~ Ready for update: Animation Art section ~

Site Discussion Team Discussion
1

If I have time to, I’ll add more but chances are I won’t be able to:

The files are in this folder: www.thundercatslair.org/staff/grizzlor/Dec2006update

my use of square brackets is where I include notes for the html developer who’ll pick this up for me, the text in the brackets should not appear on the site.

  1. Tygra Whipping [Title img]
    Cel/setup [Tygra_whip2.jpeg]
    Pencil/layout [n/a]
    Other [n/a]
    Background [n/a]
    Screencap [Tygra_whip2.bmp] ← needs to be converted to jpeg (sorry I couldn’t figure out how to do this :frowning:

Description: This is a wicked action shot of Tygra from the episode that comes closest to being a full blown extension of the introduction sequence. There is some really cool art in this episode. Cels of the ThunderCats using their weapons are hard to come by, especially nice fluid ones that capture Tygra’s graceful and agile use of his bolo whip.

Episode- 037 - Mechanical Plague [I use the production order for my pages]

Owner - Grizzlor [should be hotlink to my e-mail address grizzlor@thundercatslair.org]

  1. Panthro Unloads [title image]
    Cel/setup [Panthro_working.jpeg]
    Pencil/layout [Panthro_working_pencil.jpeg]
    Other [n/a]
    Background [n/a]
    Screencap [Panthro_working_screencap.bmp] ← needs to be converted to jpeg (sorry I couldn’t figure out how to do this :frowning:

Description: It always seems like Panthro is doing the heavy lifting when there is work to be done. This is one of the first times that Lion-O tries to establish his position as leader of the ThunderCats but Panthro believes that Lion-O is trying to shirk the boring work of unloading the T-Cat spaceship. I think this cel nicely captures Panthro’s general demeanour in the show.

Episode- 002 - The Unholy Alliance [I use the production order for my pages]

Owner - Grizzlor [should be hotlink to my e-mail address grizzlor@thundercatslair.org]

  1. Lion-O and Willa [title image]
    Cel/setup [LionO_Willa_bolo.jpeg]
    Pencil/layout [n/a]
    Other [n/a]
    Background [n/a]
    Screencap [LionO_Willa_bolo_screencap.bmp] ← needs to be converted to jpeg (sorry I couldn’t figure out how to do this :frowning:

Description: One of the impressive aspects of the art in the show is the anatomic correctness in which characters are drawn when moving or sitting naturally. Pay attention to Lion-O’s arm casually resting on his thigh, and Willa’s feet tucked under her as she shows Lion-O the bolo whip that Tygra left behind. Details like the way Lion-O’s boot is creased from the way he is sitting. I was always impressed with the talent of the artists on the show.

Episode- 016 - The Fireballs of Plun-Darr [I use the production order for my pages]

Owner - Grizzlor [should be hotlink to my e-mail address grizzlor@thundercatslair.org]

  1. Mumm-Ra in Kittens Room [title image]
    Cel/setup [MummRa_Kittensroom.jpeg]
    Pencil/layout [n/a]
    Other [MummRa_Kittensroom_cel]
    Background [MummRa_Kittensroom_BG]
    Screencap [MummRa_Kittensroom_screencap.bmp] ← needs to be converted to jpeg (sorry I couldn’t figure out how to do this :frowning:

Description: Full set-up of Mumm-Ra inside the Cats Lair (in the Thunder Kittens room to be exact). The beds that are overturned are on a cel layer, and are not part of the background. As usual, the background is handpainted in oils. I enjoy owning art of the bedrooms of the T-Cats, like the cel of inside Cheetara’s closet. I like the personalization effect it has. Of course, its hard to notice this when Mumm-Ra pulls a Freddy Kreuger on our favourite felines.

Episode- 058 - The Mumm-Ra Berbil [I use the production order for my pages]

Owner - Grizzlor [should be hotlink to my e-mail address grizzlor@thundercatslair.org]

2

Writeup for the animation guide sheets

Title for page: Animation Guide sheets

Summary from Subsection on Production Materials We’re proud to present some excellent examples of the behind the scenes guide/model sheets that were used by the animators to ensure consistency of design across the episodes.

Main writeup Our research indicates that a studio called Pacific Animation Corp did the animation for the show. The concept art and some of these model sheets were likely drawn by people working for Rankin Bass, or potentially a contract studio who worked closely with the folks at RB in America.

You’ll notice that there is Japanese text on many of these sheets. Rankin Bass was one of the first of a handful of major US cartoon studios to work with animators in Japan, Galaxy Rangers was possibly being worked on in Japan before T-Cats.

These guides with the Japanese text were the clearest instructions that the Producers and Writers at RB could share with the Japanese animators. It’s easy to appreciate how closely the two companies must have worked together to make sure that the story and characters developed in the US would turn into the right visual masterpiece that RB had in mind.

TCL.org was contacted by a Taiwanese gentleman named Azuma Windwalker who kindly provided us with these scans. We’ll include more information on ThunderCats in Taiwan in a future update (keep your eyes peeled!)

Apparently Azuma has a contact who worked for a company called Wang Film. He indicated that this company was involved in the production process somehow. It’s not clear what role they may have played, or whether this may have been another name for Pacific Animation Corp, or perhaps a subsidiary studio.

Some of the sheets describe the use of weapons and some of the characteritics of the stars of the show. The writeups are fairly detailed, and the multi angle drawings of the characters in the model sheet are very useful for the artists.

Despite all of the efforts taken to help the artists… they still made mistakes from time to time. Finding the bloopers is fun for the hardcore cartoon fans, and people like me who like to collect cels that include errors and cover ups. There are some great examples of these in the Animation Art Gallery [link].

Hope you enjoy!

3

Well guys that’s probably all I’m going to have time for until I get back in mid-January. I’ll be happy to do a bigger update then when I have more time to search for the matching screencaps.

Cheers,
Mark

4

Chris here…

Mark, not only is this stuff brilliant but it actually helps me a hell of a lot! :slight_smile: I’d been going to contact you to ask what you wanted the section displaying the material from Matt/MannyC and Azuma Windwalker to be called - now I know! :slight_smile:

Here is a mock-up of roughly how the Animation Art section will look when integrated into the new site design - this is still in its rough stage, as Kyle has told me that there are still some tweaks that need to be made: http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoon_trial2/animationart/animationart/index.html

Regarding the Animation Guide sheets, am I correct in thinking that for those, what you would like is for a subsection entitled “Animation Guide sheets” to be added to that menu above, perhaps (if I may make a suggestion) underneath the Original Animation Art Gallery? Is the text quoted above the text you wish to appear on that main index page, underneath the “Animation Guide sheets” heading, or is there a shorter version of the text that you’d prefer us to use for the Animation Art index page? :slight_smile:

My next question is, do you have any comments/suggestions to make regarding the look of that page I linked to above? Kyle & I are going to be discussing these pages (hopefully) this week, so any comments as to your vision of these pages would be very helpful so that he & I can begin work on that. Likewise, Kyle has also re-jigged the community gallery to a design that more closely resembles the screenshot gallery you’ll now find in each Episode Guide page, and I think this looks very cool:

http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoon_trial2/animationart/animationart/gallery.html

Again, what do you think? Lastly, here are two examples of actual gallery pages that Kyle has experimentally redesigned - I’d emphasise that the actual images have not been altered in any way, the only alteration that Kyle has made is changing the blue background of the Flash viewer to white. Again, please could you let us know your thoughts on this? Many thanks! :slight_smile:

http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoon_trial2/animationart/animationart/gallery/1/index.html
http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/cartoon_trial2/animationart/animationart/gallery/2/index.html

Take care… :slight_smile:

5

K i have a lot of comments here…

  1. http://www.thundercatslair.org/carto...art/index.html

I don’t like how things are aligned in the center, I preferred the left align and “box” format that we currently use. This central alignment seems to happen on most of the pages you guys have mocked up here.

I also like the tagline that is on the current version of the site “Showcasing and Explaining the Animation Art Process.” … could we bring that back?

The Graphic to the community gallery should be a hotlink, with the ever helpful “SEE THE COMMUNITY GALLERY HERE” line (also a hotlink) directly below…

Regarding the Animation Guide sheets, am I correct in thinking that for those, what you would like is for a subsection entitled “Animation Guide sheets” to be added to that menu above, perhaps (if I may make a suggestion) underneath the Original Animation Art Gallery? Is the text quoted above the text you wish to appear on that main index page, underneath the “Animation Guide sheets” heading, or is there a shorter version of the text that you’d prefer us to use for the Animation Art index page

I would prefer to have a subsection called ‘Production Materials’
This subsection would be split into:
a) Animation Guide Sheets
b) Storyboards (to come much later)
c) Scripts (although this is optional and perhaps better belongs in another cartoon section)
d) Pilot Materials [move from Features Section] (seems like the Special Features section has died on our current version of the site… can someone point me to where we’re keeping this stuff?)
e) Concept art [also had some of this in the Features Section]

So let’s remove the special features section, seeings as that I doubt I’ll have time to update it as regularly as originally planned.

Now some of these items (the best of them) may make their way into the main gallery from time to time. But that won’t mess with the integrity of the section overall.

  1. http://www.thundercatslair.org/carto...t/gallery.html

I’m happy with this page. Same comment though on the central alignment… looks goofy IMO

  1. http://www.thundercatslair.org/carto...y/1/index.html
    http://www.thundercatslair.org/carto...y/2/index.html

These are basically okay… again same comment on the alignment… if that is fixed I think its in good shape.

My concern on losing the blue box is this: It no longer looks like a viewer for one thing. Second is that many of the cels are scanned against a white background, which makes the image bleed into the rest of the page. These are the reasons Manny and I chose to include the blue boarder. Now I know it was a bit of a pain for him to do the settings on each image to make sure they all fit in the boarder, but I really like the way it worked. The alternative would be for me to rescan all my cels against a black background, but this is a REAL time eater for me. Each scan takes me about 5-10 minutes to scan, crop, resize, name, save, upload etc. And I need to wait for people to leave work so that I can use the company scanner which is a pain too. This still wouldn’t solve the problem of the pencil sheets which are white also.

Can you guys think about this one for me? If you feel its way out of whack to keep the blue boarder then I’m fine with this revised format. But if its something that can be done, my preference is to keep it.

I expect to add another 20 cels to the gallery in 2007, just as an indicator of volume of work on this part… that could be up to 80 images

Note that these headings on the individual cel pages are supposed to be on the same lines ie:

Episode: 001 - Exodus

Owner: Grizzlor (with hotlink to my e-mail addy)

6

Writeup for the Production Materials subsection

Summary for Main Animation Art page We’ve gone to incredible lengths and great expense to bring you some amazing examples of the materials used behind the scenes to pull together the ThunderCats cartoon. Prepare to be wowed!

full writeup
Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of a Cartoon production? Well for one thing there is a whole heck of a lot of work that we the fans never got to see. When you think of a behind the scenes featurette for a movie though you’d be surprised to note that there are a lot of similarities between how a Cartoon like ThunderCats was produced and how an Episode of Star Wars is put together.

For example, each episode has a fully developed script, a whole stack of storyboarding, an editing process, concept art. There are (voice) actors and errors made (not all of which get caught) and bloopers caught on tape!

This section will introduce you to some of the really cool and interesting work that was done, but that until now you probably have never seen. Our selection of Animator Guide sheets and Model sheets is quite stunning. We’ll be adding storyboards as they are sourced which gives some insight to the creative process and the vision that leads to how a scene finally played out on screen. And of course, there is the awesome and exclusive copy of the early draft Pilot Materials. Stay a while and enjoy.

7

Chris here…

Many thanks for these comments, Mark - this helps Kyle & I to know what we’re doing regarding this section, and I’ll make sure he sees your comments! :slight_smile:

Re: the pilot materials and everything that was in the Special Features section - when MannyF moved this site to the new host, as I understand it these mysteriously vanished, and when he looked in your folder he couldn’t find them (?). I have no clue where they are, but did look for them in the staff directories and couldn’t find them. Do you have the scans saved/uploaded anywhere else? It really bugs me that these cool features are missing from the site, and I’m sure you’ll feel the same! :frowning:

Lastly, I was just wondering whether you had any plans to use these as part of the Animation Art section, for either this or a future update:

http://www.themysteriouscitiesofgold.com/misc/clr_vs_bw_models.jpg

http://www.themysteriouscitiesofgold.com/misc/ep65_c10.jpg

These are the images that I keep referencing that were donated to us back in March, that we were unable to add due to your absence. :slight_smile: Obviously this is entirely your call, but given that we’ve sat on these for 7 months now I kind-of wonder whether it looks a bit (for want of a better word) ungrateful if we don’t use them? Anyways, like I say this is completely your call, and hope you don’t mind me reminding you about this. :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

8

That’s okay I’m sure have that stuff saved somewhere, I’ll try to upload them today.

As for these images you just posted, I know the owner of them quite well and I’ll make sure he doesn’t feel snubbed. He had a great selection of model sheets, but sold them all to aewsmith… so I don’t want to display materials that he no longer owns.

And aewsmith is somewhat of a character… someone I’ll only have the energy to deal with in the new year perhaps.

The last image you have here is called a timing sheet, I’m going to see if Jason (the guys who sent these in) can get us better scans, but that is a piece I want to put in the Production materials section.

9

K… found them… all uploaded to www.thundercatslair.org/staff/grizzlor/features

We still have the Pilot Materials under the top banner section for “Features”… but I’d like to move the Pilot Materials into the Animation Art section now… it’s been in the Features section long enough methinks.

I’d also like to have this writeup put up before the viewer starts:

Title Early draft Pilot Materials

Summary from main Production Materials Page
This is probably as close to a series bible as we’ll get! There some amazing concept drawings of characters, locations, and vehicles! You saw pieces of these pages in the ThunderCats DVD – now you can see everything…only on TCL.ORG

Full writeup [to appear on the page just before the viewer starts]
These photocopies were sold recently by an ex-Rankin Bass employee who kept what appears to be a very early draft of a pitch for a Thundercats pilot episode. They are photocopies of original concept art, model sheets, layout drawings and a writeup that explains the story of Exodus. There are some remarkable differences between the characters that are drawn here and the final product that made it onto screen. For example, Panthro is completely black, as opposed to the ash grey colour of his flesh in the show. He was literally to have been a black panther. Notice the character at the back right, it is a much younger appearing version of Jaga, and the Thunderkittens are not present either… nor is Snarf. This exclusive glimpse at a rougher version of the show offers cool insight into some of the evolution of the characters and concepts.

10

Chris here…

That’s fair comment, I can understand that - I’m sure ultimately that will end up happening to me with the Original Comic Art Gallery in the Comic Section too! :slight_smile:

That all sounds cool, I just didn’t want these pieces to get overlooked with everything that’s happening - I’ll leave it all in your capable hands, Mark! :wink:

Take care… :slight_smile:

11

Okay thats cool… sounds like that’s me all done for the year then folks… I’ll be back in mid January and will probably be active on the site again by the 3rd/4th week of Jan.

Have a BRILLIANT Christmas and holiday season everyone. Take care of you and yours.

Good luck with the update, I look forward to seeing the final result.

If you guys need to make any executive decisions on my section while I’m away, I’ll trust it with you… just give me the option to make retrofit changes and I’ll be happy I’m sure.

Thanks as always…

Grizz

12

Hey Gang, just checking in to see if these animation art pages are all done up in html yet, and if I can see them before the update goes live?

My internet connection is spotty at best here, but I should be able to review the look and formatting etc.

Thanks!
Grizz

13

I’m not entirely sure if the Animation Art pieces have been done since everyone has been super busy lately. I know the cartoon section has been worked on a great deal by Chris, but I’m not sure he has had the time or know how to set up any new Animation Art pages.

But like I said, I could be wrong because I don’t know full details of what has been worked on and what hasn’t.

14

Chris here…

You’re bang on the money, Neil - I don’t have the ability to transfer and update the Animation Art Section, so I’ve left this to Kyle. Unfortunately he’s had to spend a large number of hours modifying the header on the pages we’ve been creating due to the navigation bar error that you pointed out, Neil, and so consequently he’s having to catch up now. I know he plans to get on the Animation Art side of things ASAP, that’s about as much as I can say. :slight_smile:

As far as the site status in general goes - at the moment I am working my balls off to try and get as much done as I can in time for New Year’s Day, I’ll be honest and say I’m finding it very stressful. :frowning: My HTML inexperience betrays me a lot of the time - believe it or not, I actually find it harder transferring pre-existing pages from the old site template to the new one than I find creating new pages from scratch!

I’ve left Kyle with the tasks of handling the French Encyclopedia transfer, the Treasures of Thundera transfer (which I believe he has now completed), and the Animation Art transfer and update - I’m sure if he can get these done in time he will, unfortunately these are too complicated for me to handle with my HTML knowledge and software… :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

15

Kyle, could you focus in on posts #2 and #9 for some of the work that needs to be done under the “production materials” sub section

The Guidebook Animation Sheets that are referred to can be found here:

http://www.thundercatslair.org/staff/Cartoon%20Section/WIP/Chris/Thundercats%20Guidebook/Thundercats%20Guidebook/

The pages are looking great by the way, the left align is working on every page except the text at the top of:
http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/animationart/gallery.html

Thanks,
Mark

16

Kyle, just an FYI, i thought I’d start posting our update discussions here so that they’re easier to reference. So let me know if you have any questions as you go.

Thanks
Mark

17

Cheers Mark, I have been away the past 3 days staying with friends.. so haven’t had access to my resouces. I have some important things going on in the next few days. As soon as I can get back on this I will.

Kyle

18

Hey all I don’t mean to intrude in the discussion, but I just wanted to let Kyle know that I’ve found the Animation Art Features in my external HD. I just wanted to make sure with Mark that the only feature in that subsection was the Pilot Materials. If that’s correct, then I’ll upload it ASAP.

19

There was that and a feature on concept art (possibly for the toys)… I think I have the concept one somewhere, but Manny please go ahead and upload what you found.

Cheers,
Mark

also, I PM’s you about a new password for the ftp.

Thanks

20

Ahh geez, Mark how could I forget the concept art that was for what I think supposed to be used for the toys. I think I will add those two pages; Top Spinner and Fistpounder to the prototype toy art section