Before Disney was a global empire, it was a simple studio with pencils, paint, and animators with ideas that changed the industry forever.
Long before computer animation, the beloved cartoon classics were created painstakingly by hand. Walt Disney himself and the animators spent hours sketching characters, painting film cells, and using animals, models and themselves for reference. There was even one scene in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” of the dwarfs eating soup that took a year and a half for one animator to create. In the end it was cut from the final film.
Go back in time and see the very first artists of Disney at work.
1
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves rotoscoping
1936
2
Don Lusk working on Pinocchio character models
1939
3
Walt Disney overseeing storyboards for Pinocchio
1939
4
Ward Kimball drawing Pecos Bill
1948
5
Disney animator studies their reflection to draw the proper facial expression
Circa 1950s
6
Disney animator studies their reflection to draw the proper facial expression
Circa 1950s
7
Disney animator study their reflection to draw the proper facial expression
Circa 1950s
8
Animator with models for “101 Dalmatians”
1960
9
Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman drawing Timothy Q. Mouse
1940
10
John Lounsbery drawing one of the seven dwarves
1936
11
Animator Frank Thomas using a dog model for work on "The Lady and the Tramp"
12
Kathryn Beaumont, voice and model for Alice in “Alice in Wonderland”
1951
13
Disney artists studying effects. Josh Meador kneeling in foreground, animator Jack Boyd in back
Circa 1950s
14
Walt Disney, with “Sleeping Beauty” production designers
Circa 1950s
15
Reviewing “Sleeping Beauty” boards
Circa 1950s
16
Art Riley and Josh Meador working on background fx.
Circa 1950s
17
Animator working on a cel of Pecos Bill
1948
