Snow White Maquette

"Maquette" is French for scale model, and it usually refers to a small preliminary model which can be used as a reference for a sculpture, a building, or in our case, an animated character. Its purpose is to test the idea in 3D form, to work out the bugs before investing the time, money and effort necessary for producing the final product. And for the animator, the maquette helps with the visualization/creation process.

It was December 1935 when Marc Davis, one of the grand masters of Disney animation, took upon himself to sculpt this Snow White maquette. It is one of the first, if not the first, animation maquette ever made.

The modern-day maquette is an essential component in the filmmaking process for animated films as well as in live-action scenes requiring CGI. Gentle Giant Studios is one of the players in this field, having worked on such movies as Avatar, the Harry Potter franchise, and Ratatouille to name just a few.

Alice Davis, administrator of the Davis Family Trust, furnished the original Snow White maquette to Gentle Giant Studios for scanning reference in the creation of a 250 limited edition authorized reproduction of Marc Davis' classic work. The piece measures approx. 9" high.

Snow White Collector Note: At the time of this writing, the Marc Davis Snow White maquette reproduction is currently being offered on ebay for around $70 (USD).

Gentle Giant Studios reproduction. Resin.

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APRIL 2013 UPDATE: New photo from Disney collector Mikey Walters.

Image courtesy of WEBmikey.