessante.

A animacao aqui e muito rica em termos de principios de animacao e ha muita coisa aontecendo como "bauncing ball, squash e strech, overlap, follow through, silhouette, etc, esta tudo la. Grande cena para estudar.

The beginning

2011-08-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

I just found this on Youtube and thought you might be interested to know how was my animation when I started. This is a commercial for a Brazilian Airline and this character was very famous at that time.
I animated (and re-animated over other animators) most of these scenes. I also helped a little with the scene planing.

It was 1987 or 88 and I was just 17 years old when I did this and was at the very beginning of my career.
As you can see, the timing and poses are very weak but I did not know any better and I kept doing and working really hard and never gave up.
It was produced at at studio called Briquet Films, in Sao Paulo and that was my school, I learned by working on actual productions. It was a great and fun time.

Eu acabei de achar esse clipe no Youtube e achei que voces poderiam se interessar em saber como era minha animacao quando comecei minha carreira. Esse comercial e o personagem variguinho foram muito famosos na epoca.
Eu animaei (E re-animei cenas de outros animadores) quase todas as cenas. Eu tambem lembro de ter ajudado um pouco com o planejamento.

Foi feito no ano de 1987 ou 88 e eu tinha apenas 17 anos de idade. Como voces podem ver, o timing e as poses sao bem fracas mas eu nao sabia muito naquela epoca e estava aprendendo (Ainda estou) mas sempre continuei a trabalhar bastante para melhorar e nunca desisti.
O comercial foi feito no estudio da Briquet Films, em Sao Paulo e foi tambem minha escola. Eu aprendi trabalhando em producoes como essa.
Foram bons tempos.

Milt Kahl Day

2011-07-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

I thought you would find interesting seeing these. These are rough key drawings by Milt from the Wind in the Willows picture and their final cleanup version. Even though Milt's roughs were dirt and all they contained all the information needed by the cleanup artist to do the final drawing for the ink and paint.

Of course, the cleanup artists could draw really well and sometimes better than some of the animators. At that time at Disney, they had a unit system, where each animator had their own team of assistants and cleanup artists which made all their work very consistent.

Eu achei que voces pudessem se interessar em ver isso. Acima estao alguns rascunhos feito por Milt para o filme Wind and the Willows e suas versoes passadas a limpo. Mesmo os rascunhos estarem bem sujos e desenhados rapidamente elas contem todas as informacoes necessarias para os artistas de cleanup fazerem os desenhos finais para a pintura.

e claro que os artistas de cleanup desenhavam muito bem e as vezes ate melhor que alguns animadores. Naquela epoca eles tinham um sistema de times em que cada animador tinha seus assistentes e artistasde cleanup o que fazia com que o resultado final fosse sempre bem consistente.

Zarafa

2011-07-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

The Europeans are still making them, specially the French. God bless them for keeping making hand drawn films.

Milt Kahl Day

2011-07-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

This one is by request from my pal Tom DeRosier, great story artist. We are both fans of this Milt character from The Aristocats, Madam Bonfamille.
She is drawn more realistic than the other characters in the film and Milt was criticized at the time for handling her that way but I think he did it right. She is depicted as an aristocratic and elegant lady who was a former singer (perhaps) and she should look and act the way Milt did it. She would not have worked if she was animated like Medusa for example.
These drawings above are just amazing and full of appeal. It's very interesting that Milt could animate her without any live action reference. Also, the control that Milt had in animating such a character was phenomenal.

Esse post foi sugestao de meu amigo Tom DeRosier, um grande artista de storyboard. Nos dois somos fans desse personagem que Milt criou para o filme Os Aristogatas, a Madame Bonfamille.
Ela foi desenhada com mais realismo do que os outros personagens do filme e Milt foi criticado na epoca por ter animado ela assim, mas eu acho que ele fez o certo. A personagem e tida como uma rica e refinada senhora que fora uma cantora no passado e ela e exatamente desenhada e animada como tal. Ela nao teria funcionado, como personagem, se tivesse sido animado como a Medusa por exemplo.
Os desenhos acima sao incriveis e muito bonitos. E interessante saber que Milt a animou sem ajuda alguma de referencia ao vivo. Tambem, e interessante notar o controle de animacao que Milt tinha para animar uma personagem assim.

Characters

2011-07-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2011-06-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

Many people think that Milt always drew very clean and precise right out of the bat but actually, he would start rough to get the storytelling pose right. He would search and rough it out quite a bit to get the drawing just the way he wanted. The ones at the top of Penny and Snoops are just that. They are rejects that Milt threw in the trash can (and thankfully someone save them).

The next two sheets are probably when he was designing the characters of the Sheriff and Friar Tuck. You can notice how rough these are as Milt would search for shapes and attitudes.

The sheet above are copies of his final animation drawings that would be touched up for xerox and ink and paint. The drawings are still rough but less so that it would make it easier for the people following him up. They just had to close some lines and erase others. Milt did not like people changing his drawings at all, what he drew was what he wanted to see on the screen.

Muitos acham que Milt desenhava limpo e preciso sem ter que rascunhar primeiro. Na verdade, ele rascunhava bastante ate achar a pose ou expressao certa e so depois fazia um desenho mais preciso.
Os desenhos da Penny e Snoops representam isso. Voce percebe o quanto Milt rascunhou procurando a pose e atitude certas. Esses desenhos foram o que ele descartou e jogou no lixo (E gracas a alguem, os salvou).

Os outros dois do centro do Xerife de Nottingham e do frei Tuck sao provavelmente de quando Milt estava criando os designs. Note que sao bem "rafeados" pois Milt estava mais interessado nas formas e atitudes, etc.

O proximo (Do Sir. Hector) sao copias dos desenhos finais que o Milt entao passava para seu assistente que fazia apenas ajustes como fechar as linhas ou apagar linhas indesejadas para a pintura final.
Milt nao gostava que mudassem nada nos seus desenhos e o que ele desenhava era justamente o que queria ver na tela.

Scenes

2011-06-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

Proud Family Animation Reference Scenes

2011-06-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

The Proud Family Animation Reference from Sandro Cleuzo on Vimeo.

The Proud Family Animation Reference 2 from Sandro Cleuzo on Vimeo.

In 2004 I was hired to do some work for The Proud Family Movie. My studio actually produced 3 minutes of BG layouts, animation, cleanup, EFX and even a little CGI for an alternate ending to the film that was included on the DVD.

I also did some animation of the characters dancing based on the live action dancers. It was to guide the Korean animators who were doing the animation of the entire feature.

Above you can see 2 of those scenes. I only did the key drawings for reference and the rest was finished in Korea. The director, Bruce Smith, told me to work closely with the live action video reference.

The idea in the movie is that the characters are having a "dance battle".

Milt kahl Day

2011-06-09T16:48:00.000-07:00

These are drawings from actual scenes animated by Milt.
I love the graphic style in these drawings. At the time when Milt did these he was very much influenced by artists like Ronald Searle and Picasso.
It's great to notice that in every drawing he tried to keep it in silhouette so it makes the gestures and actions very clear.
It's also great to study the way he used curves against straights.

UPDATE: If you want to see pure Milt Kahl treasures, go to Andreas Blog as he has posted amazing drawings from his personal collection.

Os desenhos acima sao de cenas animadas pelo Milt.
E muito bom o estilo grafico desses desenhos. Na epoca em que Milt trabalhava nesses desenhos ele estava muito influenciado por artistas como Ronald Searle e Pablo Picasso.
E legal notar tambem que em cada desenho Milt se preocupva com a silhoeta para fazer com que os gestos e acoes dos personagens fossem claramente entendidas.
Tambem e legal estudar o contraste de curvas com retas que ele utilizava.

UPDATE: Para ver fantasticos desenhos de Milt da colecao particular de Andreas Deja, visite o site dele agora.

Great New Blog

2011-06-07T06:17:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Andreas Deja has just launched his blog.
I'm sure it will be a great daily visit for all of us animation lovers.

Check it out at http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com

Congratulations, Andreas!

St Trinian's Pencil Test

2011-06-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

Searle Project from Sandro Cleuzo on Vimeo.

This is the pencil test of my scene for the animation test that Uli Meyer put together in the style and based on Ronald Searle's St. Trinian's Schoolgirls.
It was great fun to do this animation and Uli's perfect inking made the final test look like it was drawn by Mr. Searle himself.

Take a look at the final piece at http://ulimeyeranimation.blogspot.com/2010/11/st-trinians-animation-test.html
Matt Jones and Uli did the storyboard. Uli drew the layouts and poses for the animators (myself and Boris Hiestand) and most of the inking. Helene Leroux inked the last shot.

Este e o pencil test da cena que animei para um teste de animacao que Uli Meyer produziu baseado no estilo e personagens de St. Trinian's Schoolgirls, criado pelo grande desenhista Britanico Ronald Searle.
Foi muito legal fazer esta animacao e o traco final em tinta de Uli fez com que o resultado final parecesse com que se o proprio Searle o tivesse desenhado pessoalmente.

Matt Jones e Uli desenharam o storyboard. Uli fez os layouts e as poses para os animadores (no caso eu e Boris Hiestand) e o filete de quase todas as cenas. Helene Leroux filetou a ultima cena.

Milt kahl Day

2011-05-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

These are Milt's roughs from Mary Poppins. Thanks to his assistants at the time who were clever enough to make copies of his animation drawings before they worked over them so we can appreciate his first passes.

I love the way Milt drew and designed horses. It has influenced artists to these day. Just look at the horses in Tangled or Road to Eldorado for instance and you will see Milt's influence in them.

Aqui estao alguns rascunhos da animacao de Mary Poppins. Gracas aos assistentes do Milt, que foram espertos o suficiente para tirarem copias dos desenhos dele antes de limpa-los, nos podemos apreciar os primeiros rascunhos de suas animacoes.

Eu gosto muito do jeito que Milt desenhava e criava os designs de cavalos. A influencia de Milt esta evidente ainda nos dias de hoje. De so uma olhada nos designs de cavalos de Tangled ou Road to Eldorado e voces verao as influencias de Milt.

Axterix and the Vikings Pencil test

2011-05-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

Axterix and the Vikings pencil test from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

This is a scene I animated for Axterix and the Vikings, an animated feature produced in Europe.
In this particular scene, in which I animated all characters, the kid is supposed to be a great dancer but not the girl, who is a daughter of a viking and only knows how to fight. She tries to dance but her moves are more like if she was fighting.
The director told me I should look at Justin Timberlake or Michael Jackson for the kid's moves. I chose Michael and looked at his video clips and took a little bit from every one and combined into this scene, also adding a few moves of my own (On paper, of course because I can not dance).

Esta e uma cena que animei para o filme Axterix e os Vikings que foi produzido na Europa.
Nesta cena, em que animei todos os personagens, o garoto supostamente e um grande dancarino mas nao a garota que e filha de um Viking e so sabe lutar. ela tenta acompanhar o garoto e tenta dancar como ele mas os movimentos que ela faz parece que esta a lutar.
O diretor me disse para ver clipes de Justin Timberlake ou Michael Jackson como referencia para a danca do garoto. Eu escolhi Michael Jackson e tirei alguns movimentos de varios clipes dele e os combinei nesta animacao. Tambem adicionei alguns passos meus mesmo (No papel, claro, pois nao sei dancar).

Milt Kahl Day

2011-05-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more drawings from two of my favorites, Jungle Book and Sword in the Stone. I love the designs and animation of these two films. All characters designed by Milt. Here are drawings from three of his scenes . Enjoy.

Aqui estao alguns desenhos de dois dos meus filmes Disney favoritos, Mowgli, O Menino Lobo e A Espada Era A Lei. Eu adoro os designs desses dois filmes. Todos os personagens foram criados pelo Milt e aqui estao tres desenhos de tres de suas cenas.

Great version of Pooh

2011-05-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

I had no idea that there were other animated versions for Winnie the Pooh and I was delighted to find this great Russian version and I feel in love with it.
It has great design, timing, animation and voices. The animation is particular good because it's so simple. I am so used to do or trying to do more complex animation and when I saw this I felt that you can also communicate with very simple animation, with no gimmicks. I thought the Russian animators did it just right, with sincerity, with no formulaic movements.
I think I will have to re-think my way of animating after seeing this, which is difficult, but gave me a lot of inspiration.
I hope you enjoy it too. There are other great episodes of it on Youtube, check them all out, specially the one with Eeyore, just great.

Eu nao tinha ideia de que existisse outras versoes animadas do Ursinho puff e achei o maximo ter encontrado essa versao Russa, pois fiquei encantado com ela.
Achei os designs fantasticos e adorei o timing, animacao e as vozes. A animacao e muito boa porque e bem simples. Eu estou acostumado a animar personagens e movimentos complexos e quando eu vi essa versao eu aprendi que pode-se tambem comunicar o que voce quer como animador com uma animacao simples, sem truques pra chamar a atencao.
Eu achei que os animadores Russos fizeram um trabalho muito bem feito com sinceridade e sem movimentos desnecessarios ou cliches.
Eu acho que preciso re-pensar o meu modo de animar depois de ter visto isso, o que e dificil mas me deu muita inspiracao.
Espero que gostem tambem. Ha outros episodios tao bons quanto esse no Youtube, especialmente o do Eeyore.

Milt Kahl Day

2011-05-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

Here are a few great rough sketches by Milt to inspire you all.

Announcing Animationholics Designs

2011-05-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

I have created a couple of new blogs for my studio, Animationholics. The first one has a bunch of my character designs, please check it out.
A new one with storyboards will follow soon.

http://animationholicsdesigns.blogspot.com

Random Stuff

2011-05-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

This is a drawing of Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog. I did this when I got back at the Disney studio to work on the film and had not been assigned to any character yet. I was just practicing the characters I liked.

This is a Christmas card I did during the production of Disney's The Emperor's New Groove. I used one of my favorite characters that I was the lead of. He was a very nervous guy and so afraid of the Emperor that he would shake and stammers. It was fun to do. Designed by Joe Moshier.

This is a character that I created to do a story for a proposed comic book by some Disney animators. The project never happened.

Home on the Range

2011-04-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

Disney's Home on the Range was a very troubled production. It started as something totally different (and more interesting) than the final film but the executives thought it was not working for them and changes were ordered.
I had a great time working on it and visually it was beautiful thanks to designs by Joe Moshier and David Cutler's art direction.

Above is the final drawing of Grace I did for the model sheet. The design is by Joe Moshier.
Below are some animation and model drawings.

One day, Joe Moshier went to my office looking for me but I was away. I was working on a scene of Pearl talking with the sheriff and had a drawing on my desk. When I got back, this is what I Found:

Enchanted Pencil test to final color

2011-04-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

Untitled from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Here are 2 shots I animated for Enchanted and supervised by James Baxter and the final color scenes. It is always a thrill for me to see my scenes with the final color in the movie and with the BGs, camera moves, EFX, etc.

It is still amazing that we start on a blank piece of paper.

Great Disney Drawings

2011-04-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

Goodbye LA (for now)

2011-04-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

My work for Ken Duncan on the new Kung Fu Panda 2d short has ended and now it's time to go back home to Sao Paulo, Brazil and on to new projects.
It was a lot of hard work but what I have seen so far looks great. Beautiful art direction, animation, cleanup, efx, After Efx, etc.
Big thanks to Ken Duncan for trusting me and to the whole team. I can not wait to see it all done.

Characters

2011-04-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2011-03-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

If you have $1,000 to spare, rush to Van Eaton Gallery's Website and you can own an original Milt Kahl drawing. In fact, for this price, you can purchase not only the Prince drawing by Milt but also the accompanied drawing of the Princess by Marc Davis.
Unfortunately, I can not afford it right now (Dammit!) but if you can, lucky you.

At least we can still enjoy these scans.

Van Eaton site is: www.vegalleries.com/onceuponadream.html

Inspiration

2011-03-20T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Pioneer Series: Those Who Paved The Way from Creative Talent Network on Vimeo.

This is one of the best lectures I have seen recently and one that made me so inspired and fired up to start my project that I can't wait.
I always loved their stories about how they left Disney and became a competitor which made the Disney studio work harder.

Their movie "The Secret of Nimh" is one of my favorite animated films and the one to make me discover who Don, Gary and John were and I became an instant fan. I had no doubt that I needed to work with them and that's what I did. I saved my money for about a year, bought my ticket to Ireland and knocked on their door asking for a job.
Don and Gary were kind enough to give me a chance and my first job in feature animation and for that I will be always grateful.

Thanks to Tina Price and her amazing CTN Expo, you all can watch this and be inspired too.

Milt Kahl Day

2011-03-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Animator Avi Blyer has shared these with us, thanks Avi.
This is one of the best scenes of Pongo in the "101 Dalmatians". Pongo has just found out that he became a father of 15 puppies and Milt Kahl animated him kind of drunk as he walk towards Roger.

There's a story about this particular scene. Milt gave a lecture to a young group of animators and showed this scene as an example. He said that in order to animate a drunk dog you need to know how a real dog walks and all the mechanics involved, which is a very complex thing. As he started to analyze the walk, someone in the group shouted "I don't want to work that hard" and Milt exploded. He could not believe that an animator would say something like that.

Siegfried

2011-03-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

I just found out about this traditional animated film and have no idea where it was or has been produced (I am going to investigate further) but it gives me hope that traditional animation lives on.
I loved the animation, art direction and EFX on this piece and I can not wait to see it.
Whoever did this, congratulations.

UPDATE: According to some friends, this is actually a trailer for a proposed Feature film that is still looking for finance. Hopefully they will get the funds to make this soon. It was made at Bibo Films in France and it was created by Alex Alice, based on his comic book saga. Claire Wendling was involved and she created the horse and you can see the list of artists who worked on this in the credits .
Beautiful work.

Characters

2011-03-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2011-03-08T08:17:00.001-08:00

Enjoy this amazing pencil test of one of the best Milt scenes in Jungle Book. This is from Youtube and there are more there including a Shere Kahn one.

I wished I Could Draw like...

2011-03-05T19:53:00.000-08:00

I am constantly trying to improve my drawing skills and I look at many artists for inspiration and to learn from. One of the best out there for me is Uli Meyer, who I wished I could draw like it.

Uli runs a studio in London and he produces great commercials, shorts, and animated feature films.
He also can draw just like Ronald Searle which is very impressive.

There is one of my designs that I tried to make better and I look at one of Uli's drawings and try to apply to mine. In the end it became a little bit like his and I did not mean it to happen (Sorry, Uli but I removed it) but I could not help trying to get the same results in my drawing.

I urge you to go visit his page at http://ulimeyeranimation.blogspot.com

Below are some samples from his blog.

Yes, I wished I could draw like Uli.

More Random Designs

2011-03-04T21:34:00.000-08:00

Milt Kahl Day

2011-02-26T09:29:00.000-08:00

These beautiful Milt's roughs are from the collection of Ken Duncan. They are framed, under glass so the best I could do was taking a picture but I guess it turned out alright.
These drawings are rejects by Milt and perhaps they did not work for what he was trying to do at the time.
We are lucky that someone rescued them from the trash so we can all enjoy.
Of course, this is Medusa from The Rescuers.

The Team

2011-02-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

The project I am currently working on at Ken Duncan's studio is in it's final couple of weeks for animation to wrap and I thought it was a good time now to introduce the team I supervised.

Women first. This is Cinzia Angelini, a veteran animator who worked at Dreamworks, Sony and Disney. The Road to Eldorado, Prince of Egypt, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Meet the Robinsons, Open Season and Bolt are some of the projects she worked on . She is also a film maker and is directing her first CG short called "Mila". Be on the lookout for it.

Andreas Wessel-Therhorn, who I had met at Disney is also a veteran in the industry. The list of movies he worked on is long and among them are The thief and the Cobbler, Hercules, Tarzan, fantasia 2000, The Emperor's New Groove and The Princess and the Frog.

Roberto Casale. He's from Italy and worked on the famous cult movie Allegro Non Troppo directed by Bruno Bozzeto. Some of his credits include also Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Fantasia 2000, The Princess and the Frog, Space Jam, Looney Toones Back in Action and The Simpsons Movie.

These are all great animators who know their craft and make the life of a supervising animator like me easy, so I had a great time working with them.

The crew of animators consist in some of the top in the industry. The great animator Chris Sauve, who worked as a supervising on Iron Giant supervises Matt Williames, Rick Farmiloe and Jamie Olif. We also have Jared Backstrand, Bill Waldman and Duncan Marjoribanks, in the house.
It has been a lot of fun working on this Kung Fu Panda 2D project and I am sure you will all enjoy it when it comes out on DVD.

Random Characters

2011-02-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

Milt Kahl Day

2011-02-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

These gems are from the collection of the animator Avi Blyer. These are two of my all time favorite animated characters. The subtlety of the tiger's animation and the way Kaa, the snake is animated are masterfully done. Milt said he studied footage of tigers for about two or three weeks and that was enough for him to start working on Shere Kahn.
A big thanks to Avi for sharing these with us.

Check out this great MSN video: 'Rio' Exclusive: Film's First Two Minutes

2011-01-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

Check out this great MSN video: 'Rio' Exclusive: Film's First Two Minutes

Being a Brazilian, I could not resist sharing this clip of Blue Sky's Rio, directed by my fellow Brazilian Carlos Saldanha.
I loved the animation in it and the great animators there were able to make the birds dancing Samba perfectly.
I can't wait to see the whole movie.
Again, congratulations to Carlos and to the whole crew on a beautiful job. One of the best CG animation I have ever seen.

I do simple animation too

2011-01-18T23:48:00.000-08:00

Animation can be so complex and time consuming, specially in the Disney style, that sometimes I welcome an easy project that allow me to animate simple stuff.
These are scenes from an European short that I animated a while ago. The character designs were so simple, just geometric shapes really, that I was able to finish one or two of these a day.
I really like to do animation like this once in a while.

Untitled from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-12-14T10:18:00.000-08:00

These are from two different films but were done not too many years apart. The first is Roger from 101 Dalmatians and the other is the Black knight from Sword in the Stone. You can see the similarities in style. Milt was already drawing differently, being influenced by Picasso, Ronald Searle and others.

Fun Tangled Crew Video

2010-12-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

I love this video and it's just great to see my friends having a good time at the studio, they deserved it.
Congratulations to all of them, Tangled is a success.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-12-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

Here is the second part of the King Hubert animation. The first part was posted a little while ago.
I will post the 3rd part soon. Enjoy!

Random Designs

2010-11-30T00:07:00.000-08:00

Axterix and the Vikings Pencil Tests

2010-11-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Axterix and the Vikings from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Axterix and the Vikings 2 from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Axterix and the Vikings 3 from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

These are 3 of many scenes I did for this Danish/French project. I always loved the Axterix characters and when I was presented with the opportunity to animate them I jumped on it.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-11-16T21:06:00.000-08:00

This is Kay, a character from Sword in the Stone that Milt designed and animated almost all scenes. Sword in the Stone is one of my favorites, not much for story but for it's animation style. I love all the designs done entirely by Milt and there are some great sequences like the introduction to Madam Mim, the Wizard's duel and the Squirrel sequence that was animated by Frank Thomas.

Here in this film the animation that Milt did was boiled down to the essence. There are some great contrast in the way he animated the characters, like Mim and Kay for example and Wart and Merlin.

In these drawings of Kay you can see again great staging, silhouette, shapes and caricature.

Inspiration

2010-11-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

I have just got a copy of the Art of Tangled and I totally recommend it to anyone who loves animation. I was blown away by the great artwork presented in the book and specially the ones by my good friend Jin Kim.
Jin is from Korea and he is not only a great designer but also a great animator. I met him when I start working at Disney on Fantasia 2000 in 1997. We worked together on that film and then we were hired to work on Kingdom in the Sun, which became The Emperor's New Groove. We shared an office for a year or so and it was always great to see his animation. I new how good he was at that time but I had no idea how talented he in fact is. His drawings are as good and sometimes (for me anyway) better than Glen Keane's. You should definitely get this book to study his drawings.

There is another "Kim" in the book that you will hear more in the future, the great Shiyoon Kim, another Korean (what's up with all these great talented Koreans?). Shiyoon is also a good friend and his work is superb.

Disney is luck to have these two amazing talents.

Here are some of Jin Kim's drawings from the book. There are many, many more but you will have to buy the book.

Team work

2010-11-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

This is a great example of team work that used to take place at Disney in the old days. Here you can see key drawings of Robin Hood by Frank Thomas and underneath them drawings that Milt Kahl did over to bring them on model. Frank and the other animators always got their drawings shown to Milt or Fred Moore so they could go over and suggest ideas or just to help with a difficult angle or pose.
The late Dale Oliver, who was Frank's assistant for more than 20 years, told me that they always went to get at least one drawing from Milt and that drawing would make their scenes so much better.

You can notice in these drawings how much nicer Milt's drawings are in comparison to Frank's. They have more structure and better design. Frank was an amazing animator but he new his limitations as a draftsman so he left his ego behind and got Milt to go over his drawings. Sometimes Frank would send his assistants to Milt for help.

One of my best experiences was when I worked with Joe Moshier at Disney. Joe is a great designer and I was working closely with him on Emperor's New Groove. He would design a character and I would then take that and make a turn around model. I would show him my drawings and he'd take a new piece of paper put on top and show me what was wrong with or where I could improve it. It was just great and I learned a lot by having him going over my drawings. I also took drawings to Andreas Deja for suggestions and I used to show other animators some of my scenes for criticism. I wished I had done more of that while I was there.

Animation is usually a collaborative effort, specially in Feature films like Disney's, so is very important to show your peers your work and get their input or if you need help with a drawing.
That's team work.

Little Dennis animation

2010-10-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

This is a cute little animation that I scanned from the great book "The Merchant of Dennis", an autobiography of Dennis creator Hank Ketcham.
Ketcham worked in animation at Disney in the 40's but left to work on his own stuff and good thing he did it too.
Dennis is one of my favorite published cartoons and I study them constantly. They have great staging and great designs and is a great reference for storyboard artists.
This little piece of animation is uncredited in the book and I wished I knew who did it. It is beautiful.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-10-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here is part 1 of a bunch of sheets that I put together to study this great scene that milt animated for Sleeping Beauty. It is a great scene with great acting and amazing drawings. This is the cleanup version but no one would change Milt's drawings anyway so they are still great.

I will post the part 2 of these next time. Enjoy them.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-10-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

I love these drawings and how Milt was able to get great composition and silhouettes. It is graphic but it also works perfectly in space.

And no need to say how beautifully designed it is.

Walk tests

2010-09-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

Walk from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Frog walking from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

These are two personal tests I did a few years ago, actually over a decade ago to be precise.

The first one should work with a pan BG. I will be painting and compositing them in the near future and I will post them finished.

Chico & Rita

2010-09-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

This is the trailer of a new Spanish animated feature called Chico and Rita.
Me and my friend Robert Sprathof produced the animation and cleanup of an entire chase sequence for Sergio Pablos's studio Animagic.

The cleanup style in particular was very challenging to do as it had to be done with pen instead of pencil. However, we were luck to have had a great and talented group of cleanup artists working for us.

There are some of our scenes in the trailer

I hope it does well.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-09-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Some more gems from Milt. The first image is from Aristocats. I am not sure if this drawing is a design sheet or a drawing that Milt did over John Lounsbery's animation.
The second is a design sheet for sure when Milt was designing the rhino guards for Robin Hood.
The last one is his rough animation for the amazing scene from Mary Poppins where the little fox is being chased by the hunters.
Enjoy!

Random Designs

2010-09-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-08-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

Again, great designs by Milt. I specially like the way he designed the bear and I do not understand why the other animators changed it in their scenes, looking more like Baloo.

Great find!

2010-08-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

What a find! I just found this amazing reel, all in pencil test, on YouTube via "What About Thad? blog.
I had never seen an entire Disney short as a working reel before and it is just stunning. I love the animation and layouts and even though it is not that funny, it still entertaining.

I can not believe that Disney went so far ahead with this short but decided to shelve it. Can you imagine the amount of money they spent on this to simply shelve it?

At least we can all enjoy and study the great animation by Fred Moore, Hal King, Cliff Nordberg and others and the great layouts.

Family Guy Disneyfied

2010-08-20T03:46:00.000-07:00

Family Guy Disneyfied from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

To celebrate the current work I am doing for Fox on a Family Guy episode, here are a couple of scenes that I animated for an episode where they go into a Disney universe and they all become Disney style.

The second scene was a tough one as I had to plan the scene so each character could be seen and they had to be in the clear.

It was a fun and different project for me. I also did the final design of most of the characters based on the director's notes.

These tests are from an episode already aired and it should be on DVD as we speak or soon. What I am producing now can not be shown until it is aired.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-08-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

When I was working at Disney, I had this sheet (among others) over my desk for inspiration. It is just an amazing use of stretch and squash by Milt on the great dialogue piece. The character, Edgar says "my hat, my umbrella!" I really love the shapes that Milt drew and the way he did the M sound shape of the mouth by squashing the face. When he opens the mouth for MY you see no teeth and tongue at all. You see the tongue only when he says umbrella. Genius!

Random Characters

2010-08-07T03:28:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-08-01T04:37:00.000-07:00

Enchanted

2010-07-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

Enchanted pencil test 01 from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Enchanted pencil test 02 from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Untitled from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

Enchanted was one of my favorite projects to animate. First of all, it was the first time that I worked for the great James Baxter which I am a big fan of and secondly, because I was given great and important scenes with main characters and long footage.
I admitted I was a little bit scared when I did my first scene and had to show him because I know how how he can look at it and analize the whole thing and see any mistakes in no time.

James was very generous and trusted me with some very important scenes and also let me work long distance, here from Brazil.

Besides the scenes above, I animated the scene where the prince appears for the first time and the next one when you realize that he is actually riding the giant Troll. I also did Giselle falling from the tree and landing in the prince's lap and a couple of others.

Soon after this project James closed down his studio and it was the first and only time that I worked with him and I hope I can do it again.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-07-19T04:34:00.000-07:00

A mixture of Peter Pan and Sword in the Stone here, but it's all Milt"s. Enjoy!

Sea Creatures

2010-07-15T04:37:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-07-09T03:22:00.000-07:00

Again, some beautiful drawings of Merlin from Sword in the Stone. The first is a drawing already finished for the scene. The second looks like a first pass to find the pose and expression that he wanted. The third one is a drawing that he did over or for Ollie Jonhston's scene.
Enjoy!

Life Drawings and Quick Sketches

2010-07-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

I think that one of the most important things a beginner or student of animation should do is a lot of life drawings and quick sketches, and that goes also for all professional animators, including CGI animators.
To be able to capture the essence of a gesture, action or expression very quickly is paramount and should become second nature. Basic drawing is the basis for caricature and if you learn how to draw the figure you will have an easier time when you start to animate.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-06-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

As I had promised, here are some more of those sheets that I put together for a quick reference. This time it is from one of my favorites in terms of design and animation, Sword in the Stone.

Milt designed all the characters in this film and these two sheets consist in three scenes that he animated which I love. Merlin has a great and broad acting style and I think is great. Merlin is an old guy but he is very enthusiastic and full of energy and I think it's animation reflects that.

Many animators and directors today think it is over animated and bad acting. For me, it is acting for a specific design and style and I just think it is one way of doing it. There are many ways of doing a scene and each animator would do it differently. I am glad Milt animated this way because it is just fun to watch and very much in character.

There is also that nice walk of Johnny Appleseed that is also by Milt.

Cartoony Stuff

2010-06-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-06-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

A few more gems by Milt. This time from two different pictures.
First is a tied down drawing from Bedknobs and Broomsticks of the king lion transformed into a rabbit. I love how you can see that the crown is really heavy by the way Milt drew the flesh folding.
Second, a rough drawing of Robin Hood and maid Marian. It's a scene where Robin is fighting the wolves. It was copied before Milt's assistant did the final tie down.

Enjoy!

Flying Pig

2010-06-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hey Joe (Moshier), this is for you!

Milt Kahl Day

2010-06-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Robin Hood is not the best Disney film in terms of story but it is still entertaining and with lots of great animation. Of course Milt designed all characters again and did some animation of almost all characters. I particular like the Sheriff of Nottingham. Here are some of Milt's rough from one of the best scenes.

Random Designs

2010-06-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-05-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

Medusa was Milt's last animation assignment at Disney. He left the studio to retire and gave his assistant the last few remaining scenes for him to finish them up.

Rio

2010-05-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

My fellow country man Carlos Saldanha has created and is directing this beautiful new project from Blue Sky called Rio. It is looking great and I loved the way they are portraying Rio de Janeiro.
I am intrigued by this film and much more so because the story happens in Brazil.

A couple of years ago I flew to Blue Sky and interviewed with Carlos. He is such a nice guy and it was great to meet him.
They offered me to work on the film as a storyboard artist but I decided on working at another studio. I met most of the story crew and I thought they were a great bunch. I loved them and they made me feel so welcomed. They are so talented and you can see that in their recent movies.

To be honest, I kind of regret a little for not accepting the job there at the time. I would have loved to be a part of this beautiful film and it would be fun to work with the story team.

Congratulations to you Carlos, for showing our beautiful Brazil in a high profile animated movie and to all the talented crew involved in it.

Sorry but I am not able to get the whole full size video embed.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-05-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Again, another powerful drawing by Milt. This particular drawing is just full of great things to study. Composition, staging, silhouette, design, appeal, you name it, it's there.

KFP Secrets of the Furious five

2010-05-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

Untitled from sandro lucio on Vimeo.

These three scenes are from Kung Fu Panda's Secrets of the Furious Five. I animated a lot of shots in this show and was nominated for an Annie for my animation in it. It was a lot of fun to work on it and Dreamworks was wonderful to work for.
I am currently working on a few new hand drawn shorts in the same style, this time for How to Train your Dragon, that you will really enjoy.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-05-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite Milt drawings. It has so much appeal. It was designed for Jungle Book and was actually animated by Ollie Johnston , which did a great job as well.
This image is from the new Disney book The Archives Series on Animation and the original belongs to my friend Andreas Deja. In the book it says Ollie as the artist but it was a mistake.

Milt Kahl Day is Back!

2010-04-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the big gap in posting. I have moved back to LA for a few months to work on a project at Ken Duncan's studio and had no way to post stuff for a while, but I am back with some good stuff.

Here is my all time favorite scene by Milt. It's Edgar, the butler from The Aristocats. In this scene, he overhears Madam talking to her lawyer about leaving her fortune to him and he is so delighted that he does this great little jump up and down and you can see so clear in these drawings all his excitement.

Look at the drawings and note the amazing design and the shapes Milt got in them. The way he draws the knees are particular amazing.
Watch also the scene frame by frame, if you have a chance, and study the perfect animation, timing, spacing and attitude. It is just flawless.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-03-11T01:46:00.000-08:00

I put these together when I had some down time in-between assignments at Disney. I just wanted to have some of my favorite scenes in a way that it could serve as a quick reference guide, instead of flipping a big stack of drawings.
It became very popular at the studio and everybody was making copies of them and other people started to make their own.
I hope you enjoy them. I will post more of these in the future.

Characters

2010-03-03T06:31:00.000-08:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-02-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

These are some of Milt's work from the 40's and 50's which was a time when the animators were at the peak of their careers. Milt specially, could handle the human characters like no other.
Brom Bones from Ichaboad is one of my favorite. The animation is broad but not over done and displays a high level of draftsmanship. I really like the scene where the short girl is dancing with Brom Bones. I don't even know how he could plan a scene like that. It is so inventive and entertaining that I keep watching over and over again to try to understand how it was done.

The Duke, from Cinderella is also really good, not all the scenes, just Milt's. The sequence where he is jumping up and down with the King in the bed was done by Norman Ferguson and I really do not like that one but the ones that Milt did were amazing.

I guess these days, animation like that are considered over animated. Directors today tend to like a more subtle kind of animation.

The Illusionist

2010-02-25T02:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago I was looking for my next job and I learned about The Illusionist being produced in Scotland at Django Films. I had been in talks with Disney about joining them again for Frog but they were taking too long to decide on a date or if I would be hired at all so I decided to send my reel to Django films to see if I could work on their film.

After a couple of weeks they contacted me saying that Sylvain Chomet had liked my reel and they offered me a job to animate on the film but I had to move to Scotland which I would, of course.

Well, now I had to decide what to do and was already set on to move to Scotland when Disney called with the official offer and a date to start. I ended up going back to Disney and I missed the opportunity to work on the beautiful The Illusionist.

I do not know the story, but what I have seen so far, visually, looks great, j ust like the kind of style I love.

I think this is a great way to do traditional animation, where you can really see the pencil strokes and the backgrounds have that great painterly look of watercolor with pencil details on top.

I can't wait to see this film and I know when I see it I will think "I was this close to be a part of this".

Congratulations to Sylvain Chomet, the director and all the animators , art director and everyone else involved in this beautiful film.

Inspiration

2010-02-21T02:20:00.000-08:00

You all know I love Milt Kahl's work a lot and even have the weekly Milt Kahl day but I also admire a lot of other artists, not only from animation but fine artists, directors, art directors, musicians, etc. I just choose to focus on the animation field for this blog.

This is the work of another great Disney artist that I love to study, John Lounsbery . He animated some of my favorite scenes in Lady and the Tramp, like the Italian cooks and the bulldog, that I absolute think is one of the best in the movie.

Here is an original of the Italian cook that I acquired a few years ago. I think this drawing is flawless and so beautiful and it shows the strength of this great artist.

Lounsbery also animated great scenes like the ones with king Hubert in Sleeping Beauty. Bellow are a few more of his original drawings of Hubert that I purchased years ago

Random Characters

2010-02-13T01:30:00.000-08:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-02-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

I love the animation in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It was the highlight of the movie for me. Besides designing all the characters Milt animated the Lion, the bear and the secretary bird. The lion looks a bit like Shere Kahn but that is because the way Milt drew, his style. After all, he was the final designer for most of the Disney characters for the features.

The director of animation for the animated sequences was Ward Kimball and according to a memo to the animators that Ward wrote, he respected Milt's position as the key guy to go to get drawings checked. In the memo, he says that all animators should show their scenes to Mr. Kahl so he could approve or correct any drawings that he felt necessary to do so.

Great scenes to study are the one where the bear is fishing the bed out of the lagoon with the live action actors, the secretary bird telling the bear to throw the people back into the lagoon and the scene above with the lion. Beautiful animation, acting and drawings.

Animated Tiger

2010-01-31T15:31:00.000-08:00

These are some of the hundreds of drawings I did for the Tiger Woods Gatorade commercial that, unfortunately was canceled and never shown again after a couple of weeks that it aired on TV in the US.
The commercial was produced by Pepper films and co-directed by my good friend, the talented Rune Bennicke, who also designed the young Tiger and the bear. The animation was done in Spain at Sergio Pablos studio, Animagic.
I was hired to do layout poses, model sheets and key drawings for the animators and here are some of them. The bear in blue lines are for the model sheet and the young Tiger drawings were key drawings to help the animators keep their scenes consistent. The sequence of 4 drawings with the bear walking are also key drawings for the animator of the scene.
It was a fun project to work on.

Milt Kahl Day

2010-01-27T01:16:00.000-08:00

This is a great sample of how the animators and assistants at Disney worked in the past. Here you have a Milt's ruff of the Sheriff from Robin Hood and the cleanup touch up of the same drawing.
I am glad that the ruff was copied before it was cleaned up, otherwise we would not have this to compare because it was done on the same drawing.
Note how much information was already there in Milt's ruff drawing and what the assistant did by just erasing and connecting some lines and keeping the volumes consistent.
At that time, each animator had their own team of assistants that did the rough inbetweens and cleanup and they would work together for years.

More characters

2010-01-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

Milt Kahl Day

2010-01-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

The Prince in Sleeping Beauty has been criticized as a stiff, cardboard character by many. Maybe Milt did him so underplayed because, being a handsome prince, it could be more believable instead of animating him like the King Hubert or the Lackey, which would be too broad thus making the character look wrong on the screen.
I still think Milt did an amazing job on this, design wise and animation.

Characters

2010-01-06T07:01:00.000-08:00

Milt Kahl Day 12

2009-12-15T18:01:00.000-08:00

According to what I learned about Milt, if you asked him how he did something in a scene, the more likely answer would have been "you just do it".
Well, it is not the kind of answer a young student of animation would want to hear, right?
Milt was no good in explaining how he did his scenes and you had to learn by studying what he did.

What I am going to try to do here is to show how Milt would have approached a scene and the steps he took to do it and I will use samples of his work to illustrate it.
Of course, I never met or worked with him because he retired in 1977 and died in 1987 and I was only 17 years old learning animation here in Brazil. However, I read everything about him and talked with many people who knew or worked with him and I asked as many questions as I could.

His approach was actually not too different than today's animators. The only thing, besides his talent, was that he really thought about what he was going to do and would explore all the venues before deciding and starting a scene.

The first thing he would do after talking with the directors and story people and having the character designed, was listening to the soundtrack and thumbnail his thoughts. He would put down on paper, very rough, these beautiful thumbnails and planned the best way he could do the scene.

Here are samples of his thumbnails. Note that he would even suggest layout compositions.

After the thumbnails, when he found exactly the best way to stage the scene, he would start the big animation drawings. He could be quite rough in his drawings but everything would be there, on model. He did as many drawings as he could to control his scenes, not leaving much for his assistants and he was more pose to pose oriented but his animation always felt natural. He always got great and clear poses in his scenes too and silhouette was very important for him. All his pose read really well.

His assistants would just do what they called "touch up". Instead of cleaning up on a new sheet of paper, they worked over Milt's roughs, just erasing some construction lines and controlling shapes making them consistent and ready for ink and paint.

Here are samples of Milt's first passes. He would start with simple shapes to find the form and animate that. When he was happy with the action he would work over these and add more details , overlap, etc, making the drawings ready for his assistants to clean them up or touch up.

Here are some cleaned up or touched up scenes done by his assistants over his roughs.

And that's it! Simple, no?

Milt also claimed that he did not have to shoot pencil tests more than once to see if his scene worked. He used to say "I did the scene, so I know it is going to work".

We have to keep in mind that, at the time when Milt and the rest of the 9 Old Men worked, they had much more time to do a scene. The schedules they had (With the exception of a couple of pictures including Cinderella) were never the way it is today and they could spend more time exploring the best way to do a scene. I interviewed the late Dale Oliver, who was Frank Thomas' s assistant for over 20 years and he told me that they had indeed much more time in the old days. He said that Frank would very often put a scene aside for a week or two and worked on another one and then he would go back to that scene put aside and look at it with fresh eyes and see what was wrong with it.

My experience nowadays is the opposite and on The Princess and the Frog I felt it big time. There was no time to really explore and thumbnail the scenes and try to find a different way to do them. We had to just jump right in and do it as fast as we could.

I wish we had more time and a better schedule so we could really think about our scenes and possibly, just possibly, do it as good as Milt would have done.