What “Digital Ink and Paint” is & How it Changed Animation

[Music] so in editorial let's see how this goes animation has been around for over a hundred years and the methods of creating it have changed along with culture some of the earliest animated subjects were drawn on chalkboards and shot frame by frame and that's also the method where stop motion comes from other animators like winsor mckay drew on paper but every frame was still painstakingly redrawn from scratch background and all but across the 1910s and 20s animation became an industry with studios and tons of people working on each film and it became a lot more efficient to separate the background and characters and props put them all on different planes with the background in the back and the characters and props painted on translucent celluloid and thus traditional lincoln paint or cell animation was born and it's dead now no animation production house still uses cells or even relies on physical mediums it's all digital now thanks to computer technology it's just a lot more cost efficient and environmentally responsible to do everything on a computer screen computer animation has technically been around since the 50s but the method i want to talk about today digital income paint was developed in the 70s and became more commonplace throughout the next two decades a major turning point was when walt disney animation studios began implementing it in their movies with the little mermaid in 1989 and fully converting with the rescuers down under in 1990 the system they used was caps which was developed by pixar with whom they had a tumultuous relationship to say the least but what i want to bring attention to is that the very first fully digitally animated film was a squeak wheel to a cell animated one which preluded this whole debate over whether certain franchises looked better on cells or digitally produced now comparing the rescuers down under to the original rescuers from 1977 it's night and day down under looks a thousand times better but then you get to the ren and stimpy show one of the first tv shows to take the plunge starting with their second season in 1992 around half of the episodes would be digitally colored and the other half would still be painted like the old days this is more of a matter of preference but i prefer the look of the cell animated episodes the appeal of the show is that it looks old-fashioned but is really a demented parody of golden age cartoons so the more old-fashioned it looks the better it took a little longer for the rest of the industry to go digital but when they did did nerds lose their minds the first five seasons of the simpsons were all done on cells borrowing a few commercials but 2f17 radioactive man was colored with sgi workstations as an experiment produced during the sixth season but aired in the seventh fan's reaction to the episode were pretty negative the animation and voice acting was subpar did the entire production staff turn over several readers commented that they felt the animation in this episode was substandard maybe it was a bit too early to change let's do it again for the season 7 clip show a majority of the show was still traditionally inked until season 12 when they tried again with tennis the menace by this point the animation on the show was so vibrant and conserved that few viewers really noticed or even minded so they fully converted in season 14. now personally i'm one of those super nerds who notices each of the first 13 seasons looks a little different but this is another case where i still prefer the cell work it has more to do with the character designs than the actual quality of the animation it's gone up and down over the years i just think the characters look more alive when it feels like they're really being drawn something odd about this transitional period is that they would occasionally reference matt groening's other show futurama which was always done digitally so these infrequent cameos from bender and fry are the only times we've ever seen them on cells futurama is a case where they were better off digital since it was a science fiction show and it had to look sleek and modern but i stay awake at night knowing there are official physical cells of bender floating around and they don't look too bad speaking of other fox shows and adult comedies if they weren't already digitally animated they switched very quickly with the exception of king of the hill which switched in 2001 i guess this is because of their content it would be a very weird choice to ask the overworked folks at rough draft korea to make this a reality south park is a case where the pilot episode was entirely animated with stop motion across a three and a half month period but they switched to a computer animation software when they got a full show still for the first couple seasons they tried to emulate that early paper cut out look and i prefer this approach to the slow unrefined pace of the pilot and the overly detailed look of the later seasons family guy was never animated on cells but for some reason some animator made a sell of it anyway what let's know is that some of the early promo images were also drawn on cells i would have liked to see what at least one full episode of this would have looked like but alas executives had something against peter griffin most of disney's animated shows converted in 1999 but because they were generally produced out of order you have cases like recess where traditional and digitally animated episodes coexisted in harmony in the later seasons and it's pretty clear which looked better mickey mouse works produced over a hundred shorts of varying length but only seven of them were cell animated the difference isn't spectacular but due to the rarity of them they stick out a lot more still it's mickey mouse seeing him on cells feels right at home disney's also an interesting case in that depending on the franchise they actually regress from digital to cells notably when their movies got spin-off shows take for instance the aladdin sequels in cartoon or the lion king spin-off timon and pumbaa not to put these shows down too hard but this is always going to be a case where the original movies look more natural most neptunes switched around the same time 1999-2000 the angry beavers is a rare case where i like the digital episodes more visually due to the way it handled colours usually i'd say it looks better on cells for a naturalistic setting such as this but it always wanted to look more vibrant and the wonders of the computer rage allowed them to capture that vibrance effectively but that's not something i can say about the klasky shupo shows rugrats the wild thornberries they're not exactly pretty but they feel more appealing on cells than in a pristine digital environment spongebob's a conversion i'm torn on season one can look a bit dull and the character designs are rather inconsistent but there's also more charm and a cozier vibe it doesn't help that season 2 took a while to properly embrace the digital link and paint but when it did gosh does it look beautiful and fun i'd say i prefer the digital look by a smidge but season one has a retro charm to it but the best conversions were those of hey arnold which looks almost identical so there's zero problem with the switch on my end and the fairly odd parents which became quirkier funnier and more aesthetically pleasing when they became their own show cartoon network's cartoon cartoons always felt like they were more hesitant to flip the switch dexter's lab underwent a massive downgrade when they went digital at the start of season 3 and the powerpuff girls didn't switch until partway through season 4 in 2002 and even then they stuck with the original character and colour designs until the movie released but the biggest case of this was ed neddy which didn't switch until the 2004 christmas special dan antonucci was staunchly against computer animation and only gave in when it became apparent that his show was the only cartoon left in north america still being animated on cells now i personally like the digital look more than the cell look in it niddy's case but there was an admirable effort and persistence that old look that can't be denied this doesn't cover all examples not by a long shot i just wanted to give you a general overview of this turning point in animation history and what it meant for certain art styles in studios ultimately i think the switch had an overall positive effect on the industry it allowed for series to be produced faster and cheaper and it's much easier to correct mistakes and perfect the image there was a noticeable transitional period but the industry got through it without sacrificing too much spirit and realism aside from the odd indie experimental short film i don't think we'll ever see a mainstream shift back to traditional link and paint and even though i'm pro digital i find that to be a shame animation cells are collectors items these days and not only are they a challenge to preserve but you can't always count on your favorite shows getting them say you love avatar the last airbender and you really want to own a part of the show since that was entirely digital the best you can hope for is a rough and it won't be as glamorous of a position as a genuine camp candy cell the closest thing you can get is the odd mock-up created as a novelty but you can print out a screenshot and it's just as official of a presentation this is a part of the debate that doesn't have much to do with the animation quality but it does have to do with one's attachment to the medium and if you're an animator a better understanding of its principles i don't partake in this hobby myself but to all you cell collectors out there what's a cartoon from this century you wish was produced traditionally so you could own a genuine part of it or maybe you understand that drawing drawings is passe and except our current cyber dystopia with open arms this is a debate i haven't seen since the message board epoch so i wonder if anyone's still passionate about a way forward or backward goodbye for now [Music] isn't it about time you went digital watch your mouth you little smart ass

Channel: EmployeeAMillion

Views: 72,104

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Id: GwLBQFVdRfc

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 07 2021