Click on image to see a larger version in all its stretchy glory!
Check this out. Recently, I was working on a spot with Jetsons characters in it, and so on my quest for reference, I came upon this scene from the show where Astro did his signature full-face lick on George -- he did this quite often, so when I was watching this initially it didn't seem like a big deal. But then I frame-by-framed it, and I was amazed by how much those guys stretched and pulled the main characters!
I love animating on scenes like this, where you can contort the characters like they're taffy. You'll be amazed to know how many times I've been told to tone down a pose because it was not "on-model." Phooey. I guarantee you that this scene would've been asked to be re-done if it was produced nowadays. "Yeah, I dunno. It just doesn't look like George..."
Ha! That's awesome.
ReplyDelete-Elisa
Glen, I did not work for Hanna Barbera, I was working on a spot that had The Jetsons in them recently.
ReplyDeleteNow THIS is the sort of post I can get behind. Frankly, animation production became about a zillion times harder the minute clients could hang onto a 3/4" tape; the horror of a client or agency "creative team" sitting around examining a single frame's distorted squash or stretch visual. You can say "it works in motion" until you're blue in the face, but you might as well be talking to a fireplug. Former Atlantan Jack Dyer was so concerned about making sure every frame of his animation productions were "on model" that he would work back through your drawings at night and re-draw any frames that had what he considered to be too much distortion! Ask Andy Wilson or Strandquest, they'll tell ya.
ReplyDeleteHey Ward: Dude, I so miss how Old cartoons would include such attention to detail. With TiVo on slow-mo I'll sit and watch old Looney Tunes/Hannah Barbera cartoons just to see some of the wacky expressions they used to animate (Chuck Jones and Tex Avery especially!). I like Cartoon Network, but give me Boomerang any day, anytime.
ReplyDeletenow THATS the stuff. animation!
ReplyDeleteits what i struggle for in cg... i messed around with one of the chicken little rigs at siggraph this year, as well as see some shots from disney's upcoming features. they were using rigs with broken hierarchies, allowing you to really push poses. some of the smear frames were completely insane.