Mr. Arrow from Treasure Planet

Once Harald Siepermann wrapped up his work on Captain Amelia, he continued his work on Walt Disney’s Treasure Planet with the character Mr. Arrow, the first mate of the space galleon RLS Legacy, during time of production called the Starfinder. In the script Mr. Arrow is described as a creature of molten rock, with a courtly manner and stiff upper lip, who is totally loyal and devoted to Captain Amelia.

“I was hoping to come up with something really special,” commented Harald Siepermann. “I didn’t want to do just a human with a skin-problem, to avoid the human form as much as possible. The problem with a stone is, as soon as you move it, bent it, squash it, stretch it, it looses it’s ‘stoneyness’ and becomes soft. I thought, maybe it should stay firm and float, or stand in the corner on the bridge, like a real stone, his voice coming from a chasm in his ‘face’, if it had any, why not.” Below are some of Harald’s earliest visual development for the character.

“He could also have had a robot-arm or walking device, that would help him to move, but that was too close to Silver and his cyborg-arm,” continued Harald Siepermann.

“Anyway, there’s always that one drawing, that you do to illustrate, what you don’t want, and in Arrow’s case, it was ‘The Thing’. I wanted to avoid that solution by all means, unfortunatetly it was what Ron and John liked the most, so there you are, a stone thing in a uniform…”

Below are more of Harald Siepermann’s explorations for Mr. Arrow:

The final design for Mr. Arrow was created by Supervising Animator T. Dan Hofstedt.