This one's about legendary production designer Maurice Noble whose style became synonymous with some of Looney Tunes' most memorable works:
- Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century
- What's Opera Doc
- Road Runner Shorts
Here's a great video discussing why the backgrounds were so intriguing.
Key Points:
- BGs as liminal spaces
- Influenced by art history
- Distilled, pushed, wonky vs realistic
- Story and Character shaping the art
- The ARTISTS!
Also, here's a great breakdown of the book, The Noble Approach by Tod Polson:
It's out of print, but you can still get the ebook.
Highly recommend if you want to understand Noble's ideas and processes for Animation Design, many of which I use today.
I picked up the book in early 2019 when I was starting the 2nd Season of #RiseoftheTMNT.
It helped me create a clear process to:
- What to focus on and when
- How to gather and pull from reference
- Design/color methods shaped by story
- etc.
Here's a great quote from the book:
"...Maurice found ways to make a snow-peaked mountain or the landscape of the American Southwest feel more like those places than they really do in person...
...That's what we really want from animation: a distillation of the truth, with all the irrelevant parts removed; a kind of visual reduction sauce. It's the strength of animation as a medium, and it's what Maurice Noble did so well....
...Animation at its best, delivers a visceral, emotional experience, tapping into our senses and imagination. Allowing our senses to discover the truth."
Noble once said: "When working in animation you cannot take credit, you can only say you participated."
He was surrounded by incredible artists that helped cement the classic WB look including:
- Phil DeGuard
- Hawley Pratt
- Richard Thomas
- Bob Givens
and many more!
Animation is a collaborative medium, so process is key.
If you have a clear, proven process, that means you have a way to the finishing line no matter what.
And that clarity creates flow for the next part of the pipeline.
That's what I felt I needed to work on.
Anyway hope that was tasty and gives you some fuel to make something cool.
P.S. Here's how you can help me out: 1. Follow me @nowayjermaine for more on Animation Design process 2. RT the tweet below to share this thread with your peeps
In my first artist gig in Animation, my Art Director affectionately told me:
"You're not a painter, but you can paint!"
I wasn't trained as a painter, most of my decisions were by feel...it was tough.
▶️ Here are 10 FREE Resources that can help you learn to paint on purpose:
Getting Started with Digital Painting
Chances are if you wanna work in an animation studio you'll be working digitally and Matt Kohr's got some great stuff over at CtrlPaint that gives you a great foundation to begin with!
Here's another throwback to some prints/buttons I made years ago of the OG Pokemon starters + everyone's fav electric rodent.
(Pokemon Blue Cartridge ftw)
Some behind the scenes below 👇
Here are the rough sketches I started out with.
First up was Squirtle and that one set the tone for the rest of them.
I knew I wanted them all squished in the ball and thought it might be fun to turn them into 1.5in round buttons! (Pikachu excluded from 1st batch, designed them later as a bonus)
How drawing helps you think | Ralph Ammer | TEDxTUM
This one could have saved me from always trying to make something nice to look at. Drawing isn't just about pretty pictures, it's bigger than that. It can help you think!
Learn Everything About Drawing in 10 Minutes
I didn't really understand what drawing was from a fundamental level and the scope of what there was to understand about it. This is a great quick vid explaining the key components.
Changin it up today with a visdev 🧵 thread with keyframes I helped paint for #TransformersEarthspark
First up is the contact sheet with some of the first pieces of artwork done for the show, close ups below:
These were the first paintings I did of the Malto Compound at different times of day.
We were aiming for Amblin/Spielberg aesthetic, especially during nighttime.
Fun Fact: I based the color of the house from my childhood home 👶
The kitchen was another important spot to highlight, especially with the Filipino Dad cooking up some delicious homecooked meals: Pancit (Noodles) and Lumpia (Eggrolls).
Then we've got some shots of the little town of Witwicky.
Here's another background art 🧵 thread from the #RiseoftheTMNTMovie archives 🧵:
Starting off with the color key I did for the Central Room of the new Turtle’s Lair.
Fun Fact: We wanted the color Green to represent safety and protection
Here are some hookup shots:
There's one shot where Raph/Donnie/Mikey are shrouded in the light, and Leo walks off alone outside of their 'cone of safety'.
Designing color themes was always funner when we could pinpoint the story elements to represent throughout the show.
And here we have a quick key of Donnie's Lab before the alarms go off and some hookups for after:
There's always a concern of tracking colors through locations, so we had to make sure that each area has distinct color profiles, especially when you're cutting between storylines.