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Speaking of Tig n' Seek, I put together a document to help the storyboard artists and animators with some tips on drawing the characters. Thread to follow ---->
1/ Tiggy was really tricky to get right so I spent a lot of time going over every aspect of him
2/ Eyes were always an issue and a lot of retakes resulted in this not being done correctly.
3/ This was for the board artists to help with acting and expressions since so much of the comedy came from the range of emotions Tiggy would go through in an episode.
4/ General construction
5/ His mouth was another tricky thing to keep consistent. In the pilot (Tigglewinks) his mouth was a little different. It was connected to his nose and it didn't allow for big expressions...we ended up going with the old tried and true bean mouth...
6/ Contrast is super important!
7/ On to hands - A big part of Tiggy's hand design was based on the way Akira Toriyama would draw cute chubby hands.
8/ Shape vs. form - the eternal struggle
9/ Proportion of the characters is super important to keep consistent when storyboarding - if sizes vary too much it really affects the layout of characters in the final animation.
10/ cont'd
11/ Ear placement - this is one of these details that can make or break the silhouette and make the character feel off-model, especially with one that is as 'simple' as Tiggy.
12/ Myke had a very specific look for Tiggy's feet which was really challenging
13/ Same with his hair...we really struggle to figure out how to make an asymmetrical hair design work for animation.
14/ Cont'd
15/ Cont'd - A lot of super specific stuff
16/ Last of the hair theories...
17/ Arms and leg construction
18/ On to Gweeseek...she was a little easier than Tiggy but still had a few tricks to her.
19/ Gweeseek often would end up looking dog-like if her muzzle wasn't just so...this was to help solve a few issues that would often pop up in the final animation.
20/ More weird idiosyncrasies with her head...
21/ The releationship between her giant head and small body was always tricky. It's so different than a real cat so it was hard to keep the feline look to her.
22/ Her legs were tricky...
23/ Her collar also had a specific look to it...
24/ This was to help with eye direction - this is usually the #1 source of retakes in TV animation!
25/ More eye direction notes. How to match eye lines between cuts - super important!!
26/ Boss. I really liked drawing Boss, he was really built for good cartoony animation - lots of squishy structure.
27/ More subtle things with Boss' head.
28/ This is similar to the notes with Tiggy's eyes and mouth...
29/ A final set of notes for Boss - hands and body theories
30/ Nuritza - at this point I was losing steam ha!
31/ A few more notes on Nuritza's head...the way her teeth worked was one of those weird cheats you sometimes have to make in TV animation..
32/ cont'd (nearly done)
33/ Tiggy often was posed holding Gweeseek and we would get final animation back where she would be drawn blocking Tiggy's face...so this was to help artists to plan the pose to accomodate her big head and goggles.
