I started this article "series" almost a year ago, but abandoned my fandoms for a while (very sorry to the people who were looking forward to it), but now I'm back and want to continue the articles (hopefully consistently), please enjoy!


If any of you are familiar with character stylization or really art in general you might like this article. I'm talking about character stylization in the sense that when the artist is also the author of the character's personality and has written out their every thought in simply the way they are designed. This can also be called "interpreted art" as anyone can perceive it differently, but a common factor still remains that everyone agrees on. BASICALLY I'm going to "guess" what the princess' personality is like based on the way she's drawn, see what the general consensus is on her personality is and compare it to the artist's (strictly NOT the writer or director's) original idea of what they wanted the princess to come off as. And if this is at all interesting to you you can look up this with different artists by searching it as "the artist's definition of (their work)" and maybe you can find this with other characters.

P.S I know I had to do a lot of digging on the older movies, because of the lack of documentation, so good luck on the ones post 1980's!


Cinderella -- Cinderella

At this point in time Disney had established itself as a beloved children's animation studio, however the studio was bankrupt at the time with Cinderella, seemingly, about to be the last animated feature to come out, because of this Cinderella's staff, especially animators, were low-budget. Eventually the honor of Cinderella's design (influenced by Mary Blair's artwork) was bestowed upon Marc Davis with Eric Larson and Les Clark as supervising animators.





Walt Disney had chosen Marc Davis specifically, because Mary Blair's art suggested softer lines and Davis was someone he new was very good with making soft characters, mostly do to his previous creations like Bambi and Katrina Van Tassel. In fact, around the studio he mostly animated animals and Cinderella was his second time animating a human character (with Alice, Aurora and Tinkerbell soon to come).





Marc Davis was very fond of the "simple country girl" aspect for her design, but he wanted aspects of her to be beautiful to "really offset the ugliness of the step-sisters."
In many early concepts of Cinderella she has hardly any features in attempt to match the Mary Blair art style, but eventually she started gaining more detailed features with Davis favoring the sketches in which she had two plats on each side of her head.





Of course the live-action reference model had a lot to do with how Cinderella's hair and outfits eventually turned out, in fact Disney himself liked the model's style and acting for reference and wanted her image nearly copied; However Davis didn't much care for her structure and designed Cinderella by her voice actor instead of the model.





The question is: Does her finale form encompass the feeling the animator wanted for her character?

All in all I believe what he was trying to convey with Cinderella's looks is almost a chic country southern bell type of look, but covered with a messy and simple exterior, keeping her face light and regal, but still hinting that she sweats and works hard. The mental image I get in my head is Snow White with messy ponytails and dirt on her face, but still naturally pretty. Personality-wise I feel it'd be closer to Jessie from Toy Story or Danielle from Ever After, which Cinderella doesn't really have since it's much closer to Snow White.





Based on what I got from what he said and his concept art I feel like she turned out a bit too clean-cut and graceful like Belle. I think the "natural beauty" is definitely there seeing as Cinderella wears no make-up with no harsh lines or accessories, but I feel that the "country" aspect is lost, she doesn't really look too "girl" like or "on the ranch," instead she actually leans more towards a more mature and graceful look.





Cinderella's outfit, though is very true to form it's simple and maid-like and looks like she takes care of all of the work and spends time in the farm, the fact that it isn't very flattering brings out the beauty beneath the rags which is definitely Davis' vision (and of course the theme of Cinderella). I do think it's a bit too maid-like though, and isn't something like an outdoor stable-hand outfit, (or closer to a milk-maid look) instead it gives me a 1940's housewife vibe.





I think his concepts can definitely be seen in the final product, but, for me, I don't think it fully encompasses what he was going for especially since his contribution to this version of Cinderella was going to be a more "simple country girl" type, which instead comes across as a similar "regal dainty southern bell."





So what do you think; does Cinderella perfectly embody what you think her animator was going for, or do you think she's way off? Do you agree with me? Would you have preferred the animator's original idea or what she turned out like? Tell me what you're thinking in the comments, especially tell me if you'd like to see more (since I started this so long ago).