Characters in TVpaint for new episode

[oyonawa]

Hello

I'd like to share with you the characters made with Tvpaint for the new episode of the animated series "Ratatones"
\best

David

[Elodie]

Good work ^^

[Klaus Hoefs]

Some of your characters are akin to Disney spirit, some not (which I like more). I understand that's for tv - but I like the rough ones much more.
Also would be nice to see them loose their static and have them in motion.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Also would be nice to see them loose their static and have them in motion.

For this purpose I always design my characters in motion, concentrating on allowing myself to let them change and settle into a comfortable image that suits their character. For that purpose it is ideal if I already have a VO track. Back in the days when I developed characters with 2 or 3 drawings, they never ended up looking that way after scene two. This happens to be another one of the great assets of paperless animation since you instantly get to watch them.

[slowtiger]

Lots of ideas. But I can see a bunch of problems in that style, some of which I ran into myself.

- Volume. The Kat character's head seems to be not defined enough in terms of volume and construction. To me, your drawings are somewhat in the middle between solid construction and 2D free-form. None of those styles is "better" than the other, but it should be a conscious decision for one. If you do a solid construction, you need to do it for all characters. If you decide for shifting 2D, stick to it for all characters and all movements.

- Variety of views. The first page is better than the second because it shows characters in motion, at work, from different angles. The second sheet suffers from symmetry.

- Balance of detail. I have the feeling that the details, the accessoires, the props, dominate the characters. Again I think one should decide between the two extremes: no having details, or make the props that big that they define the character.

- Reality vs. Cartoon. As nice as the different species are captured, I think a more abstract approach would help you in animation. Right now all characters seem to be humans in a fur costume, all of roughly human size. What if you have bigger variations just in size? Let the lighting hog be twice the size of the lamp, let the other film crew animals be smaller in relation to their tools?

- Silhouette. Only a few poses are instantly readable for me. Most suffer from blending the props with the character and from undecided poses. The pidgeon must no be coloured b/w like now because the strong pattern effectively hides any pose or body outline.

Every artist seems to have one fixed size he's comfortable with when drawing characters. When I notice that I work in my personal size for too long, I made it a habit to re-draw the same characters in different sizes: one smaller (as thumbnails), one bigger (for close-ups), to test wether they still work. Thumbnails force me to concentrate on the differences between overall character shapes, they help me to capture the essence of "beariness", "lizardness", or "frogginess", which is a better way than to colour the frog green and the bear brown while keeping them both the same proportions.

[oyonawa]

Thanks to all for your thoughts and ideas.
I made this just reading the script and playing around. I didn' t have the audio yet and as Paul told me once, which totally agree, the characters get constructed and get they personality when you animate them.
I have the VO now and I will use this drawings as a starting point for them to become alive. Some of them that i really like will stand in the background as Xtras because, again, I have no time to animate them. Maybe I'll do this in the future for myself.

Slowtiger I would really like to see some of these characters you made that you are talking about. Where I can see them??

Thanks all you again!

David

[oyonawa]

By the way
Here is the animatic in case you want to see it

http://www.arteria.com/mun2/eps5_animatic.html

best

David

[Paul Fierlinger]

Wow! That cat walks just like Michele Obama. Why is everything in B&W? Is that how you drew it? As usual, I can't follow the story but for some reason it doesn't bore me.

[oyonawa]

Jajajaja! Michele Obama, the presidential Kat!:)
This is the animatic. I make it in B&W so I can play and see a little bit how the lights and shadows may look on the scene.
I really enjoy doing the animatic. I will love to do a whole animation this way but the client wants a more a final traditional "disneyee" 2d look. The cleaning up, coloring, composting, etc,,, is what it makes it really long.
I would prefer to focus on doing more inbetweening but this is not the project. The next one.!!
Cheers

[Rik Jurriaans]

I just love it, when does that new episode come out?
becouse i'm defenetly going to watch it.

Cheers

Rik

[Holden Molden]

WOW! I really love the characters! A style like this really great!!!