Channel Frederator Blog

On his blog, Michael Sporn recently posted these great King Louie drawings from a sequence by Milt Kahl:

It’s obvious from these drawings that Milt Kahl knew this character well. While his movements are those of an orangutan, there is a lot of thought put into how King Louie would move around when happy and singing. The sequence also is a great example of the overlapping breaking of joints, secondary, overlapping animation on things like the arm hair and belly, and some great squash and stretch on the poses themselves. I think people tend to think of squash and stretch as the super deforming, “cartoony” mashing of structure. There is none of that here. The squashing and stretching comes from the pose itself, getting the character’s pose low and compact before springing out of it, arms outstretched.

After seeing this sequence on Michael’s blog, I looked up some more on Milt Kahl and found this great piece from YouTube:

I think there is a lot of wisdom in the clip. In the realm of CG animation, there is a lot of speed assumed in the process. You should really take some time before you start your animation to really think about your character and what they are all about. Work out some rough thumbnails and see what you can do with the shot. Explore all the possibilities before you commit to the first thing that pops into your head. This is sometimes tough to do with some production schedules (I’ve had more than a few projects where the client needed things last week), but a few quick thumbnail sketches can possibly make a quick shot into one of your best pieces.

-Floyd Bishop