BAMBI (Thumper Background)

In December 2007 I was fortunate to acquire a cel of THUMPER from BAMBI. This little guy is such a charmer!

The cel was released in the 1940s through the Courvoisier Gallery program. It has the official WDP stamp in the lower right corner (Walt Disney Productions).

As was the practice at the time, the cel is laminated.

As a later Courvoisier release, it has a typically uninspired background. The early Courvoisier backgrounds were actually created by artists at Disney Studios and were more elaborate. Later releases like this one were prepared by art students in the San Francisco area, where Courvoisier was located.

The original moment in the movie included Thumper's family and looked like this:

I digitally re-created the entire original pan background:

While I was in Photoshop, I sized and then overlaid the Thumper image in exactly the right position on the recreated pan B/G to see what the setup would look like. Here's the result:

For Macy !

MARY POPPINS

Here's a surprise!

I thought I'd digitally reconstructed just about every possible MARY POPPINS background... until this afternoon.

I had a rare four days off this week. So, with the luxury of some unstructured time on my hands, out came the 1964 Disney classic.

Here for your pleasure (and five hours of obsessive Photoshopping later): a wonderful POPPINS pan B/G from the chalk drawings (fox hunt) sequence. To remove the animated hunters, horses and dogs, I had to layer nearly thirty sections and do some paintbrush work as well!

I was able to eliminate all the animated characters except the endomorphic equestrian at the far right. But most of the background is now revealed for your amusement and amazement (and mine as well)!

:)

PETER PAN

POCAHONTAS part two

Here's our second installment of digitally recreated background art from POCAHONTAS.

There's a decided Eyvind Earle influence in these magnificent forest landscapes.

The modern Disney artists who created this artwork can be very proud. It as beautiful as any of Disney's best.

POCAHONTAS (1995)

Digitally recreating backgrounds from contemporary animation is really difficult. The artists make use of computer technology, creating multiple layers with moving special effects plus cinematic zooms and pans. Once revealed, however, the art is stunning, beautifully conceived and rendered with sumptuous color palettes. Here's a first look at dazzling background pieces from Disney's POCAHONTAS.

Instead of opening with the often used book, cleverly the artists used this painting, which comes to life during a magnificent multiplane zoom shot.

An opening title B/G:

Another opening title B/G:

The composition of this shot reminds me very favorably of a similar setup in the "Ave Maria" segment of FANTASIA. What do you think?

I was able to digitally move the Native Americans out of this shot, but Mr. Menken's credit refused to budge!

LADY and the TRAMP (more!)