Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Mama Odie Maquette



As supervising animators at Disney we got to keep our character's maquettes.
They were produced by very talented sculptors and were meant to help with drawing problems and to keep the character on model throughout the film. 
Sometimes though these mini sculptures arrived somewhat late in production, but even then It was always fun to see your character in three dimensions.
Over the years I accumulated quite a few of these, the only one that's missing is King Triton.
Ruben Procopio sculpted the cast of The Little Mermaid way back, and his beautiful sculpt of Triton just turned out to be very large. It was decided that at that size he would be too complicated to cast for reproduction.


Mama Odie along with all the characters from Princess & the Frog were sculpted by the gifted  Raffaello Vecchione. It was amazing to see how close Raffaello got to my drawings I gave him for reference. I did have some input after he showed me a rough sculpt, but he really is a master at interpreting animators' two dimensional drawings.

While on the topic of Mama Odie, this is a sheet I drew that shows different hand positions.  I do this for all my characters, since their hands need to be distinctive to fit the personality.
You often get away with only one joint for each finger, except in close ups when you need two.



Making Mama Odie talk with all her loose facial flesh was too much fun.
I did do some research before I started animation. Studying different films featuring American comedienne Moms Mabley and British character actress Margaret Rutherford was very useful and inspiring.
But in the end her face needed to work with Jennifer Lewis' wonderful vocal performance.



17 comments:

  1. Awesome! I just finished work on my first maquette! It's not easy especially when you start bringing out the details that make the character. Still, I have a long way to go, but looking at a sculpt really strengthens your drawings.

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  2. I dunno if I've complimented your blog yet, but it's probably my favorite. Most artists of your caliber seem too busy to keep theirs up and I'm really grateful that you take the time to post the amazing stuff that you do.

    And I'd love to see some of the other maquettes in your collection.

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  3. What a beautiful maquette. I remember when they painted the Beauty and the Beast maquettes for the Sotheby's auction (and probably for sale elsewhere too)- it seemed like such a tragedy. It's much easier to appreciate them sculpturally in their monochromatic state.

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  4. While I immensely enjoy your posts on other, sometimes already deceased animation masters, I slightly prefer your posts on your own work, Mr Deja.
    Never mind whether it "lives up" to the "Old Guard's" work or not - hearing it directly from the creator there's no second-guessing the artist's intentions.

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  5. Andreas, thank you for posting this! Not only was I interested in hearing more about Mama Odie's creation, but you also touched on a concept I've been racking my brain at better understanding: Staying on model. I know there must be several factors that play into an artist's ability to keep a character on model. Obviously a 3-D maquetter greatly helps, as well as model sheets.

    What else would you advise as good practice to keep a character 'on model'?

    Thanks again!

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    1. If you didn't design the character you are animating it's a little harder to draw on model. I think it's useful to analyze the proportions thoroughly to better understand the character's structure.
      Simply drawing the character a lot from all angles and in all kinds of moods will eventually get you there.

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  6. Wow, is it possible that you post the other sculptures you have? It would be great to also see the Gaston model.

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    1. I agree. I would love to see the Scar maquette myself, but Gaston and all of his other masterful works would be a treat.

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  7. Love you Andreas, you're my hero! Thanks! <3

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  8. Yes, definitely post the other sculptures! :D

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  9. Great post. Love these sculptures!!!!

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  10. Wow! it's amazing the way you draw hands Mr Deja! Ever since Jafar i fell in love with the way you draw hands

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  11. Love the tip on the number of knuckles in each finger. :) In 3D we rarely think about such shortcuts since the model is already built for us. But I love how you get the simplicity and readability in your hand poses, you'd never even notice they were missing joints unless you looked closely! If anything it reads even MORE clearly with less knuckles since you pare it down to the bare essentials of the pose.

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  12. Hey Andreas!

    Thanks for the great post! I always was interested in the process of creating a character both with sketches and sculpture as a side project while animating. Actually I have a couple of posts on my blog with some pictures of my tries on that if your interested to check it...
    http://thanoskousis.blogspot.gr/

    Also thanks for the tip about the joints on the hand animation. Great info!

    I thought mama Odie was one of the most original Disney characters. Great work and as mentioned above, I would also like to see some analysis of your other characters with their maquettes. Especially Jafar (I'm a big fan of his)!

    Thanks again for the awesome post!

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  13. My fav character in The princess and the frog :)

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  14. thank-you so much for this wonderful blog. I just found it and can ahrdle wait to read and see more ! patti

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