Astronoir

So it’s no big secret that I spend alot of time studying animation and filmmaking.

Years, in fact.

One of the first drawing books I got as a kid was the great
Preston Blair’s Animation 1: Learn to Animate Cartoons Step by Step (Cartooning, Book 1)

Imagine my surprise, years later, when I am reading John Kricfalusi’s blog about animation, and he recommends the book for anyone wanting to learn the fundamentals of animation.
John’s blog is a breath of fresh air in a world consumed with fast, cheaply made, vector based cartoons.

His thoughts on character design have been an influence on my own work for the AstroNoir world.

I haven’t wanted to go full on realistic looking 3D characters for Astro. I am trying to find a balance of stylized coolness and enough detail to make the look of the series engaging, but still easy enough to render out in a decent amount of time.
It’s quite the tradeoff.

Here is a character design that I think is great, but just a little too “real” for what I am trying to accomplish.

Compare that to some of the other characters, and she is definitely too real world influenced in my opinion.