Thursday, June 22, 2017

Stamps to Feature Disney Villains

The U.S. Postal Service celebrates the rich legacy of the Walt Disney Studios Ink & Paint Department by dedicating a sheet of 20 Forever stamps featuring 10 classic Disney villains. Beginning Thursday, June 22, the stamps may be pre-ordered at usps.com/shop for delivery shortly after the July 15 issuance.

       
Each stamp showcases one of 10 classic Disney villains against a blue background. First row, from left: the Queen (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), Honest John (Pinocchio), Lady Tremaine (Cinderella), the Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland) and Captain Hook (Peter Pan). Second row, from left: Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Cruella De Vil (One Hundred and One Dalmatians), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) and Scar (The Lion King).
 
The Art of Animation

Beginning in 1923, Disney’s Ink & Paint Department helped create classic animated films. Its artists brought life to countless memorable characters, including many iconic Disney villains.

One of the first groups of its kind, Disney’s Ink & Paint Department was yet another stop on the road to creating an animated film. After the animators’ pencil drawings were finished, they went to Ink and Paint. There, highly specialized artists meticulously recreated each pencil line in ink, capturing every nuanced movement and expression. At first, artists used black and white, and later shades of gray to “color” each celluloid or cel. In the early 1930s, the artists began using rich colors on the animation cels.

The last full-length animated Disney film to use the hand-painted cel process was The Little Mermaid (1989). Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) were hand drawn. The original pencil drawings for those films were then scanned and painted digitally. For these stamps, the characters Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) and Scar (The Lion King) have been recreated using traditional ink and paint techniques.

Art director Derry Noyes of Washington, DC, designed the issuance.

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