Friday, May 9, 2008

Learning THE MOUSE

In August 2002, along with two other artists Marc Camelbeke and Shawn Colbeck, I was pulled from layout duties on LION KING 1 1/2 to start workbooking THE THREE MUSKETEERS with Mickey, Donald and Goofy.


This was a dream come true in a way, a chance to draw the classic characters. We were given a really strong model pack which was unusual, normally we got poor re-traces of feature models. My supervisor and friend Steve Lumley brought in some photocopies of classic Mickey models which were a great guide.


In the meantime I scoured e-bay looking for original Mickey models and these great Fred Moore examples which I copied for the rest of the time and had pinned up on my wall for the duration. Mickey is surprisingly difficult to nail, it's not only drawing him but getting the personality into the drawings.



These videos were really just meant to be pushed out so not much time was allocated to preparing for a project, we really had to learn as we went along as this example of a rough workbook I did will testify.


Ultimately the one real disappointing thing about the project (apart from being cut to shreds in the final edit) , was how the powers that be messed with the personalities especially Donald who was always my favorite and in this picture become a 100% coward not prone to angry outbursts.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing the drawings and the insight into your work.

Acme Girl said...

Nice work on Mickey. It's nice to know someone who worked on one of my favorite Disney Direct-to-DVD movies.

Mark Sonntag said...

Thank you for the kind words, at some point soon I'll post some more material from this Direct to-DVD and a couple of others.

Shawn said...

F&*#$'in' Sonntag is that you? This is your old pal Shawn. Remember me? I hope you are doing well and having fun. Where are you in the world now?

Later,
Shawn