So you’re probably wondering what this super-blurry YouTube screenshot is doing here.
Well, first of all, a lot of this blog is for me, especially any and all animation art/development art finds.
Secondly, I have never seen any animation maquettes of Charlie. The ONLY Bluth maquette I have ever seen is a maquette of Mrs. Brisby. If they were all cast in regular plaster like the Mrs. Brisby one was, it would make sense that there haven’t been many others that survived the 30+ years. (Truly, it was amazing that the Brisby maquette was in as good a shape as it was.)
Tonight I was flipping around Google looking on the animation art galleries and somehow wandered to this featurette on YouTube on the making of Rock-A-Doodle. The only reason I watched it, I admit, was that they mentioned in the description that the thing was so poorly edited that it also contained shots of them preparing cels from ADGTH (which it did.) In the second part, I caught a glimpse of this as it zoomed into the animator’s room.
Well damn, folks, it certainly isn’t a character from Rock-A-Doodle, and there’s really only one character I can think of it potentially being. The ears, the peculiar way the fur falls on the underside of the tail…yeah, I can’t unsee it.
Also, people who know me may know that I have actually been working on my own maquette of Charlie for a while now. I sculpt, I think I sculpt well, I am just exceptionally slow do to my extreme perfectionism.
I kind of feel better, from what little I can see mine seems to be on the right track, moreso than I thought. Posing is fairly similar, too. I honestly feel a lot better about mine now that I see this.
Heck, maybe I’ll finish mine someday. Maybe. We’ll see.
