With a written story, sketched storyboards, and designed characters in mind, the animators can go to work. With the help of differently angled character sheets, the whole animation team gives life to the characters, whilst background artists create the most beautiful and breathtaking environments. With SPIRIT's "tradigital" style, a lot of computer work has to be done as well.
The animation steps below do not necessarily go in described order; some steps go side by side.
The animation steps below do not necessarily go in described order; some steps go side by side.
Character Sheets
The first thing in the animation process is the creation of character sheets. Every character is drawn in several angles, which tells every animator that is working on a specific character, how to draw them. In this way, more than one animator can be working on a character at the same time, whilst the different animations of this character all turn out in the same drawing style.
Below is a selection of Spirit's character sheets, all done by Spirit's supervising animator, James Baxter.
Sculptures
Another useful tool for animators, are sculptures. Sculptors are hired for movies to make 3D sculptures out of clay, mostly of major characters. These three-dimensional sculptures can help animators to get all the angles right for their drawings. The sculptures can be full-body or head (bust) sculptures, and can be, of course, made in different poses.
The sculptures made for SPIRIT were done by sculptors Anthony Cipriano, Dusty Horner, Kent Melton, and Shane Zalvin.
Anthony Cipriano (Sculptor)
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Kent Melton (Sculptor)
James Kent Melton has been a professional sculptor since 1980. He has experience in wood sculpting and high profile maquette sculpting. He was a sculptor for studios such as Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, and Universal. Besides SPIRIT, Melton was a character sculptor for movies such as Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, The Prince of Egypt, Tarzan, The Road to El Dorado, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Treasure Planet.
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Shane Zalvin (Sculptor)
Canadian artist Shane Zalvin began his professional career with designing toys and toy packaging for a small Canadian toy company. He then started in the animation industry as a layout artist and animator. Since 1992, he has been a freelancer, working in storyboards, design, illustration, sculpting, and layout, in the TV, film, and consumer product industry. Besides SPIRIT, he worked as a sculptor on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Shark Tale, and Flushed Away. He also did a lot of animating and storyboarding, including several (Disney) video games.
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Animating
Clean-Up
Backgrounds
Layout
CGI
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