The Animated Girl

Emmaryn/Spryte started off as a character in an animated pitch.  The roots of the idea go back about a decade to a faerie detective who held a big gun that shot magic.  The detective became two kids, both half faerie.  Back to a detective type called Mage Raven with a half human sidekick, Spryte.   The were joined by Carbunkle, a boogey man who hung out with that first detective.  Then Spryte and Carbunkle stepped out on their own.  At this point I'm not sure I'd want to sell Spryte as an animated show because she's been with me too long to hand over to a corporation.   You'll not that I'm not publishing any Spryte pitches.  That's because I don't want her story spoiled.  Some sort of web or self published version will surface sooner or later.  But don't get me wrong, she'd be great in animation.  And there's a reason why I choose to work in animation.

It's the people.  

I was originally drawn to the industry because it seemed like the only place stories of the fantastic were being told.  The stories I wanted to work on were too expensive for live action movies.  Of course, that all changed with Lucas, Speilberg, ILM and cheap CG.  Now the theaters are packed with geektastic films and often they're the films topping the box office.

But what I really enjoy about the medium is that it collects incredibly talented people who work as a team to create something.  Artists are usually pretty individualistic yet animation requires a slew of them to leave a mark on every frame of film.  

Putting a crew together is always a joy for me, both for the opportunity of hiring familiar talents and discovering new ones.  It's all about hiring people better than me to bring my ideas to the screen.  It's awesome.

There was I time in my life, back when I had a beard, that I envisioned myself producing a comic strip in a cabin in Colorado and listening to a lot of John Denver.  I can't imagine that now (although you can't top John Denver and the Muppets at Christmas time).  I enjoy the exchange of ideas within a studio.  Everyday you either learn or share something about art, production or storytelling.  Stories are plussed by other writers whose scripts are plussed by actors and a gaggle of directors and storyboard artists who add variations and improvements.  

Currently, I'm not running a show.  I'm on the crew.  In just the cubicles around me are "storyboard artists" who've directed prime time comedies for years, produced seven DVD movies in six years, and have created series for several studios.  It's the nature of the business that directors fall back on storyboarding until another directing gig opens but the studio seems to have intentionally collected a crew that can divide up and run several shows at once.

Of course, with the wrong atmosphere or schedule, even a brilliant team can be reduced to churning out hackwork.  But when it clicks on one of my shows, I feel like I'm on top of the world.

Okay, next time I'll try to have more content about the creative process or at least more analysis of my comic work.  In the meantime, here's another pivotal drawing of Emmaryn.  It's not the one that began the journey but the one that brought her into her teen years.   Later.  --Tad

 

 

Comments

[Angeline]

It really saddens me that animation isn't used as often in movies and television anymore. I enjoy CG animation, but now it's basically become the only type used in big-screen movies, with the exception of the upcoming Disney's Princess and the Frog. In television, I've noticed most shows use Flash to create their animation, or dub over japanese anime.

I'm guessing that it's way cheaper to create an episode in Flash than it is to draw out each scene cel by cel. But there's something very... fluid, about classic animation, that no other type of media possesses. I don't know, maybe I'm just being an old fart (at the age of 23, hah) because I grew up on animated movies and cartoons as a child.