Hans Bacher – The Harald Siepermann Archive

Visual development material for Brother Bear

Throughout Harald Siepermann’s involvement on Brother Bear he received various recourse material from the Walt Disney studio to get inspiration for specific characters and to stay up-to-date with the overall development of the project.

Among this material was the impressive work of Terryl Whitlach, who created a comprehensive anatomy study of bears and other wildlife animals from North America.

Brother Bear reference material by Terryl Whitlatch

Harald’s reference material also included various work by Hans Bacher. It’s nice that Hans and Harald crossed paths again on Brother Bear. Hans has always been an important force in Harald’s career. When Harald was a student at the Folkwang University, Hans Bacher was his teacher in Comic and Strip illustration. He saw Harald’s extraordinary talent and pushed him forward in his development as an artist. Harald also joined the Mad T Party studio that they formed on Hans Bacher’s initiative. Through this studio Bacher maintained good contact with Richard Williams, which landed Hans and Harald a job on the Walt Disney / Steven Spielberg production Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Furthermore Bacher was an important force with the development of Alfred J. Kwak, he invited Harald on the project Balto from Steven Spielberg’s Amblimation studio, and he brought Harald to Walt Disney to create character design on Mulan.

On Brother Bear they spent a week together in March 1999 at the studio in Florida exploring design possibilities for the project. And just like when they worked on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Alfred J. Kwak, there emerged a great working atmosphere and the drawings went back and forth, and at the end of the day there was a huge pile of drawings with endless visual possibilities.

Hans Bacher showed his wide range of talent and sense for the project. He created a series or background impressions that depicted the mood and color variation of North America.

Brother Bear reference material by Hans Bacher

He created an impressive document with Design Notes, that was filled with a wide possibilities of interesting compositions through camera angels, light/shadow contrast, unique moving patterns, various size relation between characters, open spaces, and much more.

Also collected Bacher a wide range of reference material that worked perfectly for the setting that Brother Bear was aiming for.

Harald Siepermann’s Brother Bear reference also contained a series of visual development designs by Ruben Aquino and Franc Reyes, and story sketches for various sequences in the movie, among them of Kenai hunting on a bear.

Brother Bear reference material by Ruben Aquino and Franc Reyes

Hans Bacher, Mulan, Walt Disney

Mushu from Walt Disney’s Mulan

In March 2020, the new life-action version of Walt Disney’s Mulan will be released in theaters. 25 years ago, Harald Siepermann worked on the original animated classic Mulan, about the heroine Fa Mulan, who masquerade herself as a man to take place in the Chinese army instead of her ailing father, to fight the invading Hun army led by Shan Yu. Harald Siepermann worked on and off on Mulan from March to July 1995, when he became involved with Tarzan. The next few posts will be dedicated to Harald Siepermann’s work on Walt Disney’s Mulan.

Harald became involved with the project through Production Designer Hans Bacher. Hans Bacher was Harald’s teacher when he studied Graphic Design at the Folkwang University in Germany, and noticed Siepermann’s extraordinary talent for drawing. In 1985 they co-founded the advertisement studio Mad T Party and collaborated on many projects together, most notably the comic book and television series about the duck character Alfred J. Kwak.

In 1995 the project Mulan had been in development for about a year and the team was looking for some fresh influences from outside the studio. Hans Bacher recommended the producer Pam Coats and co-directors Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft, to hire Harald Siepermann, and showed them the Alfred J. Kwak comic books. They were immediately convinced. For Harald Siepermann it was a dream come true to work for Walt Disney. Ever since he saw Walt Disney’s classic The Jungle Book at the age of six, he knew that all he wanted to do for the rest of his life was drawing.

During Harald’s first weeks on the project he worked from his studio in Germany. His first task was to create designs for a little red dragon called Mushu, who in the movie has to protect Fa Mulan on her journey with the Chinese army. Mushu was voiced by Eddie Murphy, and served as the comical note in the movie. Below are several designs by Harald Siepermann of Mushu:

While Harald Siepermann did his exploration for Mushu, assigned Supervising Animator Tom Bancroft did his magic with the character at the Walt Disney studio in Florida, and brought Mushu to life.

Also, have a look at Hans Bacher’s blog post about Harald Siepermann’s work on Mushu.

Hans Bacher, Richard Williams, Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Richard Williams

This post is in memory of the animation legend Richard Williams who passed away on August 16, 2019.

In 1985, Harald Siepermann, Hans Bacher, Uli Meyer and Jens Wiemer started an advertisement company, called Mad T Party. For this company the artists created all kinds of artwork, such as advertisement illustrations, poster designs, comic books, but also storyboards and character designs for television commercials. Some of these commercials were animated at Richard Williams animation studio in London. “Through this work, we had met Richard Williams who was often animating the commercials, that any of us would had been working on before,” remembered Harald Siepermann. “Through our common interest in animation and the love for the work of Milt Kahl, a friendship developed.”

The artists – and especially Hans Bacher – maintained good contact with Richard Williams, who frequently came to their studio in Dusseldorf to make Xerox copies of Hans Bacher’s impressive collection of Disney artwork. Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher would also visit Richard Williams in his animation studio in 13 Soho Square, in London.

The connection with Richard Williams led to a remarkable opportunity for Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher. Richard Williams was assigned as Animation Director on the Steven Spielberg / Walt Disney production Who Framed Roger Rabbit. “When Hans and I were visiting him one day in London,” continued Siepermann, “he had been talking to Spielberg and Zemeckis and was looking for artists to increase the manpower of his lil’ studio in Soho Square, to manage the amount of work that would be necessary to handle Roger Rabbit.” Siepermann and Bacher were hired on the spot, and Williams asked them to help with character designs for the weasels and storyboards for the ‘Escape from Toontown’-sequence.

Since the 1960’s, Richard Williams’ studio was located at Soho Square in London. But because of the production Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the studio moved to a new building, a former department store, called the Forum in Camden Town, where the Walt Disney studio was located. Because of the movement, Richard Williams had to cleanup his former studio, and throw away a lot of his animation cells from the television commercials, that were produced at his studio.

“Hans and I got quite a few cells from Dick’s commercials as presents when we asked for them,” commented Harald Siepermann. “‘Go ahead, take them.’ Dick himself didn’t think of them very highly… The Pink Panther cell I found one night when I was walking home after a stroll along Oxford Street, after ‘a hard day’s work’ and saw two big containers in front of Dick’s old studio, filled to the max with stuff that apparently Dick hadn’t found worthy enough to take along with him to the new location. The cell, incl. the effects sheet, cut together from scotch tape, was the first thing I pulled from the container.” Harald Siepermann had the cells framed, and hung above his desk.

Animation cells from Richard Williams studio.

Harald and Hans worked a few days at the studio in Soho Square in late February, before moving to the new building. Below are some pictures in that old studio.

For the 25 year old Harald Siepermann it was a great experience to work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. A few years earlier he was still a student Graphic Design, and now he was involved in the biggest Hollywood production at that time. This opportunity opened many doors in his career, what was made possible by Hans Bacher and the late great Richard Williams.

Alfred J. Kwak, Hans Bacher

Dolf and the National Crow Party

Television series Alfred J. Kwak often dealt with serious topics such as drugs, whale hunting, poverty, the environment and diseases. Another topic was fascism. The main villain of the series was the crow Dolf de Kraai [Dutch name]. Dolf is an interesting villain, different from your ordinary vicious pirate or mean stepmother, that you often see in children television series.

Early episodes give more insight in Dolf’s childhood. His father was an alcoholic and his mother died when he was very young. Because of his unstable childhood, Dolf always seems to walk the dark path of life. This becomes most evident when he starts his own political party called the National Crows Party, and becomes the dictator of Great Waterland. Dolf, with his small moustache and military uniform, is clearly a caricature of Adolf Hitler.

One of his political plans includes that all crows have to be completely black. There cannot be any white crows or crows with spots. Ironically though, because, since his mother was a blackbird, Dolf has a yellow beak himself which he paints black with shoe polish every day. Also animals that are against Dolf’s plans, are deported.

Due to their different personalities, Alfred J. Kwak and Dolf de Kraai often cross paths throughout the television series. Thanks to Alfred’s actions, Dolf’s political party is dismantled, and Great Waterland becomes a democracy again.

Below are model sheets by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher of Dolf as leader of the National Crow Party…

… and below are a series of sketches by Harald Siepermann.

Alfred J. Kwak, Hans Bacher

30th anniversary Alfred J. Kwak

30 years ago, on April 3, 1989, the television series Alfred J. Kwak premiered in Japan. Early discussions for a potential television series started in late 1987 after television producer Dennis Livson, founder of the production company Telecable Benelux B.V., discovered the first comic book of Alfred J. Kwak, at the Frankfurter Buchmesse. The comic book, that was designed by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher, sparked his interest and he saw potential for a television series of 52 episodes.

Harald Siepermann worked out the story arc of the series together with Dutch artist Herman van Veen, and he did all the character and prop designs together with Hans Bacher. Siepermann made the character designs with pencil, and Bacher did the inking and the colors. Eventually they created over 200 unique characters for the series. An amount that’s quite unprecedented for animated television series.

Once the characters were completed in August 1988, the designs were collected in a book called Character- and Color-Designs for Alfred J. Kwak, which served as an instruction guide for the animators in the Japan, where the actual animation was done. The book contained model sheets that explained the structure of the characters, color codes, costumes designs, and character comparative sizes.

When the production continued in Japan, Harald Siepermann spent several weeks at the studio in Tokyo to supervise the production, explain the background of the stories, develop storyboards and explain the animators how to draw the characters. Also when Siepermann returned to his home in Germany, he remained the first person to consult the production and to approve the storyboards for each episode, and create additional characters when needed.

After Alfred J. Kwak premiered in Japan the episodes were aired on a weekly basis. On December 24, 1989, the series premiered in the Netherlands, and a year later in other countries around the world as well. In many countries the series became an immense success and a merchandise phenomenon.

Alfred J. Kwak, Hans Bacher

AJK episode 11 Alfred Joins the Circus

This post is about episode 11 from Harald Siepermann’s popular television series Alfred J. Kwak, called Alfred Joins the Circus. In this particular episode the duck Alfred J. Kwak wants to join the circus. There happens to be a circus in town and there is a position for clown available. Alfred is up for the task. However, as confident Alfred thinks he is, ones the public starts enters the circus arena, Alfred gets stage fright.

Funny detail about this episode is that, while the series consists of animal characters, there is actually one human in the series, an overly aggressive man. In this reverse world, it is the human who is behind bars and part of the circus act.

Here are several character designs by Harald Siepermann for the episode:

And here are the model sheets by Hans Bacher:

Alfred J. Kwak, Hans Bacher

Chain letter

In the early 1990’s a chain letter was circling around Hollywood and also made its way into the animation world. Hans Bacher, who got the chain letter from Daan Jippes, listed Harald Siepermann as one of the five people to pass the letter on to. “In 1993 I got a copy of a chain letter from London, which had been through all of California before,” commented Harald Siepermann. “It promised eternal luck if the chain wasn’t broken, you know these kind of letters. The list of names included the likes of Whoopie Goldberg, the Zuckers, James Newton Howard, F.F. Coppola, Dinah Shore, Jane Fonda, Art Buchwald, etc. It somehow got into the hands of cartoonists and I got it through Daan Jippes and Hans Bacher.”

The person that received the chain letter had to send it to five other peoples. Harald Siepermann decorated the letter with a funny drawing of Alfred J. Kwak and passed the chain letter on to Herman van Veen (co-creator Alfred J. Kwak), Shigeko Nonaka (Vice President of Telescreen Japan, Inc.) Christian Schnalke (friend and co-writer of several animation productions Siepermann worked on), Heribert Schulmeyer (German comic book artist), and Andreas C. Knigge (German publisher of the Alfred J. Kwak comics).

Here are several of these chain letters by various artists, that Harald Siepermann kept in his archive.

Alfred J. Kwak, Hans Bacher

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays and a happy 2019 to everybody!

Here are a series of Christmas themed designs of Alfred J. Kwak by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher from circa 1990. The illustrations were used for a Christmas card that was send out by Mad T Party, the advertisement company of Harald Siepermann, Hans Bacher, Jens Wiemer, Thomas Mossolff and Christian Schellewald.

Harald drew the sketches of the main characters from the television series and placed them in a composition. The final inking and colors were done by Hans Bacher.

Alfred J. Kwak, Hans Bacher

Introduction to Dolf de Kraai

The main villain of the television series Alfred J. Kwak is the crow Dolf de Kraai. Dolf is not really a common villain, like a vicious pirate or mean stepmother, that you often see in children television series. Since the television series starts when Alfred and Dolf are young, it shows more of the background of each character and their upbringing. In Dolf’s case it shows the origin of his actions as an adult later in the series, when he became the dictator of his country through his own founded political party called the National Crows Party.

Dolf is introduced in the series in episode 4. He is a classmate of Alfred, but they are no friends. In contrary, Dolf teases Alfred because he is a duck and has a mole as a father. A family situation that Dolf finds weird. However, his feelings towards this family situation might be more based out of jealousy since Alfred does get a stable upbringing from his loving father Henk de Mol, while Dolf on the other hand has a father who is an alcoholic and his mother died when he was very young.

Dolf’s father is a crow, but his mother a blackbird. Therefore Dolf is born with a yellow beak. Ashamed of his yellow beak, he colors it black every morning with shoe polish, to look completely black. Below are the sketches of Dolf’s father and mother by Harald Siepermann and the corresponding model sheets by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher.

Because of the unstable childhood, Dolf is always active in criminal activities. This becomes most evident when he starts his own political party called the National Crows Party, and becomes the dictator of Great Waterland. The different characteristics of Alfred J. Kwak and Dolf de Kraai play very well against each other and they often cross paths throughout the entire television series.

Below are some of Harald Siepermann’s sketches of a young Dolf de Kraai and the model sheet by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher.

Alfred J. Kwak, Hans Bacher

AJK merchandise 3

Here are a series of illustrations by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher of Alfred J. Kwak. These space theme designs were part of the extensive collection of merchandise that was produced based on the successful Alfred J. Kwak television series. The inking of these illustrations were done by Hans Bacher based on the sketches of Harald Siepermann.