Sunday 31 October 2021

Why Animators Need Production Design

"Street Ratz", Production Design by Austin Hill
Animators, as everyone knows, are actors with a pencil - or a mouse. But as well as performance, animators need to think about design and composition. 

It is especially important when working on an animated scene to consider the environment the character is inhabiting.  

One of the most common mistakes made by student animators is to combine a realistic character (say, a dinosaur or dragon) with a cartoony environment. The character and the set come from different worlds, and they don't always work well together.

Consistent Visual Style
Cartoony dragon by Shauna Ludgate
When animators download free sets from sites like Turbosquid or tf3dm.com, it's important to be consistent in the overall style of the shot.   

Of course, in a studio environment the set design will be done by  someone else, but it's a different story when you are working from home and building a demo reel - you have to build your own environments and make your own visual choices.

Realistic -v- Cartoony
Dinosaur by Edoardo Sartori
The trick is to ask yourself - does the character and the environment inhabit the same world? A very cartoony character like "Monty" works well in a cartoony set.  

A realistic character, such as many of the photorealistic animals created by Truong CG, work best in a realistic set (see right).  Try to keep character and environment harmonious, so that the overall style has a consistent flavour.

Colour Design
Animators also need to think about their colour palette, in particular whether or not to use warm or cool colours. Colour, like everything else in animation, is a choice, and a good animator makes choices based on the mood and feeling they are trying to create. To see more about Colour Design for animators, watch the video below.


 

Escape Studios Film-making Resources
For a variety of information and resources on the making of animated short films, follow the links below:

Development & Pre-Production

Production
Post-Production

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link.  

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