Thursday, February 23, 2012

Medusa and Penny

Here is another insight into Milt Kahl's working method.
He would look at the storyboard and then fine tune the staging for a particular scene, trying to plus it as he went along. During the first pass, done with a felt pen small scale, Milt also worked out the continuity for several scenes.
By the time it got to animation, he drew rough layouts in pencil of the characters in their environments.
In this scene Medusa is forcing Penny to go down the hole to find a diamond.
The staging is beautiful, a lot of the line work points down toward the hole to emphasize the story point.
Yet a few things actually look better in the first version, like Penny's head angle or Medusa's lean toward the girl. I remember Milt saying:" I often have the hardest time capturing the life of my thumbnail drawings into the large animation sketches."
Still…Milt's drawings never fail to amaze you.



13 comments:

  1. Yeah, the curse of the tie down and clean up. It always kills the life of the rough.

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  2. I really like the quote: "I often have the hardest time capturing the life of my thumbnail drawings into the large animation sketches."

    It's always hard for me to get the same life in my larger scale drawings. I guess I need to do 80 million more gestures to help combat that. It's just nice to know the masters of their craft have some of the same hang-ups as I do!

    It seems to me that the arm with the teddy bear is a little stronger in the sketch as well, but that might just be my preference. On the flip side, I like the bottom rock better in the final sketch (or I guess I should say I like that the rock in included).

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  3. Love this! But it's so true. Sometimes, you just lose some of the life of that first rough drawing... It's a pity, but it's great when we DO get to see those first sketches, huh?

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  4. I love getting some insight into the thought process of the old masters. Thanks for posting.

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  5. Indeed! It is always great to know that the masters had just a hard of a time as everyone else....I was wondering as I ve been having a hard time finding the info and it was all curiosity. But anywho, how big did Milt usually draw these thumbnails? They have sooo much information in them yet have so much in their simplicity and elegance. Also how long would you say did Milt spend on his planning? I've heard that artists had alittle bit more wiggle room in that area of planning then than they do now so I was just curious on that. Also thanks a bunch on your informative posts! I'm a 3d animator but my real passion lies with the ol 2d stuff as well as of course the old Rankin Bass stopmotion stuff....among others hehe. Anyways Thanks again!

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    1. Milt's thumbnails are small, as are Frank's, Ollie's and all the others. Sometimes Milt would think about a new scene over the weekend, then do thumbnails on Monday and animate the scene the rest of the week.

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  6. its the posture of medusa and the positive negative space between medusa and the girl that really make the sketch better. The girl also seems more afraid in the sketh because shes leaning more... its amazing how little details changes everything.

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  7. It looks to me like the purpose of that particular pencil sketch was to work out Medusa's feet in reference to how they'd bear out the weight of her posture.

    And beautifully rendered feet they are!

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  8. Isn't that why most guys just blow up the thumbnails in a copy machine and trace over them for the layout.

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    1. I have done this, too, occasionally. It helps to maintain the life in the thumbnail sketch.

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  9. Haha, it is a crazy treat to hear that from Milt. Exactly why I always find myself blowing up my thumbnails to trace!

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