Sunday, November 02, 2008

11-4-08












  I did these character designs for a friend a little while back. Had a lot of fun doing it! I miss doing character design these days-- I find when I am bored animating I whip out a clean sheet of paper and start doodling a design or a thumbnail for a future design to keep my mind active. But to be fair, when I was doing character design I missed animating. I know as an animator studying design is imperative to doing good animation. For some reason people seem to segregate design and drawing as separate things.  They are not, drawing IS design-- whether it's well designed or not, it IS a design. Maybe this segregation of thinking is why hand drawn animation tends to look so, well, bland. Too many people buy off on the lie that audiences to not relate to graphic character designs. They relate to who they are, not what they look like. Hopefully we'll get an opportunity to blow that old idea out of the water one of these days!  

44 comments:

Blog Trotter said...

Those designs remind me a lot of Nico Marlet's work. They're really good I like them.

Unknown said...

good thoughts! And I really like the design of the humming bird! And the animation few posts back is just addicting to watch.

Zar Galstyan said...

Whoa Matt, these look amazing!

Vincent Gorman said...

These are wonderful! I agree that it seems a lot of hand-drawn seems bland. Since you work at Disney now, perhaps I can put in a request. I know there are clips of pencil tests and rough animations on DVD extras, but can or will Disney ever release the entire film without the ink and paint on top? Or maybe even without clean-up. Probably not, but I've always wanted to watch an animated film that way. Maybe one of the newer projects perhaps in short form.

Chris Bivins said...

wow really cool designs. i agree with your character design statement. im working on some now and its been a challenge keeping all the principles ive learned and putting them together as one complete design package in a way. when i start animating these characters i definitely want to keep the feeling of the unique shapes that ive created to keep the animation interesting. a very good analysis of the current trend of 2d animation.

-biv

Cookedart said...

These are awesome!

Matt Williames said...

Trotter: Thanks man, yeah I was sorta being influenced by him when I did these. At least in the methodology--
Joonas: Thanks fo the kind words! Hopefully there will be more animation to come!
Zar: Awww, thanks! You work is looking great! Did you learn a ton at Pixar?
Vince: Thank you! BTW, I got your e-mail I just haven't had ANY time to respond. But I will eventually. As far as your idea, I think we'd (all of us animators) would like that too. The thing is they won't do it unless they think they can make a profit off of it. We'll see, hopefully some day.
Chris: Thanks man... yeah, hopefully we'll get to do some more personal stuff here in the future.
Alan: Thanks man!

BJ Crawford said...

great work matt, it's always good to see that you find time to update the blog.

bj

Marcos Gp said...

Well said!

Great designs! They are so appealing and interesting...

Anonymous said...

I lob it! YOU sir, are a talented cartoonist. where did you learn how to paint like that? You should be an artist! My grandson's wife is an artist and she paints drawings for a gift card company... I think she could help you get some work because you obviosly have some talent blah blah blah blah....
Great job Matt, you're great

Jeremy said...

Dang man, nicely done! Lovely work!

SteveLambe said...

Beautiful designs, Matt. Very elegant and appealing.

BoK said...

man, those are just fantastic.
What a line! Thanks for taking them out of your archives :D !

Dave David said...

I love that second image!
Fantastic

Katy Hargrove said...

I like these very much.

Ivan Oviedo said...

Hi Matt, you ok?

I love it! is a big inspiration!

Patrick Semple said...

I love these. The shapes you use are really nice and simple and get the emotion across.

Will you post some of those doodle from your desk.

hadi tabasi said...

what a great work!!!plz take a look at my works
thanks

Bryst said...

Very Awesome design!! *_*

Chris Wieme said...

Really dig your designs! I haven't seen anything like these before. Love your work Matt!! Hope all is well @ Disney. Take care.

Copper said...

I'd love to have your character design skills!
All my characters seem to look the same.

Keep up the good work, and keep glorifying Him with the obvious talent He's given you!

Tobias Schwarz said...

these are great!

pablo pablo said...

Very good designs!

Maël Gourmelen said...

powerfull stuff man !! this bird is just asking to be animated...

awsome work !

Robin said...

Matt, it has been far far far too long since I last visited your blog!

These bird designs are just excellent! I work on designs in my spare time, but with work, I definitely don't have much (spare time) to work with.

I hope, too, that designs come back more strongly into animation rather than the somewhat more reserved character designs that seem so prominent these days.

Anyways, always a pleasure reading your blog, cheers!

Andre Barnwell said...

Well stated. I think this would look great in 3D.

Hammy said...

Holy Moley these are beautiful!!

Thanks for sharing! :)

Fred Sposito said...

wonderfull artwork!
I loved the style!

Unknown said...

You have some great work posted on your blog which I happened to stumble across. Just some backtracking to an older post of your Disney desk where you mention you have some model sheets from James baxter, could you post any up? I've been trying to get hold of some of his rough work as well but no luck! He's very elusive!

justdoodleit said...

amazing drawings and insightful opinion. a pleasure to have discovered your blog :)

tom caulfield said...

wow! thank you so much for posting not only your awesome artwork and fantastic animation but also the quick little tutorials. The advice certanly helps in the hunt to animate that scene that has that special something.
Thanks for the inspiration.

turcios curriculum said...

fantásticas aves!
saludos

Gillian Comerford said...

Beautifuland inspiring designs. Cheers!

OV! said...

MW!

NICE WORK!

i can see some nico in that.
he's one of my favs.

nice expressions.


>oVi

Heidi Gilbert said...

Matt. These are pretty sweet.

Josh Frost said...

Love the work. Your very inspirational! Everything from your work to your writing! Thank you for your blog!

- Josh

Malgorzata Arska said...

great designs :)

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