Saturday, December 12, 2009

Thumb to cel




As you can see, I did this bassackwards. It looks nice to have the pretty colored picture at the top.
At bottom below is the initial thumbnail almost a doodle, that shows the attitude/design of the character, then goes to a storyboard sketch much like the thumbnail. Layout artist turns it into a full-sized rough drawing which becomes the model basically. The animator brings it to life with movement, and also separates the arm and body so the head can talk and move independently. Animation is cleaned up, painted on a cel (back in the days) with background painting underneath, camera goes click! and Voila! You get a beautiful image of perversity and disgust. If only it were so easy.
Note: Sorry I lost the comments when I reposted, thanks to all who posted. I didn't do it right the first time. The missing piece is the desk on an OL/UL.

7 comments:

Eric Noble said...

Excellent post. Suchfunny yet solidly constructed drawings. The dog-catcher feels three-dimensional. "Big House Blues" is a great cartoons. You guys showed the kind of great animation you can achieve on a more limited budget. I still love that dogcatcher. "You boys like to have FUN, don't you?" Didn't you voice him?

BTW, thanks for leaving your replies. It helped make my day.

Eric Noble said...

BTW, you mentioned in your reply on my blog that you thought the early features had moments of real emotion. When do you think Disney lost that real emotion? Maybe I should do a post on that.

Jimbo said...

Thanks for remembering, the voice was mine until the last line done by Bob Camp. We did a Rex Allen parody in the narrator as in the Disney wildlife series usually about a cougar or coyote who goes to the city and gets in trouble.
In my shameless opinion, Fanatasia feels un-emotional just pretty but very significant in breaking it open.
Bambi was a landmark film with harder emotions colder maybe but beautiful to look at. The war kinda killed the whole scene.

Eric Noble said...

I actually didn't like Bambi that much. It didn't grab me the way Dumbo did or even Snow White and Pinocchio. It's a beautiful film to look at, but cold in my opinion. I agree with you that Fantasia is not emotional. It's focused on music and visuals but I still love it. Bill Tytla's animation of Chernabog in Night on Bald Mountain is breathtaking to behold and makes me sad that no one in a mainstream studio is willing to take chances in this medium anymore.

WIL BRANCA said...

This is one of my favorite posts.

I love seeing the progression from thumbnail to finished art (particularly when it's the work of the world's manliest cartoonist)!

chrisallison said...

AWESOME! you have such appealing eyes. looks like they made those pupils straight circles when they inked them. that's a shame. love these drawings!

Zoran Taylor said...

I'm partial to Pinocchio myself.