Character Design - SpaceCat x The Bad Guys x Toriyama x Miyazaki
Sharing some inspiration
Hi friends,
I wanted share some things that have been influencing me with my art lately.
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗔𝗗 𝗚𝗨𝗬𝗦 and 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗣𝗜𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
The animated film The Bad Guys, from Dreamworks Animation, based off the popular kids book series, was a fantastic film. One of my favorite parts of this movie though, was the visual style, and specifically the Character Design and posing. They pulled from a mixed bag of of influences, but the Hayao Miyazaki and Akira Toriyama influences really stood out to me.
In this interview discussion, about 34 minutes in, they talk about the specific influences and character design decisions. Its a great talk if you love the film, or you just love animation in general.
I’ve been trying to get more expressive with SpaceCat, and this film and its influences have been knocking around in my visual library and I have been exploring how I can bring some of that appeal to my drawing. Specifically with SpaceCat and his facial expressions and poses.
These are some images from the presentation showing the design elements from The Bad Guys. There is a lot that can be learned from studying these.
Another influence i could see on the film was from story artist and fellow cartoonist, Anthony Holden. He helped with character design on the film as well.
𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗗𝗔𝗥𝗞𝗘𝗥: 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗜𝗟𝗠 𝗣𝗢𝗗𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗧
Many of you know that for my day job I work at Industrial Light and Magic. ILM is a fantastic place to work and it has led to getting to be a part of so many wonderful creative projects.
ILM just started a Podcast called Lighter Darker, hosted by ILM Chief Creative Officer Rob Bredow and Compositing Supervisor Todd Vaziri.
In this episode they chat with Josh Cooley, the director of Transformers One. Josh is an 18 year veteran of Pixar’s story department as well as the Oscar winning director of Toy Story 4. If you are interested in a journey from intern to Director in animation, check out this episode.
𝗚𝗨𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗥𝗠𝗢 𝗗𝗘𝗟 𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗢 and “𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗦 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗔 𝗗𝗢𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗗 𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗜𝗢𝗡”
Some of you have seen clips of director Guillermo del Toro talking about his thoughts on AI. Those clips are from this longer interview with him at the BFI. This is a great interview, mostly about his work on Pinocchio, and for fans of animation, it is large dose of inspiration for any artist.
OK. That about does it.
Take care, and I’ll see you all in the next one,
Ed
Pinocchio!! What a fantastic and clever piece of art as a whole! I just loved that film!