Thumbnailing Baloo by Frank Thomas

Continuing this weeks' theme on the making of animation thumbnails, in the video above I show how Frank Thomas thumbnailed a shot from The Jungle Book, way back in the 1960s. Frank Thomas was one of the greatest Disney animators, one of Disney's so-called "Nine Old Men" (the studio's animation elite), and the system of using thumbnail sketches to plan your animation hasn't changed a lot since then.  The trick is to create a plan for your animation so that, long before you start creating poses in Maya, you already have the shot figured out in your head.

The Other Book Every Animator Should Own

The original animation bible

The Illusion of Life was first published in the 1970s. It caused a sensation among animators, because it represented for the first time in print the accumulated wisdom of the Disney studio - set out in detail for anyone who cared to learn. The 1970s were a lean time for animation; Walt Disney was dead and the revival that would come with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Little Mermaid was still far in the future.