After working for several weeks on Mulan from his studio in Germany, Harald Siepermann moved with his family to Los Angeles, to continue his work at the Walt Disney studio in Burbank. Although Harald Siepermann had worked before for Walt Disney on the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, this was his first time at the new studio in Burbank, with the iconic blue sorcerer’s hat from Mickey Mouse. He arrived there in April 1995, and worked on the project until he was drawn away for Tarzan in July.
One of the characters Siepermann focused on during his first days was Grandmother Fa. Below are some of his early designs. This was before he learned that Chen-Yi Chang, the main character designer of Mulan, had already made some initial designs and silhouettes for Grandmother Fa.
Harald Siepermann continued to work on other characters for Mulan, but returned to Grandmother Fa some weeks later when James Varab, the Supervising Animator of Grandmother Fa, asked him to do another take on the character. Below are some of Harald’s designs with a new approach.
Although Harald’s designs were very well received, James Varab continued to develop the character together with Production Designer Hans Bacher and Chen-Yi Chang, and came up with the final design for Grandmother Fa that ended up in the movie.
