Legendary Animation Character Sculptor Kent Melton Has Passed Away
Legendary animation sculptor Kent Melton, who helped bring to life characters in Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, and The Incredibles, has passed away. He was 68.
Melton joined Walt Disney Animation for 1992’s Aladdin and would continue to work at the studio through the Disney Renaissance.
Photo: The Standard
Among the films he worked on were The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Outside of Disney, Melton worked on other animated classics, including Thumbelina, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.
Bringing Characters to Life
Melton’s specialty was bringing two-dimensional drawings into the three-dimensional world through the creation of maquettes.
Photo: Kent Melton
Maquette, he explained in a 2015 interview for 417 Magazine, “is a term that goes way back to the Michelangelo era that means ‘model of something that will transform into a larger scale.’ I’ll sculpt a maquette in a character moment that personifies who they are to the story.”
Career Before Disney
Melton was born in Springfield, Missouri, spending a lot of time on the farm and never attending art school. He eventually took a job as a wood carver and glass cutter at the Silver Dollar City amusement park near Branson before moving to Los Angeles. There, he took a job at Hanna-Barbera as the company’s first staff sculptor. There, he worked on characters from The Flintstones and the Jetsons.
Photo: Kent Melton
Before joining Disney, Melton also freelanced for Warner Bros., creating sculptures for Tiny Toons Adventures. After a Disney executive spotted Melton’s work at a birthday party he was hosting for his son, the animation studio came calling.
The Cave of Wonders
For Aladdin, Melton worked on the Cave of Wonders’ tiger head that talks and moves. It was the first computer-animated character ever done in a feature film.
“When I saw it on film, I said, ‘It’s alive! I created this thing!’ It was scanned right off of my sculpture,” he said. “And it was so nice because I was just this kid who grew up on a farm, and here I am sitting in a theater with this giant character that I made happen.”
Photo: Also Kent Melton
Melton is survived by his wife Martha; children Seth, Jordan, and Nellie; and grandchildren Persephone, Toby, Juliet, and Charlie.
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