Animation Artifacts &Disney &Models 13 May 2010 07:50 am

Dumbo Model Sheets

- I’ve made a concerted effort to locate as many of the Dumbo model sheets as I could. Some of these are scanned from the originals; others were lifted from an early version of the DVD for the film (and are consequently small images).

There are still more model sheets at Bob Cowan‘s wonderful site. Don’t hesitate to take a look.


These are the first rough sketches done for Casey Jr. for both Dumbo and The Reluctant Dragon. Eventually, a headlight cap was added and the eye lamps were eliminated.
The eyes were drawn on the boiler’s front.


Robert Cowan sent me this model of Casey Jr. which was used in the final film.

1

2

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

1

2

This final piece comes from the Robert Field book, The Art of Walt Disney, published in 1941. It’s a beautiful early storyboard for the climax to the flying sequence.

I’ve put this all together as part of an effort to join in the fun started by Hans Perk who has been posting the drafts for Dumbo, and this has led Mark Mayerson to start posting the brilliant Mosaics he creates for the film. Check out both of their sites.

4 Responses to “Dumbo Model Sheets”

  1. on 13 May 2010 at 11:08 am 1.Robert Cowan said …

    Michael —

    A fantastic collection of material! I loved it! When you collect a broad range of materials (cels, pencils, etc.), you become interested in all aspects of the creative process. Putting together such a wide range of sheets from a wide range of sources is what I love about collecting — seeing new things and finding a broad community of people equally fascinated by animation.

    Thanks, again, for all your time and effort!

    Bob ;D

  2. on 13 May 2010 at 11:58 am 2.Daniel Caylor said …

    This is a great collection. Thanks for sharing Michael and Robert! :)

  3. on 13 May 2010 at 3:30 pm 3.Robert Dress said …

    Wow! These model sheets are fantastic!

  4. on 14 May 2010 at 4:54 pm 4.Hans Perk said …

    Great seeing these! The elephant suggestions seem to have MP written on them in the bottom right of the Character Model Department stamp, which would mean they were drawn by Martin Provensen.

    I still can smell the Field book even when I see illustrations like here on your blog! My first copy is a Collins 1944 edition, and they must have used corn starch to glue on the covering linen! I am reminded of it every time I smell a corn tortilla! SIGH!

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed

Leave a Reply

eXTReMe Tracker
click for free hit counter

hit counter