Animated gangsters

My client was making a documentary about the history of the Indy 500, tracing back to its roots with a look specifically in the roaring twenties and thirties, and he needed animated segments with characters that would appropriately fit the sensibilities of the era.

My client deliberately asked me to emulate the style of vintage comics like Dick Tracy, and I had to draw them in a way that both portrayed these (real life) personalities accurately, and had a character design and motion that had flair and personality that could easily come across to the viewer.

Due to time constraints, and because animation is a labouring process, I had to construct the poses so that they would make the most of static poses, and keep all movement only to the essentials(especially mouth movement and blinking). The gangster on the left, Mike, is a tough, stoic personality, only occasionally drawing from his cigarette and occasionally turning his gaze to another direction. By contrast, Wilbur, on the right, is a racer unreserved in emotion, so I made his gestures short, impactful, and conveying the mood of his lines.

Initial animation was done by sketching keyframes, outlining keyframes, and then outlining tweens. I used a consistent black line in Krita to make spaces that would, when closed, be easily fillable with the fill tool with colour. #animator #videoeditor