Disney's Hercules Descent to Hades Storyboards

These are storyboards from Disney's Hercules, the descent to Hades sequence. These were completed using watercolor on watercolor paper and charcoal on story pads around 6x9 inches. I loved working with charcoal because you could get such moody effects. The downside was that the mood got all over me and my clothes. It was also hard to correct mistakes or add fine details when using charcoal. It might be cool to start in charcoal, scan it and then work digitally over it.

Below you'll see some full size panels and a complete 4x8 presentation board.

Enjoy. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Here are some of the full size samples. As usual for the process, I created several versions of this sequence fine tuning and refining the story. Unfortunately, as beautiful as it was, most of it was passage work and needed to be condensed. Travelogues do not work well in narrative films.

Directors, John Musker and Ron Clements chose James Woods to play Hercules. Before that they auditioned Jack Nicholson for the part. He came in looked at the storyboards and pulled out a lighter to act out the part. It was eerie.

Before the age of digital art, we used to present our storyboards on 4x8 foot cork boards. The story panels were pinned to the boards. I have no idea how many fingers were pierced making all of those animated film. This was yet another version of the sequence.

Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums

Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums. I love the spontaneity of it and the "happy accidents" when colors unexpectedly blend together. Another thing I liked was that it was easy to control the values in a painting. This was after I learned that you need to use the white of the paper for your whites. Then it's just a matter of the lighter you want it the less paint you use, and the darker you want it the more paint you use.

Here's some watercolors completed during my college years. They were really fun to do and I'm now inspired to create more of this fantasy type.

This last one lead to an idea for an animated film. Imagine the whole scene dancing around to Pink Floyd's One of these days.

Another thing I like is that you can gather your watercolor supplies in a backpack and go. When I was at Disney I used to go out painting at lunch time with a group of my friends, Ed Gombert, Dan Cooper, Bill Perkins and Vance Gerry. I learned so much from all of them. And the painting would be dry by the time we got back to work.

Contrary to the earlier ones these were completed on location. The first one is in Burbank and the second in Chatsworth. These were completed with a simple pencil sketch underneath and filled with a large brush. 

I want to try more of these too. Since I don't have the time, I'll have to make some. Maybe it will force me to be even more spontaneous. 

Try watercolors yourself. You can start out inexpensively with a small watercolor kit and a small watercolor block. (A watercolor block is a pad of watercolor paper taped around the edges so it stays flat when it's wet.) Do invest in good brushes. They really are worth their weight in gold.

Note to self: A future how to watercolor blog post.