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Sullivant to Disney

John Kricfalusi, one of the men behind Ren and Stimpy, Yogi Bear, and various Tenacious D music videos, posted a blog recently which is fairly topical.

Lion Evolution and Devolution

It describes (and criticizes) the stylistic progression from some of Sullivant's sketches into Disney's animation.

Opinions?

I can definitely see his points. I am fond of T.S. Sullivant's style, and find it kind of sad that more anthro artists aren't familiar with his work. Another one to look at, around the same time period, is Heinrich Kley. Fun stuff. I have to wonder if his work inspired, in some part, the Dance of the Hours scene in Fantasia.

I do think that a studio, be it Disney or Warner Bros. or Hanna-Barbara, gets a certain 'style' that the original artists came up with, one that later the execs think the audience wants to see for consistency reasons. Even in the comments of that article, I saw people complaining about Katzenberg "blanding" things down. This is one reason I love getting the "Art of..." books for productions, because you see so many different initial character developments and sketches, usually wildly different from what finally gets "cleaned-up" on screen.

I also think this is one reason I really liked the movie Open Season. The character designs were different. I know several people who didn't like them, and I admit a couple of them were misses, but I especially love Boog. He is a wonderful caricature. The Art of Open Season book has a bunch more great interpretations of the characters. As much as I love Baloo, it was really refreshing to see a different take on a bear. The movie as a whole also reminded me of old Looney Tunes shorts than trying to be a lesser Disney/Pixar copy. Not the greatest movie, but fun visually because they took risks.

Hm, while not contests, it might be nice to have artistic challenges on this site. Something like, "Find an animal and pick your favorite feature, emphasize it in a drawing." or "Come up with three totally different ways to draw X animal." Something that would require research, a trip or two to a zoo, and an artistic leap of faith. :)

Higgins Dragon said:
Hm, while not contests, it might be nice to have artistic challenges on this site. Something like, "Find an animal and pick your favorite feature, emphasize it in a drawing." or "Come up with three totally different ways to draw X animal." Something that would require research, a trip or two to a zoo, and an artistic leap of faith. :)

That would be great! Now that it's getting above freezing again, I really ought to get out to the zoo with a sketchbook (especially since the zoo in this town is free!) and something like that might be the kick in the pants I need to actually go.

That is an impressive amount of evidence, upo the "copy of a copy" you see. What's even more telling is that in a similar article in a print magazine, they printed cartoons from late in T.S. Sullivant's career. He simplified his 19th century pen and ink style to a Brush inked, and abstracted style, where he reduced the caricature to it's basic lines and volumes, with nearly no texture, and presaged 1940's animation styles by 15-20 years. You look at the last pieces he did and you can see the wholesale rippage that later cartoons did of his designs.

But Copy of a Copy shows up EVERYWHERE. Superheroes, Television Drama (Imitation is the sincerest form of television--Mighty Mouse). The best work is done from first hand observation and an understanding of what you are looking at.

Scott

He has some good points, but he seems to have a very strong preference for slapstick humor style characters. I don't think Tex Avery's slap-happy lion would make a good Mufasa, regardless how fun and original its design is.

Also, Disney's animators did study real lions. I don't know where he got the idea that they skipped this and simply copied someone else's already watered-down style.

Aurinona said:That would be great! Now that it's getting above freezing again, I really ought to get out to the zoo with a sketchbook (especially since the zoo in this town is free!) and something like that might be the kick in the pants I need to actually go.

Agreed! I've never actually sat down with a sketchbook in a zoo, can you believe it? I really need that kick, too.

Maybe I just fail as an art critic and have become one of the mindless mass, but I actually prefer the later characters he shows ('later' refering to date created, not position in the post) to the earlier ones and the sketchy designs. I just don't like them. I see the similarities, yes, but I guess I don't see his point. The whole post seems kinda abstract to me. Maybe it just comes down to personal taste, I dunno.

Okay, I was kind of waiting to reply, but just real quick: does he really think that the old style was more like a lion? Or that the artists needed to come up with their own style and screw the studio? Or that artists should work in a vaccuum and should not be influenced by other artists? Or that even a hint of realism in cartooning is the death of it?

Rick Griffin said: Okay, I was kind of waiting to reply, but just real quick: does he really think that the old style was more like a lion? Or that the artists needed to come up with their own style and screw the studio? Or that artists should work in a vaccuum and should not be influenced by other artists? Or that even a hint of realism in cartooning is the death of it?

John K. is one of those people who is very opinionated, very abrasive, but makes some good points even if he doesn't explain them well. :)

He does have an obvious bias towards very cartoony/exaggerated characters, ala Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. I think what he was getting at in general though was that artists, (probably more studio execs, but I'll say artists) should allow themselves more freedom in creating designs and rely more on personal observation. Influence is good (Heck, John K. is obviously influenced by a lot of the old cartoon shorts), but it seems he was just railing against the homogeneity of the modern Disney style. Which, except for an exception here and there, has been pretty much unchanged for about 60 years.

An example closer to the fandom, a lot of people like the "Lion King style." I like it, admittedly. But, a lot of people draw almost exclusively in it, and they really ought to branch out for instance. Experiment a little more.

Exactly. I took John K.'s point to mean that rather than following the same design year after year, Artists should come up with their own style, derived from observation of the real animal, modified by the medium.

When John K. says an "Interesting" drawing, yes his preference is for wild exxageration, and humor, but it shows how there can be room for more designs, in animation than the same rote construction methods, the "Cal Arts Style" that currently exist.

For a while his collumns about animation and animation production were the only reason to read "Animation Magazine", Now it's just a marketing rag for suits.

Scott

I just don't understand why he feels so strongly that the lions from "The Lion King," Shere Khan, and other cats from Disney's features look so horrible/unoriginal. Even though the style the Disney studio uses in their 2-D animations is a little bland, I find the character design suiting for the purpose of the stories that Disney tells. Classic Disney movies aren't heavy slap-stick comedies like the cartoons of Tex Avery and others. I think the muted character design helps the story flow well, and it keeps to the style that Disney began in the 60's and 70's, which is what made it Disney. If they went to some radically new style suddenly, it would be like an artist putting on a show composed entirely of black and white still-life photographs, and putting in a sculpture of a penguin randomly along one wall. I don't think the public would react well to major change in the Disney style, and the company would lose money. I think all of us here know Dinsey's in it for the $$$$ a lot of the time. Besides, Disney's got Pixar now to do all the creative work for them, don't they? ~_^

Well you could put that together that the bland formula stories should then demand bland formula designs. So, you are saying you like bland designs? :-) Classic Disney Studios aren't "Slapstick", but the ones that are havebeen the best recent workls that Disney has done, such as Lilo & Stitch, and the Emperor's New Groove.

If you look at the Warner Brother's output at the time, Bugs Bunny's design remaind fairly consistent, but the designs of Bug's Non-recurring antagonists were all over the board. The thing is is that the fundamental issue is the repetative gopying of a particular style, especially without reference to the original subjject being "stylized" for animation is bad.

Scott

Scott Ruggels said:Classic Disney Studios aren't "Slapstick", but the ones that are havebeen the best recent workls that Disney has done, such as Lilo & Stitch, and the Emperor's New Groove.

And see, I couldn't stand those movies at all. ;}

Dinogrrl said:

And see, I couldn't stand those movies at all. ;}

=O No way! Emperor's New Groove was pretty much the only thing that kept me from completely despising Disney in it's most recent years. It was actually creative and funny. No...hilarious is the word. :) And very quotable.

To each his own I suppose. But I can definitely see how a predetermined "look" has permeated all of Disney's works. I remember when the Little Mermaid came out my family was talking about how computer-manufactured it looked. And truly, if you compare later cartoons to the old cartoons like Aristocats and the Rescuers - there's a vast chasm of difference between the scratchy sketchy wrinkley animation in the older ones (love that old man in Aristocats!) and the perfectly clean and established characters in more recent cartoons that are hardly dynamic. The old cartoons are so fun and interesting to watch - particularly Medusa, Horace and Jasper and Cruella and even the goose in Aristocats is just plain silly and fun to watch his expressions - so masterfully rendered. Each frame. No shortcuts.

Vizon said:
To each his own I suppose. But I can definitely see how a predetermined "look" has permeated all of Disney's works. I remember when the Little Mermaid came out my family was talking about how computer-manufactured it looked. And truly, if you compare later cartoons to the old cartoons like Aristocats and the Rescuers - there's a vast chasm of difference between the scratchy sketchy wrinkley animation in the older ones (love that old man in Aristocats!) and the perfectly clean and established characters in more recent cartoons that are hardly dynamic. The old cartoons are so fun and interesting to watch - particularly Medusa, Horace and Jasper and Cruella and even the goose in Aristocats is just plain silly and fun to watch his expressions - so masterfully rendered. Each frame. No shortcuts.

And you've discovered the secret to the American animator's ill-feelings towards anime (that is, specifically Japanese anime). Hell, I like anime in general, but most of the newer series are computer animated, shortcuts taken at every opportunity, and basically just bad all-around, visually. I actually prefer watching JPEG-compressed versions on my computer because the perfectly clean, smooth artwork I get on the TV screen just makes me twitch.
and of course, the statement about anime stylization doesn't even need to be made...

Xazy said:

shortcuts taken at every opportunity, and basically just bad all-around, visually.

Except of course for Hayao Miyazaki's work. And Ghost in the shell has some pretty impressive cityscapes. There is so much detail and beauty put into the environments of these examples. And the boar god in Princess Mononoke was just cool. But yeah, for the most part, Anime is the new Hanna-Barbera. And then there's that style that's become ever so popular with the super-thick linework like the Odd Parents and Dexter's Laboratory and Powerpuff Girls. I can't decide whether it's creative or lazy yet. But at least it's different.

Vizon said:
I can't decide whether it's creative or lazy yet. But at least it's different.

My vote is for "lazy." But considering an animators' job is extremely painstaking to begin with, can't say I blame them.

oCe said:

Vizon said:
I can't decide whether it's creative or lazy yet. But at least it's different.

My vote is for "lazy." But considering an animators' job is extremely painstaking to begin with, can't say I blame them.

I think the vote might actually lean towards "more economical/profitable." I know a lot of animators who love to do fluid animation and really cool stuff. Thing is, that takes longer/more effort and thus costs more. Having heavily stylized Odd Parents/Dexter's Lab animation is a throwback to the Hanna-Barbara cartoons of limited animation, it just looks sharper. I like Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and while the designs are very 'graphic,' the animation is pretty decent in spots. Then again, it's done in Flash where you can take a lot of cheap shortcuts vs. drawing every other frame.

It is also in part why shows like Invader Zim (which had a huge per-episode cost) are more likely to get nailed first before shows like Odd Parents. (Although there were other issues with Zim, it was by far one of their most expensive to produce series to date.) Edit: "They" being Nickelodeon/Viacom.

The ad revenue for the half hour slot is the same, so from a cold-hard numbers perspective, limited animation brings in more money. :P

I was really hoping that somewhere in that article John K. would step away from being harsh and "edgy" for two seconds and explain his views a bit more. I notice a lot of his articles contain "this is wrong! This is wrong!" but doesn't say why.

I'm also surprised that he didn't find the connection between Madagascar's lion to the Little Golden Books "Tawny Scrawny Lion". I know he's familiar with Little Golden Books, since he did a whole article on it in his tutorials linked on Wiki. I mean see for yourself:
http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/images/Records%20Page/lgbr-tawny.JPG
http://www.booksamillion.com/bam/covers/0/37/582/838/0375828389.jpg

But that said I know how hard it is to get away from the TLK influence. I mean, as supposedly "bad" as that art is, they used real lions as models and wildly exaggerated some features (I don't think I've seen any lion with such a perfectly combed hairstyle!) and based on that people think that's how real lions look. I think a challenge for artists each week or each month (not unlike the Thunder Dome on CA.org) for folks to draw X species in a different style is a good idea.

Nocte said: He has some good points, but he seems to have a very strong preference for slapstick humor style characters. I don't think Tex Avery's slap-happy lion would make a good Mufasa, regardless how fun and original its design is.

Also, Disney's animators did study real lions. I don't know where he got the idea that they skipped this and simply copied someone else's already watered-down style.

Quoted for truth. TLK animators and character designers brought real lions into the studio and went to the zoo...those were not just characters drawn from other characters.

It's all a matter of taste, mostly, but personally, I've never liked the Ren & Stimpy style of characters. And I consider the claims he's making to be somewhat hypocritical. I think the TLK-style lions more closely resemble real lions whereas the slap-stick style is more removed from reality, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but different styles work for different story genres.
And the slap-stick style is far from new and unique either. It's a more simplified/animated version of the classic grotesque style made popular by such artists as Hieronymus Bosch or DaVinci. So it's a little arrogant and hypocritical for him to claim that the stuff he does is somehow better because it's less "rehashed."

If anything, it seems it's simply become popular these days to criticize Disney animation as something childish and unappealing. If you like Disney cartoons, you're part of the unoriginal collective, supposedly...although with all "rebellious" movements in taste, I daresay it's more "following the masses" these days to be one of the "Disney criticizers."

Yes, Disney style, especially TLK style, has become somewhat of a plague amongst young artists who think they can draw that and only that and be successful (many of us have been there, myself included) but acknowledging that it IS indeed good cartooning for the purpose that it's intended to serve shouldn't be as much of an issue as it seems to be these days.

I don't see TLK's "style" being bland at all; I find it (and the Don Bluth style that predated it) very appealing and always have.

The Kricfalusi article suffers from the all-too-common "what I like = objectively good" fallacy, it seems to me.

-The Gneech