#mel shaw

talesfromweirdland:

I featured Mel Shaw’s concept paintings for Disney’s The Black Cauldron a few days ago. That wasn’t the only Disney feature that Shaw worked on—here is some of his work for Beauty and the Beast, The Fox and the Hound, The Lion King, Basil the Great Mouse Detective, and again Beauty and the Beast.

The Fox and the Hound is one of those “forgotten” Disney films: I saw it as a kid, and was really touched by it even then. It’s a beautiful, moving story.

Concept art for The Black Cauldron byMel Shaw

Disney acquired the rights to Lloyd Alexander’s The Prydain Chronicles all the way back in 1971. Mel Shaw created many amazing, dark, and moody pieces of concept art for the adaptation but then-CEO Ron Miller didn’t believe that the fresh new staff were up to such a challenge of creating a film to match. Thus, Miller pushed the project back in order for the staff to get better skilled before tackling this adaptation.

One of the young Disney artists who was upset with Disney Animation’s timidity was Don Bluth, who felt that the company was not living up to the quality of older Disney films, such as Snow White. To fulfill his ambitions, he and a bunch of other Disney artists worked on their own animated short called Banjo the Woodpile Cat. Miller wasn’t happy about this. And when Aurora Productions offered Bluth the financing to do a feature-length film in 1979, Bluth and 11 other artists left Disney.

Longtime layout artist Joe Hale was then promoted to producer, and he made some major changes to the story and art direction. Along with the directors, Ted Berman and Richard Rich, they attempted to capture the style of Sleeping Beauty. Unfortunately, the movie was a box-office failure and nearly put Walt Disney Feature Animation in bankruptcy, but in the years since, The Black Cauldron has become somewhat of a cult film for some Disney fans.

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