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.

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) .

Willard Mullin - Animated Line-of-Action

Sherm Cohen has posted a series of links to various pieces by the great sports cartoonist Willard Mullin on his Cartoon Snap! blog.

This reminded me of  some scans I have of Mullin's work which have always seemed to me to indicate that had he wanted to Willard Mullin could have been a great animator.

These are excellent to study for cartooning in general, but animation in particular. This is what I'm always harping on when I tell my students to "push the pose , push the line-of-action"  in animation. 

(click on the images to see them larger)