The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Celebrated artist helped revive Disney
Without the exper t involvement of Sue Nichols Maciorowski, classic Disney animations including Hercules, Beauty And The Beast and The Lion King could have looked very different.
The artist helped the global entertainment giant cement its signature style during its 1990s “renaissance”.
Highly regarded throughout the industry, she created beloved characters including Jafar from Aladdin and Frollo in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.
From eight years old, Nichols had her heart set on becoming an animator with Disney.
Growing up in Massachusetts, she was well known in high school for her love of art, which continued into her time at California Institute of Arts, where she graduated with a visual animation degree in 1987.
At this time, she was part of an Emmy Award-winning team which worked on The Muppet Babies with master puppeteer Jim Henson and also gained experience on My Little Pony.
Soon after, she achieved her dream of working with Disney and quickly found herself at “the heart” of many of its productions.
Nichols earned her first storyboarding credit on 1992’s Aladdin and worked on every subsequent 2D animation the film studio produced that decade.
For Hercules, which was released five years later, she developed a style guide that “defined” Greek design across effects, colour styling and animation.
As a result, Disney bosses created a new job title – production stylist – just for her, as “no-one had done a similar role before”.
Nichols created similar style guides for Lilo & Stitch and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, but left her position in 2002 to move back home to Massachusetts.
As a freelancer, she continued to work with Disney on animated features including The Princess And The Frog and Moana.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and spent the last six years tracking her journey with an online blog.
She died aged 55 on Tuesday September 1.
She is survived by her husband, Chester Maciorowski, children Stephanie and Jonathan, both parents, three siblings and eight nieces and nephews.