Inspiration: Pencil Tests - deleted scenes from Snow White

 During the making-of Walt Disney's  "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" several sequences were started and then abandoned due to story changes or pacing issues.

Walt made the difficult decision to cut sequences that had already been completely animated , for the good of the overall pacing of the film.   Fortunately for us the Disney Studio preserved the original drawings and the pencil test footage so we can view these "lost" scenes :

The Soup Sequence -  (Dwarfs animated mainly by Ward Kimball,  with some scenes by Fred Spencer, Bill Tytla, Marvin Woodward, Dick Lundy and Bill Roberts. Snow White animated by Grim Natwick)




Here's the link to see the Bedroom Fight Scene between Grumpy and Doc (Dwarfs animated by Fred Moore , Snow White animated by Grim Natwick , with a couple of scenes of Snow White animated by Jack Campbell) .  Embedding is disabled , so you'll have to click through to YouTube to watch it:

Bedroom Fight sequence Pencil Test -- CLICK HERE to view --

"The Monkey and the Elephant" by Boris Maras

The Monkey and the Elephant by Boris Maras, Sheridan College 2010.

He animated this in 2 months.




From Boris Maras's blog:

"Keeping my film rough was a big decision. Amanda and I were both considering cleaning up and colouring our films, but we would have had to rush the animation so much and we really wanted to learn as much as we could about animation. Keeping them this way, I think we learned a lot about our limits and we have a way better idea for how approach a short film now.
The idea for my film was pretty different up until February, the characters were pretty much the same but the situation they were in was different. It was risky because I had to throw away the animation I had already done and around 25-30 layouts, but I think I made the right decision for what I want to pursue.

I started animating around the middle of February and animated up until our deadline of April 19th. It was the craziest 2 months of my life but I'm really happy with the amount that I learned during the process of making my film and hope I can make another one soon."

Tom pencil test (Tom & Jerry)

I haven't posted a classic pencil test in a while.  Here for your inspiration is a scene from Hanna Barbera's  MGM Tom & Jerry cartoons. Not sure which of the regular T & J animators did this scene :  Irv Spence, Ed Barge, Ken Muse, Ray Patterson. (or another ?)   Enjoy.

Milt Kahl pencil test - King Louis and Mowgli

Some Milt Kahl pencil test goodness :



(a drawing or two are missing, so a couple of bumps not there in the original , but this is pretty much complete)

Bill Tytla - Stromboli Pencil Test

Animation by Bill Tytla of the character Stromboli from "Pinocchio".

I found good quality scans of this scene on Michael Sporn's excellent blog: http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/

I wanted to try syncing it up with the sound, so am reposting it here. If you compare it to the final color version there are a few drawings missing. On the hold after he says "knock you silly" and is looking menacingly off-screen at Pinocchio the animator had a moving hold on drawing marked "D H-66" . The body is traced back from D H-66, but the beard continues to overlap and settle for 10 frames as Stromboli glowers . I covered this by adding a small interpolation within that 10 frame hold so D H-66 isn't completely held. Later drawing D-132 is missing , so I added another interpolation between D-130 and D- 134 so the timing would be accurate when adding the sound .

Then again from drawing D- 174 to D-178 the inbetween drawing D-176 is missing. This is covered by interpolating D-174 and D- 178. If you look closely you'll notice these little "dissolves" , but it's not too distracting and it keeps the flow of the timing .

Also at the very end when he says "my little wooden gold mine" on the end of the word "gold mine" there should be a blink , but those drawings are missing from the scans. I simply held the last drawing D-224 for the length of time that the blink would take place if it was there. (again, the body was traced-back as a moving hold , with the eye blink. )