Madagascar - Marty Preliminary Model Sheets (DreamWorks, 2005).

3-2025...I like to move it, move it! Check out the early design work on Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock)...always cool to see how the animators sketch out the patterns for different sound patterns and face expressions.

Here's a rare set of preliminary model sheets that offer a look into early character development for Marty from the popular DreamWorks computer-animated film Madagascar. Model sheets such as these act as a comprehensive guides to map out things such as a character's personality, mannerism, and thought processes.

These early sheets depict detailed straight-on and three-quarters profile images of Marty speaking and emoting with emphasis on his eyes and mouth, as well as a few early anatomy models. Listing the specific letter sound alongside each illustration, this unusual set even includes 2 phoneme sheets that assist in realistically syncing the character's speaking movements to the voice actor's spoken lines.

The sheets have been rendered in graphite on trimmed and untrimmed 16 field animation paper with Marty appearing in an incredible 30 close up images of his face, 6 additional extreme closeups of his eye, 8 partial anatomy closeups, and 1 fabulously full-figured side profile image, wow!

With no two images the same, his full-figure measures 9.25" x 8" and his partial images range from 1" x 1.5" to 3" x 9".

Two of the model sheets include detailed animator's notes for his facial movements containing additional skeletal structure examples, with one dated 11-7-01 about three and a half years prior to the film's release.

Another sheet features contour lines throughout his face to ensure proper 3D modeling of the character; this unique type of model sheet is not typically seen in traditional 2D animation. The final two sheets show rough sketches depicting his neck movement and how it also affects the shape of his mane.

This film's success spawned an impressive franchise with a trilogy of feature length films beginning in 2005, as well as multiple shorts, specials, and television series airing as recently 2022.

Attributed to his supervising animator Kathy Zielinski. Zielinski is a celebrated animator known for her work at Disney animating Ursula in The Little Mermaid (1989), Jafar as a Beggar and Snake in Aladdin (1992), and Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), as well as her work at DreamWorks as an animator on Kung Fu Panda (2008), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), and of course Madagascar where she provided character development art as well as animation. These delightfully expressive drawings of Marty resemble similar artwork of the character that can be viewed on her personal website.