Cartoon animation in the modern age has a diverse collection of styles and inspirations. Compared to the early television ages of animation, modern day television animation embraces different art styles and mediums. Typically, in early television animation, the styles were 2D cartoons, creating a mixture of the previously famous UPA modern art -inspired style with the Mickey Mouse formula of using talking animals. This early television style was most notable in the Hanna-Barbera shows like Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, and Yogi Bear. In modern day television, you can see all different types of animations instead of a common thread like this early style. There are shows like Adventure Time that utilizes the 2D style of early cartoons, Thomas & Friends, which incorporates a 3D sense of space within the cartoon, and many other shows that showcase mediums of art like claymation, motion capture, and stop motion.
Different Animation Styles of the Modern Era
The Amazing World of Gumball is an animated series that incorporates a variety of different types of art and animation mediums. This series was created by then 31-year-old Ben Bocquelet. Bocquelet started off his career animating for the renowned Studio AKA in London, England. This studio was known for their outstanding work in animation for commercials. As he was working for Studio AKA, he compiled a list of characters that he had created for commercials but had been rejected for the projects he created them for. He kept that group of characters in his portfolio as he moved to another job at Cartoon Network. At CN, Bocquelet joined the European development team. It was there at CN that he got the idea to create a project using all of his own rejected characters. Thus, began the production of The Amazing World of Gumball (Zahed, 2011).
The Waterson Family
Bocquelet began his developmental process of the project by sorting through his characters and choosing which ones stood out to him the most. He decided that a blue cat in a 2D animation style would become Gumball, the main character of the series. He also stumbled upon a goldfish character and redrew the fish in the same style of the blue cat, creating Darwin, Gumball's brother and best friend in the show. From then on, he created the entire Waterson family, including a blue cat mother, a pink rabbit father, and a pink rabbit younger sister. Upon the creation of the melting pot of a family, Bocquelet knew that the rest of the project would have to reflect the diversity of the family as well. He came up with the idea to put the animations on a live-action background (Zahed, 2011). This would give an innovative contrast to the 2D animation styles of the characters, similar to the "Out of the Inkwell" series created by the Fleischer brothers. After they had their setting, Bocquelet and the rest of the team working on The Amazing World of Gumball let their minds explore with interesting possibilities of animation.
The Waterson family is the main focus of the show, but what kind of show would it be if there weren't any supporting characters? When it comes to the supporting characters in The Amazing World of Gumball, the designers of the show explored different art mediums and styles. The main four styles were 2D animation, claymation, real items drawn with features, and realistic or 3D animation. One of the examples of the 2D animation style, besides the Waterson's, is Penny. Penny is Gumball's love interest and the overall girl next door type within the show. Her design is different from the Waterson's; however, it keeps the 2D, drawn affect. Penny has large features that the animators utilize for big expressions. She also has longer limbs that the animators use to move her around and put her in multiple different active positions, since her character is a cheerleader (Network, 2020). The rest of the list of supporting characters using this animation medium includes Hector, Mr. Small, Carmen, Tobias, Masami, Principal Brown, Carrie, Leslie, and Luke.
This is a clip showcasing the 2D animated characters including Penny, Gumball, Darwin, and Leslie.
Another popular animation style that the creators of the show use is claymation. This medium was chosen because Bocquelet had created some clay characters for an ad he was working on when he worked at Studio AKA. He liked the freedom and creativity it gave him with textures and possibilities with the characters. One example of the characters that were created using claymation is Clayton. Clayton is a friend and schoolmate of Gumball and Darwin. He is a ball of red clay with clay features of eyes and a mouth and he often changes shape (Helpers, 2019). When it comes to his design, the creators wanted to play around with different shapes, however, they were set on only have one fully claymation character because of the time and effort it took compared to their contract of how often they had to create an episode. They decided that the character would be an actual ball of clay that would morph so that they could still play around and explore, but also stick to their contract.
This is a clip of Clayton shapeshifting in the show.
The third medium of art and animation that Bocquelet and the animators chose to explore is the idea of taking live-action, real items and animating them with drawn features. Bocquelet got this inspiration when he decided that he wanted The Amazing World of Gumball to include real-world elements. This is shown through the live-action backdrops that the characters are placed into, as well as, this style of animation with these characters. One example of a supporting character with this style is Alan. Alan is a schoolmate and friend of Gumball and Darwin. He is a teal-colored balloon whose features are drawn on with black marker. This concept is inspired by children drawing faces on balloons and treating these balloon buddies as their real life friends. Alan's animation mostly relies on the facial expressions that he does, given that he doesn't have any limbs. Because of this style of animation, it is easy for the animators to swap out facial expressions and place them on whatever object they have chosen, in Alan's case, a balloon (Network, 2020). Some of the other supporting characters who are also made in this animation style include Banana Joe, Anton, Idaho, and Teri.
This is a clip of Alan that showcases the different features and animations that they create for this style.
The final medium of art and animation style is realism or 3D animation. This style of animation is most popular when creating animated features that need to look realistic. This type is often used in special effects animation to fit in with a live-action background. One example of a character with this animation style is Tina. Tina is a schoolmate of Gumball and Darwin and is the school bully. Tina fits this role because she is a giant T-Rex with true-to-life features and movements (Helpers, 2019). Tina's design is very realistic with small arms, sharp claws, and huge teeth. She is also a realistic color with a green and brown color design. This animation style also brings in a real-life element to the cartoon. While these characters are meant to resemble real things, they are animated because it would be difficult to film them live action, especially dinosaurs since they no longer exist. Other characters that are animated in the realistic, 3D style include Laurence Needlemeyer, Miss Simian, Bobert, William, Ocho, and the Robinson Family.
This is a clip of Tina's introduction into the show as the bully.
These different styles allow Bocquelet and the animators to showcase a type of characterization through design. When creating the characters, the team would take aspects of the design elements and incorporate them into the character's personalities and vice versa. For example, Penny is a 2D character earlier on in the show, however, when we find out more about her personality, her design changes and she becomes a 3D character. It is a literal and figurative change. This concept is also found within Clayton, whose personality trait is to tell stories that aren't entirely true to seem like another kind of person. This could have been inspired by his fluid and morphable design. These aspects might have been changed if the character went into a different direction. The Amazing World of Gumball takes into account each character's uniqueness and puts them altogether to create a truly diverse, modern-day cartoon.
Sources:
Helpers, F. A. N. D. O. M. (2019). Character guide. The Amazing World of Gumball Wiki. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://theamazingworldofgumball.fandom.com/wiki/Character_guide
Network, Cartoon. (2020, March 15). All the animation styles . Youtube. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-nctfqbLeQ
Zahed, R. (2011, May 29). Gumball begins reign of color. Animation Magazine. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://www.animationmagazine.net/tv/gumball-begins-reign-of-color/
Comments
Post a Comment