15+ Facts About Creating Our Favorite Cartoons That Will Make You Want To Watch Them Again

It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since we got out of kindergarten: many of us are still watching cartoons. How to Train Your Dragon🇧🇷 rolled up🇧🇷 Monsters Inc., which are masterpieces for children and adults alike, not forgetting the works of the Japanese Hayao Miyazaki, which have generally become classics. But what is behind such a colorful and childish fairy-tale image? There are dozens of departments, thousands of storyboardsanimators who stay sleepless nights and the effort of years of work.

O awesome.club studied in detail how our favorite cartoons are created, and decided to tell about the backstage of this process.

The production of animated films is called “segmentation”. Essentially, it’s a work process divided into 3 main steps.

1. Pre-production: formation of ideas and concepts

two. Production: creation of the cartoon, work on all tasks

3. Post production: last material improvement completed

First, confirm the script. Later, the artist responsible for the graphic scripts formalizes a simple but very detailed comic with sketches, the basis of which will serve to create all the scenes of the cartoon. These strips are called storyboard, a kind of visual script.

After thousands of preliminary frames are ready, editors put them into one big video, adding preliminary voices and special effects. This helps them to identify the duration of certain scenes, assess their importance and fascination. For example, this is how the storyboard for the movie was created Up: High Adventures🇧🇷

In Japanese animations, often the storyboard is formed without a version with text — for example, if it is based on manga or its script is being completely created by the director. That’s how Miyazaki does it at Ghibli Studios: all the storyboards are drawn from scratch, painted with watercolor, and only then sent to the artist for the creation of key and interim takes.

After carefully crafting the storyboard, the artists initially draw the characters in 2D. By the way, in Ghibli studies, all movements are drawn by hand, even when in many films the use of computer-generated images has already been adopted. Miyazaki always takes the veracity of each painting very seriously. For example, for those from the scene Chihiro’s tripin which the dragon’s mouth is opened, the artists went to a veterinary clinic, where professionals showed them how to put medicine in a dog’s mouth. And for shots like the sky appears, Miyazaki and his colleagues often climb onto the roof of the studio.

Then concept art is created, and based on it, a color palette of the future cartoon is created, along with the atmosphere of the main scenes. The characters are drawn in groups, and they are assigned characteristic emotions and gestures.

Later, it’s the turn of 3D designers. They work on the carcass of the characters, who so far do not move or express their emotions. Then comes the puppet creation department.in which the heroes work on all the little movements and changes in facial expression—particularly joints, muscles, wrinkles, and every crease in the body.

But that’s not all. Puppets are sent to color and texture coating masters, who work with the surface of all characters to make them look as natural as possible in any condition, such as during rain or under extremely bright sunlight. Professionals have access to a special library of surfaces, in which there are various types of stone, wood, iron and glass, among others. In this same department, the effect of oxidation on weapons or the scratches on an old wooden table is created.

But the library doesn’t have everything and many textures have to be created from scratch. This happened to the princess’s hair from the cartoon brave🇧🇷 The movements of her curls were calculated mathematically, taking into account the heroine’s movements and the force of gravity. To realistically imitate hair, even real clips were made, which imitated the movement of Princess Merida’s curls. Artists used these movements as a basis.

You already have the visual scenery, the 3D models of the characters and decorations, backgrounds and surroundings. But for all of that to work in a single movie, animation needs the pre-visualization department. Your workers originate the movements of all characters and objects based on received storyboards.

To bring characters to life, artists don’t have to draw every scene. Just take a 3D model and move the sliders responsible for one or another part of the model. The more regulators, the more natural the character’s behavior will be. For example, to recreate Toothless’ movements from the movie How to Train Your Dragonmore than 6 thousand regulators were used.

To create each scene, you will need raw material. For this, animators look for a suitable video or film in all situations in a recording studio. For example, for the frame where they throw mud on Merida’s face, a real actress was used and, of course, real mud.

The greatest difficulty in creating a realistic image are the complementary attributes, items the characters interact with, their clothes and hair. In general, all these elements are handcrafted and sketched from real objects. This is done by a complete team who are responsible for a particular character, while the special effects department employees are in charge of the entire set. Only with your help can a leaf fall from a tree or a flame come out of a dragon’s mouth.

As a result of a simple sketch, at first a doll without hair or glitter is born, which after a “journey” through the various departments becomes the character we are used to seeing on screen.

Characters in scenes in large groups are not left unattended either. The computer animation department takes care of that. Of course, professionals do not make individual animation for all characters separately, they create 2-3 basic movements (eg walking, eating, laughing or applauding). Later, these moves are distributed among the characters en masse.

The animated film is practically ready! Now it remains to voice the characters. At Pixar and Disney studios, famous actors are often invited to this. In Japanese animations, there is an independent profession, the seiyū🇧🇷 That’s what people who work exclusively with the voice in animated films are called.

What cartoon are you ready to watch again and again, no matter how old you are?