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Artwork from The Last Belle - black lines photocopied from ink drawings onto
cel, with hand-inked shirt pattern, and cel paint on the reverse. |
Long time - No blogging...
The usual excuses apply: I'm in the middle of drawing a fun, but time consuming job. But the interesting thing about this project is that it could prove to be (possibly?...probably?...) the final traditional pencil-on-paper job I ever get paid to do. The Cintiq, and software like TVPaint, are spreading through the 2D animation world at a rapid pace, and almost all the London animation production companies are now operating paperless.
Of course I'll always have pencils, pens and a stack of paper at home for my personal work - old habits die hard, and I can't think of a more immediate way to connect my imagination to the outside world. But in the working environment the noise of a room full of flapping sheets of paper is being replaced by the low hum of computer fans, and the sound of scratching, swishing pencils is being supplanted by the silence of nylon nib sliding over glass. Only the muttering, sighing, and outright swearing as you try to get your drawing just right remain the same as they always were.
One of the upsides of non-digital work is that you're left with actual, tangible pieces of artwork you can hold in your hand, or stick up on your wall. Over the years I've collected (or rescued from the bin) bits and pieces from various films and commercials (and due to my connections with the Richard Williams Studio, many are from there). Looking at them up close can give you a real insight into the craftspeople who produced them, and how they worked.
So with that in mind, here's a gallery dedicated to an almost lost way of working...
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An original cel from a Harlem Globetrotters commercial animated by Richard Williams
and (I think) Tom Roth. Soft waxy pencil on frosted cel, cel paint on the back. |
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Here's a close up of that head. Bear in mind that this commercial
was mostly animated on ones, so 25 of these 'drawn-paintings' would have
to be produced per second of screen time! |
To see the final commercial (unfortunately very low-res)
Press Here!
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Another insane amount of work, this time for a commercial animated by Richard
Williams and Simon Wells. The style had to mimic the work of famous
newspaper cartoonist 'Kal'. |
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Here's a close up of all that cross-hatching. You can almost smell the late nights
spent at the studio producing this commercial!
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Here is the final commercial, once again in appalling ultra-low-res, but better than nothing...
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Artwork painted (in guache?) directly onto cel by Richard Williams. I love how
delicate the brushwork is - this really can stand up to being framed and mounted
on the wall! |
You'll find this piece of artwork about 47 seconds into these
Titles.
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Wax and soft coloured pencils on frosted cel, cel paint on reverse. This commercial
(for breath freshener!) was animated by Russell Hall, assisted by Bella Bremner. |
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Up close, I love the different textures here: sketchy, but controlled, linework;
rendered light and shade; hot and smelly looking smoke, shaded and smudged. |
Here's the final commercial, which I remember being a big success with audiences at the time.
Personally I'm excited to see where the new technologies will take us. Taking the best of the old, and mixing it up with the best of the new, should open up all sorts of fresh avenues. But I love to have these little fragments of artwork around me. Etched into their surfaces, trapped for all time, are the brushstrokes, penstrokes, and sheer skill of the amazing artists who created them.
I'll have more goodies from the archive in the next post. Stay tuned...
