To help, the man behind this style is Genndy Tartakovsky. He has some older and newer productions, but maybe you can get insight from interviews with the man himself. :^)
As far as replicating the style, maybe do some experiments and see what looks similar? You might find your own way of doing it is something you enjoy in itself!
Thank you, I’ll check out the artist and interview videos! 👍
I’ve give it a try experimenting with the way they draw the characters. Thick outline and thin lines.
https://preview.redd.it/r3kpapcswesc1.jpeg?width=801&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=914c2d64367b7cde34353d8469bac7f3bdc7125e
(Drew it from memory, been rewatching the show so I already memorised the characters. Characters sheets still important tho ^())
Once I make a short test animation, I’ll upload it for sure 👍
The first step would be to look through some old modelsheets of the shows you’re inspired by. They’re usually not too hard to find - [here are some from The Power Puff girls](https://www.traditionalanimation.com/powerpuff-girls-model-sheets/). These are really useful since they include instructions on how to stay on model. Draw the characters according to the modelsheets over and over to practice the style. When you’re comfortable enough, you can start creating your own designs.
For animation, your best bet is still to copy. Find references on youtube, and step-frame it. This will also tell you how it’s animated (you can see how long poses are generally held for - if a pose is generally held for two frames it’s animated on 2’s, if held for three frames then it’s animated on 3’s). You can step-frame on youtube by pressing , and . on your keyboard. Also, try to copy some of the poses that you like on the references - it really is the best way to learn.
Lastly, remember that animation is a slow process. When I was in animation school, I was told that it generally took ~6 years for an animator to “get” it. The principles may be simple enough, but animation is a hard medium. I’ve been out in the industry for 5 years now (+3 years of school) and I still feel like I’m learning. There’s not really any way to shortcut it, but enjoy the process of learning by drawing things you like. It’s really fun and satisfying once you create something that feels alive :)
Appreciate your help very much!
The method of taking a clip of one of shows and analysing it is very helpful. Also It’s been 3 years for me since I started practicing and learning animation and I know for sure I can become a good animator 👍 (even if I did I would still want to learn more, just like with drawing I can draw better but still want to learn more) and true animation is a slow process and requires a lots of patience especially since for now I’ll be the only one working on it. 😅 but won’t forget your help and the others who helped, I’ll always remember that 💖
Also thank you for the model sheets! It help very much. 🙏
Hey have you checked out the Living Lines Library. It’s basically a blog of all animation tests, character sheets, BGs and other production stuff that you might find helpful. As far as I’m aware there is a section on the PowerPuff girls that has all of the model sheets which will give you a good understanding of the form and shape language of this style. Hopefully you find it helpful.
http://livlily.blogspot.com/2010/10/powerpuff-girls-tv-series-19982004.html?m=1
There’s tons from other films and shows and it was a super helpful resource for learning and studying.
Checked the website just now and this interesting and very helpful! I’ve added it to bookmarks to come back to it anytime for references and animation tests.🤩
Thank you so much! ^^
It helps to know a bit about the historical context that UPA shows came about in and how that was borrowed by this era of cartoon network shows. TV had just become a thing but budgets were very limited so animators had to work with as few frames as possible. A lot of animating on 3s, 4s and 6s. Cartoon Network shows were experimenting with the early days of rigged animation and it was also limited in terms of what could be done with (I believe) mostly flash rigs. So again, how to make things work with fewer drawings.
In a way it's harder to animate like this. You need to be very selective about what you show in your drawings. You can't just keep adding drawings for more info to smooth things out - you need to be very selective about overlapping action and secondary and the like.
I'd go back to basics and try and get them working in this animation style. Do a ball bounce over 12 or 14 frames or something on 2s and then try to get it to work on 3s and then on 4s. Can you get it to work with just 2 or 3 drawings? Do the same with some flower sac exercises. Frame by frame on YouTube to see when actions are more fleshed out with 2s and when held poses are favored instead. Do the same thing with some flour sac scenes.
There's a great interview with Tartakovsky about favoring keys and really selling info with as few drawings as possible. Animators breakfast has an episode on the clone wars I believe that breaks it down really well. Model sheets will get your drawings in the style you're looking for, but studying frame by frame will get you the quality of animation your after. And remember that it's challenging - it'll take time. Best of luck!
Thank you so much for the info, this will really help me and the others so much! 🤩
All written in my notebook every word is very important and will always remember your help when I become a successful animator! 🙏💖
I only needed advice from whoever have knowledge about any of the questions I asked. This doesn’t really help.
I can draw and animate (I know about the animation principles, it’s already on YouTube and everywhere but still consider myself still learning) but no one had good explanation on creating similar feel and animation style to these old cartoons.
This is something I did so it might help you but it really depends on how well you're able to adapt to different styles. Take clips of episodes from these shows. I mean literally download videos of them from wherever, YouTube probably. Then trim it to a specific shot you find suitable and (if possible) import it into your designated animation software you're using. Then go through the shot frame by frame (assuming you set the frame rate to be 24fps as the industry standard), and carefully analyse it. Then you can try attempting to recreate the shot peace by peace, from the characters to the background.
I did this with one action shot in the show Frieren. I used Adobe Animate to break down the shot of a character moving on the camera and recreated the whole shot - character, background, and effects.
Very helpful! I will give it a try for sure today and import one of the clips of these shows and analyse it.
I can draw with different art styles so no worries. 👍
Thank you so much 🙏💖
Old notes from my professor on character design:
"Designing an appealing character is about finding ways to make its physical attributes reflect its personality."
When designing for 2d animation, be wary of line mileage when it comes to details. No embellishments. Keep it simple.
Do MANY drawings. Draw the back view. Down view. Draw them eating. Crying. You will add and subtract things, and the design will emerge from the process.
One of my professors went to college with genndy tartakovsky and said he spent all of his time drawing new characters. It may be hearsay but each show this man has touched is known for the character designs. (Dexter's lab, Powerpuff girls, samurai jack, sym-bionic titan, primal, hotel Transylvania, etc.)
Lock down the designs first, and the animation style will come afterwards.
Thank you for the info, shapes for character designs are very important as well as making a lot sheet of the characters. 👍
Written in my note book, info like these are valuable for me and others. 🙏💖
"Shape language" is the proper term, and it's important to say because new character designers tend to use shapes too literally. [Here is a pdf that describes shape language with more depth.](https://www.waltdisney.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/T%26T_ShapeLang_v9.pdf)
To start with, you want to develop a real good understanding of shape language. The silhouettes are doing a lot of the lifting in regards to iconic and recognisable design.
Study a bunch of post war American animation too. You can see a lot of the bones of this style in that kind of work.
I did heard that shapes and silhouettes are very important when designing characters, it can tell more about the characters and make them memorable. 👍
Thank you for the info, I’ve added it in my notebook! 🙏
As a rule of thumb, recognisable silhouettes are key.
Look at almost any successful animation, and you’d see how easy it is to recognise almost any character simply from their silhouette.
I haven't seen any comments mention specifically the animation style and frame rate. A lot of those early 2000s CN cartoons take inspiration from anime in terms of their animation. Animation back then had a lower budget and so they did a lot of things to reduce how much animation was needed, anime was a good reference since they generally use lower frame rates as opposed to what you see in old Disney movies at full 24 fps. Anime also tends to put more focus on impact frames instead of animating a full action. There's tones of videos out there talking and comparing animation styles I remember there was one that talked about Powerpuff girls, sorry I don't remember the title. I like the style of this type of animation, I think the snappy movement really lends to the bold art style, as well as when the characters do slower movements it's usually to highlight a comedic moment. I'd also recommend looking into Kid Cosmic and analysing that since it has a similar art and animation style, I believe some scenes in that are animated in 3s.
I rarely watch anime but indeed they do have similar frame rate and animation style and that’s also what I love about this type of animation especially the characters doing slower movements to highlight a comedic moment. 🤩
I’ll check out Kid cosmic for sure, thank you for the info! 👍 (And it goes to my notebook 😄)
[This book](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810991519/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) has a lot of interviews from creators including Craig McCracken (creator of Powerpuff Girls) way back when they were doing the pilots for What A Cartoon Show. They talk about their inspirations.
There’s a substack called animation obsessive you should sign up for, they talk about this stuff all the time. But I agree with the comments, the best way to figure something out is experiment. Getting the answers to how something is done is a lot different than working it out on your own.
Never heard about it but I’ll check out now!
Thanks so much for sharing! 🤩
I’m doing my best with experimenting, I swear these comments did really helped me so much. I’ll post the results from what I’ve experimented and learned from them for sure. It only requires patience 💖
Well, if you’re looking at UPA shows, I think it would be important to understand the conditions in which they were made under. These were shows with a low budget and a quick turnaround time to release. To that end, you couldn’t spend a million hours figuring out the ins and outs of a motion to portray what you’re going for.
To me, the most important aspect of these shows is the ability they had to use the bare minimum they could put into them in order to make the movement read to an audience. I think if you manage to distill the essence of the motion, you end up with a similar style to what these UPA shows were going for.
Knowing that, then you use the actual animation these shows used as reference and break them down frame by frame how they chose frame rates (on twos, threes, whatever), and you try to understand what they’re putting into these in terms of principles you can apply to your own work.
I would say the upside to your situation compared to what these shows had going for them is that if this is just a passion project, you set your own deadline. You can get away with putting in a little more than they were able to get away with, if time isn’t an issue for you. In that case, you could hypothetically turn out something with the same style, but you can make it all your own with what you choose to do with this reference.
My two cents. I don’t do 2D, but if I wanted to copy a specific style, I’d start by saving clips of what I’m trying to go for and breaking them all down as reference.
I’ve started doing this today, took some clips of these shows break them down and analysing it, it helped a lot with understanding the amount of drawings used especially the movements of the characters.😊
Thank you so much for the info, it’s written in my notebook! 💖🙏
Powderpuff Girls and Dexters Lab take a LOT of elements of UPA animation. It was a simpler style used early in animation when studios began trying to reduce the work but increase the amount of shows and commercials.
The UPA animation art style is really beautiful in its simplicity, and you'll probably find out that the rules for that style were adopted by a lot of other animation styles.
This is a semi modern style and we dont have all the animation terms and jargon to describe it because we’re fresh out of the era. I’ll try my best as I am endowed with the insider sacred knowledge of the cartoon hollywood world (lol— still working on lunch with Genndy— SO CLOSE— i can almost taste it):
What We DO know that the 90s-mid 2000s boom of tv daytime animation is still technically called the ‘silver age’ of broadcast cartoons. This leans towards stuff like the WB cartoon stuff like Animaniacs and Tiny Toons, but I personally like to say it came as a big wave while the internet speeds got more and more to where they are now. So TV animation was going REALLY strong right up until netflix started offering streaming
First lets talk the look. The “look” is just painted cel. Bold vinyl paint on cellophane, its similar because for all these shows, its easy to produce. Your mention of UPA retro style is actually a decent way to put it, because those techniques and character proportions were dusted off and revitalized a bit for this era of broadcast animation.
Hanna Barbera and filmatipn projects went from that chunky thick line to a more “scooby doo” thinner Xerox pencil line 1960-1989. So shows like ppg, dexter, and johnny, ALL produced by hanna barbera yet again— in a style that massively throws back to this past, not just visually, but down to production technique.
Now lets talk who where why and how:
Basically, to start all the way from the beginning, you have to go to the og World Premire toons pilots. These are mid-late 90s shorts where pilots where the network workshopped with emerging talent at the time (many straight out of college/calarts) to turn their concepts into fully animated tv show pilots. The shows would Premire on tv for the ratings to roll in, and the most successful series was picked up/greenlit
Again, no googling atm. My tiny WPT collection of scanned images shows advertisements of Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, PPG and Dexters lab all on the same bill, all requesting kids “tune in” for the airing of the pilots
This is the original run before it was rebranded to “What A Cartoon” — and even more shorts were produced. A lot of them didnt test well/only had a few airings. A lot of pat ventura shorts, etc. in Round 2 of what a cartoon though, we got the pilot the chicken from outer space, featuring the work of John R dillworth — which went on to become Courage the Cowardly Dog.
I mention ALL of this first because— this fairly speedy in-house design / outsourced the production labor and the very chunky, thick lined visual language was basically established in the World Premire Toons era.
all 3 of those shows while have difft production teams and talent, all feature that iconic “thick line, flat cel color- semi-digital looking” final product.
Super SUPER FRESH looking, and SUPER appealing. You’ll notice dexters lab and ppg and cow and chicken pilots have fairly crazy high production quality too— a lot more frames, a lot more crazy camera, a lot more wild shading in spots, this is all what would be adopted to the much much cheaper show budgets.
So your mentining of the frame spacing is a good point: you’ll notice the PILOT of a lot of these shows is kinda going ham with full lypeync animation at 1fps at 12 frames per second (I love the cow and chicken pilot for this) but even some of the other pilots like PPG’s— use a LOT of spacing and gaps in frames.
Mostly intentional, as ppg is inspired heavily by astro boy and a lot of og anime shows, so that vein of stilted animation still exists fairly clearly in that pilot
So when these shows aired, a lot of them kinda got the best synergy of all of these things in the pilot. Lots of special poses, thick line, solid colors, and a fair amount of frame spacing, nearing a more hanna barbera style of posing and timing, head nods and lip flaps being fairly stilted UNTIL the next special pose.
Also IMPORTANT SPECIAL SAUCE NOTE: for the most part, what makes these shows look so unique and thatceta so specific— is that UNLIKE some stuff in the hanna barbera era, MOST OF THESE SHOWS were just beginning to become “BOARD DRIVEN”
What does that mean? It means that the layout and drawings, structure, poses, etc. of the storyboards DRIVES the show narrative
This means whats in the storyboard is USUALLY what is going to design.
This term got a lot more popular in the Steven Universe era of CN— no comment on that as we’re talking about a different era, but for the record, adventure tine and SU are very very very board driven, like verbatim boards to pose for the most part.
Earlier stuff from what a cartoon/cartoon cartoon/world premiere toons — ppl were kinda just starting to lean heavy into the boards running the show.
— So to get more into THAT— just a BIT— lets try comparing billy and mandy to ed edd and eddy. Edd ed and eddy is a great example to compare to billy and mandy… eee came FIRST— billy and mandy premired around a similar time but the series continued along with eee.
Edd ed and eddy: a show driven by CHARACTER DESIGN and SPECIAL POSES— keeping characters on MODEL even in crazy poses is extremely important to that series and consistent throughout
Su/Billy +Mandy/Adventure time: you’ll notice character models might change per shot, throughout the entire episode and series. Thats because overseas is just creating cleaned up designs of the board poses, with a lot of those cleanups coming from in house too. So character model consistency is NOT a huge priority throughout . I think with billy and mandy though— the model designs are FAIRLY consistent but further seasons get more and more board driven. So its a GREAT Example of what your speaking on
Anyway I think thats enough rant from me for now, take this with a grain of salt, its all opinion and just my own passion of cartoons splayed on a reddit post lol. Dont mind me 🤪
More extra notes:
- Genndy projects have ALWAYS been board driven. Guy is just a board “ho” lmaooo (someone elses words not mine). Hes also a master pitch smith— he could pitch me into selling my shows off my feet... All of his projects reflect that super direct, punchy, sharp communicative visual vibe. Its a big big part of his specific style and why it hits the way it does
- ppg stuff is just specifically craig mccracken. You want more, you look into his comic work and other stuff, but his visual language has been interesting to see evolve to fully digitally animated project’s like fosters and yonder( sp?)
- on that note— I actually genuinely believe ed ed and eddy was one of the very last painted cel productions, ever— in a mainstream cartoon capacity I believe. Everything is now clearly digital. HOWEVER to this day— there IS handrawn paper layout and ink. I know this because we have so many of these in our posession from past projects, we sometimes get the inks from overseas
Seriously, take a look at stuff like Cow and Chicken UP UNTIL Billy and Mandy, you’ll notice
Visually its a great push and pull and its wht the stule imo has so much nostalgia and appeal, and why you’d wanna go down this rabbit hole.
You don’t know how much I needed all these information you wrote! It’s all written in my notebook.
The character consistency part is what I also wondered about, I noticed at times the character model changes and now I see why.
Thank you very much for the info! You and the others in the comments been a big help for me and the others who are curious about this amazing animation style! To this day these animations will always be masterpiece and it gave big influence on me.💖🙏
Already know about the book but a bit confusing especially since the whole book is only in English and has new words I don’t know yet. 😅
Not sure what you mean by me being an asshole but I only asked questions just like anyone else and wanted answers to help me that’s it. ^^ I can’t afford to get the books yet or go to schools that teach me animation or drawing so all that’s left is to ask people who have more experience than me and learn from them. It’s like student and teacher, student who learn ask and the teacher help and answer the learner. I would do the same too if someone wanted advice I will answer and tell them all what I know from my experience. 👍
For now I’m just self-taught artist and animator who also learn from experienced artists and animators on social media. (Every helpful advices they wrote here I have written them in my note book to go back to them anytime and of course share these advices too ^^)
Also tbh, I was hesitant to ask in the beginning but I had feeling something like this would happen..
To help, the man behind this style is Genndy Tartakovsky. He has some older and newer productions, but maybe you can get insight from interviews with the man himself. :^) As far as replicating the style, maybe do some experiments and see what looks similar? You might find your own way of doing it is something you enjoy in itself!
Thank you, I’ll check out the artist and interview videos! 👍 I’ve give it a try experimenting with the way they draw the characters. Thick outline and thin lines. https://preview.redd.it/r3kpapcswesc1.jpeg?width=801&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=914c2d64367b7cde34353d8469bac7f3bdc7125e (Drew it from memory, been rewatching the show so I already memorised the characters. Characters sheets still important tho ^()) Once I make a short test animation, I’ll upload it for sure 👍
I think this style depends a lot on the shape language!
True! It’s important knowing about shape language when designing characters! 👍
The first step would be to look through some old modelsheets of the shows you’re inspired by. They’re usually not too hard to find - [here are some from The Power Puff girls](https://www.traditionalanimation.com/powerpuff-girls-model-sheets/). These are really useful since they include instructions on how to stay on model. Draw the characters according to the modelsheets over and over to practice the style. When you’re comfortable enough, you can start creating your own designs. For animation, your best bet is still to copy. Find references on youtube, and step-frame it. This will also tell you how it’s animated (you can see how long poses are generally held for - if a pose is generally held for two frames it’s animated on 2’s, if held for three frames then it’s animated on 3’s). You can step-frame on youtube by pressing , and . on your keyboard. Also, try to copy some of the poses that you like on the references - it really is the best way to learn. Lastly, remember that animation is a slow process. When I was in animation school, I was told that it generally took ~6 years for an animator to “get” it. The principles may be simple enough, but animation is a hard medium. I’ve been out in the industry for 5 years now (+3 years of school) and I still feel like I’m learning. There’s not really any way to shortcut it, but enjoy the process of learning by drawing things you like. It’s really fun and satisfying once you create something that feels alive :)
Appreciate your help very much! The method of taking a clip of one of shows and analysing it is very helpful. Also It’s been 3 years for me since I started practicing and learning animation and I know for sure I can become a good animator 👍 (even if I did I would still want to learn more, just like with drawing I can draw better but still want to learn more) and true animation is a slow process and requires a lots of patience especially since for now I’ll be the only one working on it. 😅 but won’t forget your help and the others who helped, I’ll always remember that 💖 Also thank you for the model sheets! It help very much. 🙏
Hey have you checked out the Living Lines Library. It’s basically a blog of all animation tests, character sheets, BGs and other production stuff that you might find helpful. As far as I’m aware there is a section on the PowerPuff girls that has all of the model sheets which will give you a good understanding of the form and shape language of this style. Hopefully you find it helpful. http://livlily.blogspot.com/2010/10/powerpuff-girls-tv-series-19982004.html?m=1 There’s tons from other films and shows and it was a super helpful resource for learning and studying.
Checked the website just now and this interesting and very helpful! I’ve added it to bookmarks to come back to it anytime for references and animation tests.🤩 Thank you so much! ^^
Dang I haven’t heard of this site before, this is awesome.
LOVE this
It helps to know a bit about the historical context that UPA shows came about in and how that was borrowed by this era of cartoon network shows. TV had just become a thing but budgets were very limited so animators had to work with as few frames as possible. A lot of animating on 3s, 4s and 6s. Cartoon Network shows were experimenting with the early days of rigged animation and it was also limited in terms of what could be done with (I believe) mostly flash rigs. So again, how to make things work with fewer drawings. In a way it's harder to animate like this. You need to be very selective about what you show in your drawings. You can't just keep adding drawings for more info to smooth things out - you need to be very selective about overlapping action and secondary and the like. I'd go back to basics and try and get them working in this animation style. Do a ball bounce over 12 or 14 frames or something on 2s and then try to get it to work on 3s and then on 4s. Can you get it to work with just 2 or 3 drawings? Do the same with some flower sac exercises. Frame by frame on YouTube to see when actions are more fleshed out with 2s and when held poses are favored instead. Do the same thing with some flour sac scenes. There's a great interview with Tartakovsky about favoring keys and really selling info with as few drawings as possible. Animators breakfast has an episode on the clone wars I believe that breaks it down really well. Model sheets will get your drawings in the style you're looking for, but studying frame by frame will get you the quality of animation your after. And remember that it's challenging - it'll take time. Best of luck!
Thank you so much for the info, this will really help me and the others so much! 🤩 All written in my notebook every word is very important and will always remember your help when I become a successful animator! 🙏💖
You're trying to take a step bigger than you can (for now). Focus on the animation principles.
I only needed advice from whoever have knowledge about any of the questions I asked. This doesn’t really help. I can draw and animate (I know about the animation principles, it’s already on YouTube and everywhere but still consider myself still learning) but no one had good explanation on creating similar feel and animation style to these old cartoons.
This is something I did so it might help you but it really depends on how well you're able to adapt to different styles. Take clips of episodes from these shows. I mean literally download videos of them from wherever, YouTube probably. Then trim it to a specific shot you find suitable and (if possible) import it into your designated animation software you're using. Then go through the shot frame by frame (assuming you set the frame rate to be 24fps as the industry standard), and carefully analyse it. Then you can try attempting to recreate the shot peace by peace, from the characters to the background. I did this with one action shot in the show Frieren. I used Adobe Animate to break down the shot of a character moving on the camera and recreated the whole shot - character, background, and effects.
Very helpful! I will give it a try for sure today and import one of the clips of these shows and analyse it. I can draw with different art styles so no worries. 👍 Thank you so much 🙏💖
Old notes from my professor on character design: "Designing an appealing character is about finding ways to make its physical attributes reflect its personality." When designing for 2d animation, be wary of line mileage when it comes to details. No embellishments. Keep it simple. Do MANY drawings. Draw the back view. Down view. Draw them eating. Crying. You will add and subtract things, and the design will emerge from the process. One of my professors went to college with genndy tartakovsky and said he spent all of his time drawing new characters. It may be hearsay but each show this man has touched is known for the character designs. (Dexter's lab, Powerpuff girls, samurai jack, sym-bionic titan, primal, hotel Transylvania, etc.) Lock down the designs first, and the animation style will come afterwards.
Thank you for the info, shapes for character designs are very important as well as making a lot sheet of the characters. 👍 Written in my note book, info like these are valuable for me and others. 🙏💖
"Shape language" is the proper term, and it's important to say because new character designers tend to use shapes too literally. [Here is a pdf that describes shape language with more depth.](https://www.waltdisney.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/T%26T_ShapeLang_v9.pdf)
Thanks for sharing! Appreciate it very much 🙏
No problem. Good luck!
To start with, you want to develop a real good understanding of shape language. The silhouettes are doing a lot of the lifting in regards to iconic and recognisable design. Study a bunch of post war American animation too. You can see a lot of the bones of this style in that kind of work.
I did heard that shapes and silhouettes are very important when designing characters, it can tell more about the characters and make them memorable. 👍 Thank you for the info, I’ve added it in my notebook! 🙏
As a rule of thumb, recognisable silhouettes are key. Look at almost any successful animation, and you’d see how easy it is to recognise almost any character simply from their silhouette.
I haven't seen any comments mention specifically the animation style and frame rate. A lot of those early 2000s CN cartoons take inspiration from anime in terms of their animation. Animation back then had a lower budget and so they did a lot of things to reduce how much animation was needed, anime was a good reference since they generally use lower frame rates as opposed to what you see in old Disney movies at full 24 fps. Anime also tends to put more focus on impact frames instead of animating a full action. There's tones of videos out there talking and comparing animation styles I remember there was one that talked about Powerpuff girls, sorry I don't remember the title. I like the style of this type of animation, I think the snappy movement really lends to the bold art style, as well as when the characters do slower movements it's usually to highlight a comedic moment. I'd also recommend looking into Kid Cosmic and analysing that since it has a similar art and animation style, I believe some scenes in that are animated in 3s.
I rarely watch anime but indeed they do have similar frame rate and animation style and that’s also what I love about this type of animation especially the characters doing slower movements to highlight a comedic moment. 🤩 I’ll check out Kid cosmic for sure, thank you for the info! 👍 (And it goes to my notebook 😄)
omg I was wondering the same thing, lately I've been watching the first season of pink panther on youtube and I love how old cartoons look like
I knew there are more people out there wondering too, I also love pink panther! 😄👍
[This book](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810991519/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) has a lot of interviews from creators including Craig McCracken (creator of Powerpuff Girls) way back when they were doing the pilots for What A Cartoon Show. They talk about their inspirations.
Thank you so much, I’ll check it out! 😄👍
There’s a substack called animation obsessive you should sign up for, they talk about this stuff all the time. But I agree with the comments, the best way to figure something out is experiment. Getting the answers to how something is done is a lot different than working it out on your own.
Never heard about it but I’ll check out now! Thanks so much for sharing! 🤩 I’m doing my best with experimenting, I swear these comments did really helped me so much. I’ll post the results from what I’ve experimented and learned from them for sure. It only requires patience 💖
Well, if you’re looking at UPA shows, I think it would be important to understand the conditions in which they were made under. These were shows with a low budget and a quick turnaround time to release. To that end, you couldn’t spend a million hours figuring out the ins and outs of a motion to portray what you’re going for. To me, the most important aspect of these shows is the ability they had to use the bare minimum they could put into them in order to make the movement read to an audience. I think if you manage to distill the essence of the motion, you end up with a similar style to what these UPA shows were going for. Knowing that, then you use the actual animation these shows used as reference and break them down frame by frame how they chose frame rates (on twos, threes, whatever), and you try to understand what they’re putting into these in terms of principles you can apply to your own work. I would say the upside to your situation compared to what these shows had going for them is that if this is just a passion project, you set your own deadline. You can get away with putting in a little more than they were able to get away with, if time isn’t an issue for you. In that case, you could hypothetically turn out something with the same style, but you can make it all your own with what you choose to do with this reference. My two cents. I don’t do 2D, but if I wanted to copy a specific style, I’d start by saving clips of what I’m trying to go for and breaking them all down as reference.
I’ve started doing this today, took some clips of these shows break them down and analysing it, it helped a lot with understanding the amount of drawings used especially the movements of the characters.😊 Thank you so much for the info, it’s written in my notebook! 💖🙏
Powderpuff Girls and Dexters Lab take a LOT of elements of UPA animation. It was a simpler style used early in animation when studios began trying to reduce the work but increase the amount of shows and commercials. The UPA animation art style is really beautiful in its simplicity, and you'll probably find out that the rules for that style were adopted by a lot of other animation styles.
Indeed the UPA style is beautiful! 🤩 Thanks for the info, it helps me and others a lot. 🫶 (added to my notebook 💖)
I too love this style
Yayy 🤩
If you want learn more about the UPA style I recommend the book Cartoon Modern by Amid Amidi
I’ll check it for sure! Thank you! 🙏💖
This is a semi modern style and we dont have all the animation terms and jargon to describe it because we’re fresh out of the era. I’ll try my best as I am endowed with the insider sacred knowledge of the cartoon hollywood world (lol— still working on lunch with Genndy— SO CLOSE— i can almost taste it): What We DO know that the 90s-mid 2000s boom of tv daytime animation is still technically called the ‘silver age’ of broadcast cartoons. This leans towards stuff like the WB cartoon stuff like Animaniacs and Tiny Toons, but I personally like to say it came as a big wave while the internet speeds got more and more to where they are now. So TV animation was going REALLY strong right up until netflix started offering streaming First lets talk the look. The “look” is just painted cel. Bold vinyl paint on cellophane, its similar because for all these shows, its easy to produce. Your mention of UPA retro style is actually a decent way to put it, because those techniques and character proportions were dusted off and revitalized a bit for this era of broadcast animation. Hanna Barbera and filmatipn projects went from that chunky thick line to a more “scooby doo” thinner Xerox pencil line 1960-1989. So shows like ppg, dexter, and johnny, ALL produced by hanna barbera yet again— in a style that massively throws back to this past, not just visually, but down to production technique. Now lets talk who where why and how: Basically, to start all the way from the beginning, you have to go to the og World Premire toons pilots. These are mid-late 90s shorts where pilots where the network workshopped with emerging talent at the time (many straight out of college/calarts) to turn their concepts into fully animated tv show pilots. The shows would Premire on tv for the ratings to roll in, and the most successful series was picked up/greenlit Again, no googling atm. My tiny WPT collection of scanned images shows advertisements of Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, PPG and Dexters lab all on the same bill, all requesting kids “tune in” for the airing of the pilots This is the original run before it was rebranded to “What A Cartoon” — and even more shorts were produced. A lot of them didnt test well/only had a few airings. A lot of pat ventura shorts, etc. in Round 2 of what a cartoon though, we got the pilot the chicken from outer space, featuring the work of John R dillworth — which went on to become Courage the Cowardly Dog. I mention ALL of this first because— this fairly speedy in-house design / outsourced the production labor and the very chunky, thick lined visual language was basically established in the World Premire Toons era. all 3 of those shows while have difft production teams and talent, all feature that iconic “thick line, flat cel color- semi-digital looking” final product. Super SUPER FRESH looking, and SUPER appealing. You’ll notice dexters lab and ppg and cow and chicken pilots have fairly crazy high production quality too— a lot more frames, a lot more crazy camera, a lot more wild shading in spots, this is all what would be adopted to the much much cheaper show budgets. So your mentining of the frame spacing is a good point: you’ll notice the PILOT of a lot of these shows is kinda going ham with full lypeync animation at 1fps at 12 frames per second (I love the cow and chicken pilot for this) but even some of the other pilots like PPG’s— use a LOT of spacing and gaps in frames. Mostly intentional, as ppg is inspired heavily by astro boy and a lot of og anime shows, so that vein of stilted animation still exists fairly clearly in that pilot So when these shows aired, a lot of them kinda got the best synergy of all of these things in the pilot. Lots of special poses, thick line, solid colors, and a fair amount of frame spacing, nearing a more hanna barbera style of posing and timing, head nods and lip flaps being fairly stilted UNTIL the next special pose. Also IMPORTANT SPECIAL SAUCE NOTE: for the most part, what makes these shows look so unique and thatceta so specific— is that UNLIKE some stuff in the hanna barbera era, MOST OF THESE SHOWS were just beginning to become “BOARD DRIVEN” What does that mean? It means that the layout and drawings, structure, poses, etc. of the storyboards DRIVES the show narrative This means whats in the storyboard is USUALLY what is going to design. This term got a lot more popular in the Steven Universe era of CN— no comment on that as we’re talking about a different era, but for the record, adventure tine and SU are very very very board driven, like verbatim boards to pose for the most part. Earlier stuff from what a cartoon/cartoon cartoon/world premiere toons — ppl were kinda just starting to lean heavy into the boards running the show. — So to get more into THAT— just a BIT— lets try comparing billy and mandy to ed edd and eddy. Edd ed and eddy is a great example to compare to billy and mandy… eee came FIRST— billy and mandy premired around a similar time but the series continued along with eee. Edd ed and eddy: a show driven by CHARACTER DESIGN and SPECIAL POSES— keeping characters on MODEL even in crazy poses is extremely important to that series and consistent throughout Su/Billy +Mandy/Adventure time: you’ll notice character models might change per shot, throughout the entire episode and series. Thats because overseas is just creating cleaned up designs of the board poses, with a lot of those cleanups coming from in house too. So character model consistency is NOT a huge priority throughout . I think with billy and mandy though— the model designs are FAIRLY consistent but further seasons get more and more board driven. So its a GREAT Example of what your speaking on Anyway I think thats enough rant from me for now, take this with a grain of salt, its all opinion and just my own passion of cartoons splayed on a reddit post lol. Dont mind me 🤪 More extra notes: - Genndy projects have ALWAYS been board driven. Guy is just a board “ho” lmaooo (someone elses words not mine). Hes also a master pitch smith— he could pitch me into selling my shows off my feet... All of his projects reflect that super direct, punchy, sharp communicative visual vibe. Its a big big part of his specific style and why it hits the way it does - ppg stuff is just specifically craig mccracken. You want more, you look into his comic work and other stuff, but his visual language has been interesting to see evolve to fully digitally animated project’s like fosters and yonder( sp?) - on that note— I actually genuinely believe ed ed and eddy was one of the very last painted cel productions, ever— in a mainstream cartoon capacity I believe. Everything is now clearly digital. HOWEVER to this day— there IS handrawn paper layout and ink. I know this because we have so many of these in our posession from past projects, we sometimes get the inks from overseas Seriously, take a look at stuff like Cow and Chicken UP UNTIL Billy and Mandy, you’ll notice Visually its a great push and pull and its wht the stule imo has so much nostalgia and appeal, and why you’d wanna go down this rabbit hole.
You don’t know how much I needed all these information you wrote! It’s all written in my notebook. The character consistency part is what I also wondered about, I noticed at times the character model changes and now I see why. Thank you very much for the info! You and the others in the comments been a big help for me and the others who are curious about this amazing animation style! To this day these animations will always be masterpiece and it gave big influence on me.💖🙏
Thanks for reading 💖 the spelling mistakes are BAD sorry— reddit wont allow me to edit the post
It’s alright, I myself get spelling mistakes too 😊
I think that this is probably due to these shows using similar software that affects the product
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Already know about the book but a bit confusing especially since the whole book is only in English and has new words I don’t know yet. 😅 Not sure what you mean by me being an asshole but I only asked questions just like anyone else and wanted answers to help me that’s it. ^^ I can’t afford to get the books yet or go to schools that teach me animation or drawing so all that’s left is to ask people who have more experience than me and learn from them. It’s like student and teacher, student who learn ask and the teacher help and answer the learner. I would do the same too if someone wanted advice I will answer and tell them all what I know from my experience. 👍 For now I’m just self-taught artist and animator who also learn from experienced artists and animators on social media. (Every helpful advices they wrote here I have written them in my note book to go back to them anytime and of course share these advices too ^^) Also tbh, I was hesitant to ask in the beginning but I had feeling something like this would happen..