Tahsin Özgür - Pencil Tests

I'm grateful to  C. Siemens on the Don Bluth Animation Forum for directing my attention to this remarkable collection of pencil tests by animator Tahsin Özgür.

Here's a sampling:

"For a while my wife, Lale, had a company through which I did some of the best of my animation work. This "animated logo" was meant for that company, but by the time I was finished with the cleanup, she had already closed it down! The model is Lale, of course!"

Here is a short film prepared as part of an exhibition of animation at the Apel Gallery in Istanbul. The format is a "silent movie". Starting around the 00:35 mark it has an amusing "day in the life of an animator" sequence , in which you get a glimpse into Tahsin Özgür's animation work process (continuing my recent theme of posting videos of Master Animator's At Work) , with bits of his animation interspersed with scenes of him drawing at his animation table -

This was prepared for an exhibition at the Apel gallery in Istanbul in 2001. 

More pencil tests by Tahsin Özgür here:

http://vimeo.com/user3233558/videos

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The Thief & the Cobler - Layout tests and Pencil tests

Rare behind-the-scenes look at raw pencil tests and camera layout tests.






Pencil tests of Zig-Zag (and early version of Zig-Zag pencil test at the end by Art Babbitt) --



Same set of scenes in finished form:

Inspiration: Rune Bennicke Rough Animation pencil tests

Animation by Rune Bennicke.

Click through the link to Rune's Vimeo page to see more of his pencil tests -

Brother Bear Koda's Mom Reel from Rune Bennicke on Vimeo.

Pencil Test Depot - great resource

Add this one to your bookmarks and check it frequently:


The Pencil Test Depot

This collection (which is ever-growing) of pencil tests was put together by animator Jamaal Bradley who writes:

"The Pencil Test Depot blog is for the people who love pencil tests. It can also be used as a resource for animators who are looking to study another animators work."

Milt Kahl - Mr. Snoops Pencil Test

Mr. Snoops from "The Rescuers" , animated by Milt Kahl. I've seen a version of this recently that had some of the drawings missing . I don't have the Medusa level, but this one has all the Snoops drawings , except for during the long hold his nose level and his eye blinks are missing. (as Medusa says "You are TOO SOFT" she pokes his nose with her finger) . Lip sync is a little off , but this was as close as I could get it working with sound grabbed from a 30fps video, changing it to 24fps and trying to match to the 24fps pencil test. (for context I added the scene right after this one as he finishes his line "fuss about her teddy bear getting wet".)

Something else missing here is the dynamic way that Kahl moves the character within the layout . There is a subtle pan behind Snoops as he backs away from Medusa at the beginning, and again as he moves away from him after she says "You are TOO SOFT" ... You can't see it as much here with all the drawings centered, but if you watch the actual scene in the movie it has more of an illusion of space to it. Check it out on DVD or see a low-res clip on YouTube for comparison to the pencil test:

Rune Bennicke - Koda's Mom Pencil Test

Rough animation of the character "Koda's Mom" from BROTHER BEAR , animated by Rune Bennicke.
(looped three times for your viewing pleasure) .

Badger Pencil Test - Fox & the Hound by Glen Keane ?

I've had photocopies of this scene from The Fox & The Hound for years. I've finally decided to scan them and make a proper pencil test of the scene so it can be shared. The person who gave the copies of the drawings to me said that Glen Keane animated this scene, but I'm not 100% certain about that because it didn't come with an X-sheet or a copy of the original scene folder. Could be Glen's ... If anyone has the draft from the film and can positively ID who animated this scene I'd appreciate it.

Frank Thomas "Hook" pencil test

Animation by Frank Thomas.

This post has been updated. The original version of this pencil test that I uploaded had some of the drawings missing .

I've rescanned this from the xerox copies I had . I located the missing drawings and I think I've got the timing and lip-sync pretty close to the original. (although I'm still not 100% happy with the lip-sync ... it's off, although sometimes it looks right on , so I wonder if it's the Flash player showing it at differing frame rates, depending on bandwidth at the time ? I should try to post this as a Quicktime so it'd be more accurate. )

There were no peg holes or numbers on the xerox copies I have of these drawings so I had to do a lot of guess work and "nudging" to get the drawings to register correctly, but I finally got it to look pretty solid. The parts of the drawings to the right of the screen where the image gets lighter and drops out are artifacts from the photocopies I have. Unfortunately it will just have to stay that way for now because I don't have the time to go in to touch-up the lines which dropped out.

Frank Thomas Pencil Test - Lady and Tramp kiss

I have posted this pencil test on my blog previously , but thought that I'd repost it to bring your attention to some of the drawings from this sequence posted recently on Michael Sporn's excellent blog . Click on the link to Michael's blog to see the drawings.

L & T drawings

Here's the pencil test:

Classic Milt Kahl pencil test

I could watch these pencil tests for hours .  (I wish Disney would release special pencil test editions on the "extras" sections of the DVD's .)  

Mowgli trying to climb the tree , animated by Milt Kahl.

From Disney's "The Jungle Book". 

(found via Alan Cook, via Victor Ens)

Sergio Pablos "Dr. Doppler" Pencil Tests

Some wonderful animation by master animator Sergio Pablos of the character "Dr. Doppler" from Disney's "Treasure Planet".

(See the interview with Sergio on The Character Design Blog .)







Here are some of the same scenes , but in different form (note that one of the scenes is in much rougher form , so it's interesting to see how he roughed it out first , then tied it down more at a later point) .

Milt Kahl scene -- where does it come from ?

A small mystery :

I found this Milt Kahl scene from "The Rescuer's" posted on YouTube.  My question in the title -- "where does it come from?" -- doesn't refer to the film ; I know it's from "The Rescuer's".

But as far as I can see this shot is not in the final version of the film, but it feels to me like I remember seeing it  (in color) in the original theatrical release of the film.  But this scene is NOT in the DVD release of the film.  Was it cut out for some reason or is my memory playing a trick on me and this shot was never actually in the theatrical version of the film ? 

Does anyone know when or why this scene was cut out of  "The Rescuer's"  ? 

(there's no sound in the clip posted on YouTube. What are they saying ? Anyone know ? )

Here is another very similar set up , from the work-print of the sequence included on the extras of the Frank & Ollie documentary. This scene is in the final film .



(does anyone else see the one-frame camera shooting mistake on Medusa's hand at the very end of the scene ? That was fixed before the scene went to final color.)

Milt Kahl - Jungle Book roughs

[click on image to see it larger]


Michael Sporn has uploaded a series of rough drawings of King Louis by Milt "King" Kahl on his blog :

Kahl's Jungle Book Roughs

Check out the whole series of roughs on the link above (click on each image to see it larger) .


Here's a video of these key poses strung together with the timing based on the drawing numbers. Keep in mind that these are widely spaced Key drawings, so a lot of the drawings from this scene are missing :


The final version of the scene is here:

James Baxter !

If you haven't heard the interviews with master animator James Baxter on The Animation Podcast , then get yourself over there to the Animation Podcast website right NOW and listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of the James Baxter Interview. Both interviews bear repeated listening. (and lots of other good stuff there on The Animation Podcast: interviews with Nik Ranieri, Dale Baer, Andreas Deja, and others ) .


Also of interest, Kevin Koch (one of James Baxter's assistants at Dreamworks) has posted several pencil tests that James did for the movie "Sinbad" .

James Baxter Animation Tests - CLICK HERE !