Animation &Animation Artifacts &Bill Peckmann &Independent Animation &Models &repeated posts &Rowland B. Wilson 02 Apr 2012 07:03 am
Rowland Wilson’s The Little Mermaid
- The brilliantly talented Rowland B Wilson, certainly paid his dues at a number of animation studios. We’ve seen his work with Richard Williams’ Soho Square studio and with Disney and Don Bluth’s Ireland studio.
Today, I have some sketches and designs he did for Disney while working on The Little Mermaid.
Not all of this material made it to the film, but the incredible wealth it brought the directors had to have affected the overall production. This invaluable material comes courtesy of Bill Peckmann.
The first group to view are Production Designs that he did for various sequences throughout the film.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
The following are character designs Wilson did for The Little Mermaid for a character that never made it into the movie. Though, I think “Ink the Squid” may have developed into “Sebastian the Crab”.
Then there are some of the creatures seen above land at the Glaciar Tray which apparently was designed to be part of the film.
The migrating Caribou
There are pelicans and geese as well as mountain goats.
Then there is this short seqeunce of interaction between two fish:
All art displayed © Walt Disney Prods.
This material is a treasure. I want to thank Bill Peckmann for sharing it with us.
Rowland B. Wilson was an artist of the highest standard, and I can’t get enough of his work. True inspiration.
- Don’t forget that there’s a wonderful new book on the market. I’d like to keep it in your attention, hence I’m trying to give a lot of attention to the great work of Rowland B. Wilson.
Rowland B. Wilson’s Trade Secrets: Notes for Cartooning and Animation seems to offer quite a bit of attention to Mr. Wilson’s animation art as it does his brilliant illustration and cartooning. The book looks unique, and to have someone like Rowland as the guide to this world has to be a gem.
on 02 Apr 2012 at 8:58 pm 1.The Gee said …
I’m wondering if the book goes into his research for this one.
on 25 Apr 2012 at 12:35 pm 2.liim lsan said …
Rowland Wilson’s designs are like Mary Blair and Nico Marlet – the shapes are perfect, but if you asked me or any random animator to try to animate them, the charm of line and composition is immediately compromised and they’ll fall flat on their face.
John Musker said in interview once that Sebastien was created because (for structure and continuity’s sake), they needed a character who could a) talk enough for two people (because for half the film, his conversational foil is mute) and b) be mobile both underwater and on land. They decided on the idea of a crab early on for that character at least, but it was Howard Ashman’s idea to make him a Rasta stereotype instead of an insulted Rowan Atkinson butler type.
(The story structure actually works much better with that angle; seeing as how I find it hard to fathom how a rasta stereotype a) held a job as court composer to a king type and b) held such infuriation at his young charge.)
Ink could conceivably have replaced Flounder, but for contrast in that case, Ariel would have to be much more passive than anybody would want.
(Coral I can’t see reasons for keeping her in other than sheer vanity gags, and the Disney studio didn’t have much practice in passing the Bechdel test.)