Wondering about animation styles

[Anim8tor Cathy]

This may be a very naïve question so please bear with me. Because I am just beginning I have no predefined style and I’ve felt pulled to work in more than one way – this is confusing. How does one define their style? I have a defined style as an illustrator – but it doesn’t work when animated. So I must define a new style for myself as an animator.

I’ve noticed that many of you have very set styles to your work. How did you come to adopt them? Is style something that accumulates over time with repetition or is it a deliberate choice to animate in a certain way? Or both? Or is it something else?

My first impulse is to draw the kind of animation I enjoy watching, like Miyazaki’s films; the problem is I don’t have another 50 Japanese animators here to help me …HA!

Which brings up still another question – does economy of time and energy aid in defining the style for a lone animator?

Questions, questions, questions …

[slowtiger]

There's a book about this, "Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics" by Maureen Furniss http://www.johnlibbey.com/books_detail. ... 3&area=mus (Review by Giannalberto Bendazzi here: http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.11/3.11pa ... otion.php3) which gives a nearly complete overview about all questions an animation artist could ask during work. I found this book just by accident in a local library, after for many years I wished to see more animation discussed in terms of aesthetics, and not only story and money. Many of the decisions which define a "style" are discussed here, and I found it very enlightening to read about some lesser known influences to which artists have to adapt.

John Krikfalusi is a vivid fighter against "style", especially the kind of style one might use in lack of drawing skills or good planning. Read his blog, it can be a bit tedious, but when he explains his POV he really gives good advice. http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/

Now where does a style come from? I always claimed not to have one, yet my friends said they would easily recognize any film by me. I had to work in a number of different styles (in graphic design and illustration as well as in animation), and it's easy for me to adapt to a new style. From this experience, my own decision for a certain style roughly follows these questions:

- Do I feel comfortable in that style? Is it something I can do a whole day long, with one hand bound to my back?
- Is this style a good choice for the project in question? Does it support the idea or the story? Does it fit with my intended audience?
- Is this style a good idea in terms of time and money? Does it involve more work than necessary? Does the result justify the time and effort? Would anybody see any difference?

These questions are the ones I ask when I get a job from a client (and am in a position to decide about it). When I do my own stuff, I tend to just do what I have in mind, trusting my gut feeling wether something is right or wrong.

[Paul Fierlinger]

When children draw, or cave people drew, or savants, or scientists draw, they don't think of themselves as cartoonists but that they are attempting an acceptable approximation of real life. It's just that they are in a hurry because they don't take their drawing form too seriously as much as they need to say something and to simply draw what they see to explain what's on their mind.

That's what you should do. You should not let yourself be preoccupied with form but story. There should be a story, or at least the beginning of one in a single drawing of a single character in its environment. Draw the surroundings at the same time as you draw the character and think only of what it all looks like in real life, but go about it in a somewhat hurried way. It's a mistake for an animator to desire patience. Impatience is what you need to get hundreds and hundreds of drawings done so you can't be too fussy with the details.

Watch out for becoming an ornamentalist. That's going to bog you down and you do have a strong tendency to decorate what's on your paper. You must switch your aesthetics to speed and economy of work. Start with something you know well, like yourself and your room. Look around and then turn to your paper and put it there with a simple line without looking back up again. Don't rotoscope your vision, that's for police artists. Study your subject well and store your feelings about what you study so that you can retrieve the picture from your mind, not from your room anymore.

This way you will become an original recordist of real life instead of a monkey, a parrot and the insecure dilettante who needs to cover up some deficiencies of imagination by imitating how others do it.

[ZigOtto]

draw, animate, and let your hand follow the shortest road
to lay down on the paper (or on the screen) what's in your imagination,
Times will do the rest (moulding your own style).

Personal style is like wrinkles on one's face,
you just have to accept them when they come and how they come.

that remember me an old Zen monk story
spending years and years to look for Bliss,
following to the letter his master's instructions,
... it finally came the day he stopped his daily quest.

[djm99001]

Watch out for becoming an ornamentalist. That's going to bog you down and you do have a strong tendency to decorate what's on your paper. You must switch your aesthetics to speed and economy of work. Start with something you know well, like yourself and your room. Look around and then turn to your paper and put it there with a simple line without looking back up again. Don't rotoscope your vision, that's for police artists. Study your subject well and store your feelings about what you study so that you can retrieve the picture from your mind, not from your room anymore.

This way you will become an original recordist of real life instead of a monkey, a parrot and the insecure dilettante who needs to cover up some deficiencies of imagination by imitating how others do it.

I don't normally think of myself of someone who struggles to find a style, but I found this statement profound and heartening.
Thanks, Paul.

Also, Mike Nguyen, the director/creator of My Little World (julyfilms.com) and a character animation professor at CalArts, says that the movement style should be inherent in the character design. You can read his blog at http://www.rainplace.net/

David

[Sierra Rose]

For all the advice I've been given, for me it boils down to just a lot of practice. You already draw, so I imagine your challenge will be as you are sensing, finding a way to catch your ideas in movement so you can complete something without a cast of thousands to help you. There is a lot to the statement that the movement takes place between the frames...it's something I began to understand when I finally caught on to tweening.

I feel my stories pressing on me as I draw (a big source of impatience) and I do want to add the details I see in my mind, but when I'm actually in the process it becomes necessary to drop a lot of them. I can keep one of the little girl's socks sagging down, for instance, (but then I have to remember which side that would be on when she turns) but I have to give up the cute little buttons on her short-alls because that detail becomes too time-consuming to line up all the time and doesn't add enough to the story to be worth it. In my mind I see her hair very neatly pulled up in pony tails above her ears as though her mother takes very good care of her before she sends her out to play....and then hair looking messy as she gets herself in trouble.

Making the hair speak in the story has become very very abbreviated now...just a stray wisp here or there and no more obvious neat part lines.

As for the semi-realistic style that I seem to have: it comes because nothing else satisfies my need to depict the children and parents. I've tried a more "cartoony" look and it really didn't satisfy me. It would have been a lot easier, for sure.

Also I'm not one who loves the exaggerated movements you see in cartoons, except once in awhile it fits. I want everyone to move more naturally. So that influences style a lot, I bet. I don't think of myself as having developed a style consciously...so maybe that will come some time in the future.

It remains to be seen if others like what I'm doing, and that is a factor. I am not trying to work for anyone else either so I don't have to be versatile to get clients.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Sierra, that pretty much says, and so does this: I once read somewhere that when Walt Disney decided to drop Mickey Mouse's tail he saved zillions of dollars in saved time and no one even noticed that it was gone.

[Sierra Rose]

That is astounding Paul. Also very instructive.

[lemec]

Uh oh! Dr. Mark's on a rampage! It's time for a Cynical Analysis™!

I'm always wary of words like "style" and "aesthetic" because they've lost (or never had) much meaning through their frequent abuse in fine arts circles. If we replaced the words "Style" and "Aesthetic" with "Snake Oil" and "Emperor's New Clothes", a lot of public misperceptions would suddenly vanish off the face of the earth, taking with them many of Toronto's modern art galleries and funding for terrible architecture (Google the OCAD building and the recent Royal Ontario Museum).

If I were so (bold/arrogant/full of myself) as to propose my own definition of style, I'd say that if technique was an artist's method of rendering subject matter, then style is the subject matter that the artist chooses to depict.

So if stylistic choices are the subject matter you choose to depict, then for animation, a stylistic decision would be a decision about what kind of movement you chose to portray. Are you drawing a violent, fast-moving motion? A slow, gradual change in position? A wobbly movement that changes direction often? A pause? You can choose between these types of movement to portray the behaviour of your character. Do you want your character to appear tired or relaxed? Excited or anxious? And don't forget, every movement that your character makes is one that must fight against or utilize the forces of gravity and inertia. In the end, even this type of decision can become a technique, a matter of determining what is appropriate for the situation that relies on common sense.

Often, people get technique confused with style and betray their work by following whimsical impulses (and calling it style), rather than thinking about how they want their audience to perceive what's going on. I know I sound like a goddamn puritan (my older brother, a mechanical engineer of all people, accused me of being so), but I'm this way for the sake of practicality and getting my work to look the way I want it to. I take no pleasure in taking all the credit for something left to chance and whimsy, and it vexes me when artists of the avant-garde whine about "their unrecognized genius", pining away for the day that an idiot with deep pockets and a shallow mind will discover them.

[Peter Wassink]

Uh oh! Dr. Mark's on a rampage! It's time for a Cynical Analysis™!
(Google the OCAD building ...).

"This exercise in hyper-entropic avant garde faggotry is so cutting edge that it is already out of date."

[Jesoped]

In my mind it comes down to a combination of dedicated craftsmaship and good old fashioned intuition. The study of the great masters like Michelangelo, Rubens, Pontormo etc. has certainly helped me alot in having an in-depth understanding of shape, weight, direction and intent, even fairly recently prooving to myself that new aspects of my drawing ability can expand (one can always learn). But since I'm a classically trained 2D animator I can't deny my roots of inspiration in the likes of the great Disney animators - Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, but also Hayao Miyazaki and the phenomenal Richard Williams. All great storytellers, all skilled draughtsmen with a purpose in their work. Their drive is character and story, and animation is the medium to manifest it with. In my case animation style is practice, experience, research and above all observation. Study what others have done, and then do your spin on it. I do believe that you can't flip good animation style, you have to know your craft... And you have to know it well in order to break the rules, if you want some sense of believability in your animations that is. Though usually when I get inspired by someone, I always tend to do my own thing, somehow it's not as rewarding for me to copy other's work, as doing my own. But the thing is that there is a lot of skilled artists out there, that have boiled some techniques and working methods down to a very compelling statement, making you aware of what kind of quality and quantity exists out there.

I futhermore think that patience vs. impatience is (like so many things) a not only but also. If you want to animate a simple straightforward character, then that is what you want to do. If you feel like animating a massively detailed character then why shouldn't you? It all comes down if you can draw it or not.
If I where you I would study the principles of movement, spacing, shape, dimension, character, empathy and how, when and most importantly why to choose to do what you choose your character to do. I believe that a skilled artists doesn't have any restrictions, the animation medium is 100% percent flexible... Use it!

If you look at some of the most memorable 2D characters, like Cruella Deville from 101 Dalmatians, you will see that the line isn't all that neat (due to the xerox copy of the animators original drawing) imperfections shows up in the line, smudges, semi-scribbles and even the occasional construction line flashes by. But it is the sense of character integrated movement that sparkles the imagination, the illusion of life that is. You can't have the one without the other. Lines depicts masses, they are only a small piece of the puzzle. It is the wholeness that you want to express, sure you can break everything down to a beat or a stroke, but you must not forget the big picture, the general audience wants to feel the characters, not examining a fancy made skin-fold that is only seen for a split second... Even though that shouldn't stop you from making that fancy made skin-fold, if that is your thing.

I also believe that story and form is inseparable, you can't have one without the other, there the not only but also comes into gear. In my mind there can't be any story if it isn't manifestated in one form or the other, and vice versa meaning that each given stroke should have a purpose of some kind, being it an indication of a horizon line, or the subtle outline of an elbow resting on a table. Understand your material and then give it purpose and meaning. In that sense you should also be in the possesion of a patient mind, since it isn't always in the first try one has absolutely succes. In my experience there isn't no easy way, it's hard and dedicated work, but if someone is passionate about it, it will feel like an endless stimulative process, that is highly rewarding when one gets it right, and even when it goes wrong, cause then you want to know why it didn't work like it should, and that learning process will become gradually more structured and intuitive the more your craft sinks into your bloodstream and nervous center, allowing yourself to express whatever you want. I clearly think that style is purely subjective, and all a matter of taste. But one can gather a library of knowledge and then choose to use it when ever one wants it, and that can be a huge advantage for an artist being able to "bend" his or hers style essence.
what I have shared isn't something new, alot of the things like practice, knowledge, character, story and passion gets repeated endlessly in various versions, and that goes to show that there must be something about it. It's all up to you how you use it.


I absolutely believe that in order to accomodate any of this, you must have a serious and open mind, and have the curiosity, will and urge to learn. And showing your vulnerability, letting all arms fall asking an honest question, makes one very susceptible to new information, and I think that is a very admirable personality trait to be the beholder of, and in my experience that alone can get you very far.

[Anim8tor Cathy]

There's a book about this, "Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics" by Maureen Furniss.

Thanks for mentioning this book, It sounds interesting, I've ordered it on Amazon.

Thanks to everyone else for sharing their insight and wisdom. I really appreciate it and I think I have a better understanding of the subject now.

-Cathy

[idragosani]

Lots of good advice already. Style is something you acquire over a period of time. You can't force it. It just comes naturally as you progress as an artist. If you try too hard to "be like" someone else, it only comes across as imitation. That said, though, style doesn't develop in a vacuum, and it is good for the dwarf to stand on the shoulders of giants. because in the end, the dwarf ends up seeing farther than the giants can, or at least we hope so!

[oliveuk]

ah ah! I am in the same boat here. Quick post during lunch break

I am not an expert in animation styles but I here is the way I am seeing it. Correct me where I am wrong.

I am currently working on a short film at Animation Mentor and after nearly 6 month on it I am still trying to define the style of the animation

My short film is a mess right now as all the shots have a different style to them. The begining starts very naturalistic, CalArt style as John K would say, and most of the end is animated in a Bob Clamplet kind of broad animation with really pushed squash and stretch, loooong smeared frames, character jumping in the air without any respect of gravity laws.

I think it should be fairly easy to find your style by looking at the history of traditional animation.

1930 rubber hose animation
1940 stylised naturalistic Disney kind of motion
1950s limited UPA/Hanna Barberra kind of animation
then you have the broader Bob Clampet, Warner Brother, Tex Avery styles which are the ones I should have done more research into.

In CG you can find most styles. Pixar would be the equivalent of the CalArt/Disney style (it is a generalisation, Disney went through a lot of style throughout the years), Chicken Little/Madagascar would be in line with Warner Brother, Blue Sky "Horton hears a who" would be a florished Warner brother style.

There is a quick interview of Doug Sweetland on AWN.com where he explains that on his short film, Pixar wanted to change style and experiment more with Tex Avery/Warner brother style. He actually defines both styles so that could be an interesting read.
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pag ... 648&page=1 ... can't see the mention of Tex Avery anymore... strange...

[oliveuk]

ah and I asked a Pixar animator some time back (Robert Russ) if the character design could influence the animation style and he said no.... I think he was in a hurry and didn't want to go into too much details. I think, like said above, that the character design does dictates the animation style or at least influences it.