Recently I have been working on a project that involves a lot of detailed background illustration. In looking for inspiration I’ve ended up in a Google spiral of animation background artwork. From the very detailed and soft glowing designs of old-school Disney animation to the jagged screaming simple lines of Chuck Jones’ Looney Tunes cartoons sometimes we are so distracted by the action of the character we forget to look at what’s going on in the background. Rob Richards’ does some excellent work restoring old animation backgrounds on his blog and is worth a look at as the website is quite extensive. Here are a few from the blog…

… and here is an amazing old video introduced by Walt Disney explaining the technology used for Bambi to create depth in the background using an elaborate system of moving panes. The level of invention used in these early animated movies was astounding.