Disney Animator -- Marc Davis
I stumbled upon an art book on Marc Davis while perusing Amazon and fell in love with his work. Marc is one of the fabled, "Nine Old Men" who were Walt DIsney's team of core animators during their Golden Age run from Snow White through 101 Dalmatians. Marc was a brilliant artisan as well as an animator who created striking character designs from Maleficent to Cruela de Vil. Davis is certainly an animator to study not only because of his sound mechanics, but he single-handedly helped define the burgeoning look of the early Disney full-length feature era.
