Dream a Little Dream

[seshathawk]

I have had a long and lazy weekend; today was filled with food and yesterday with TV, importing audio books, and drawing somewhat irritably. (Reference drawings! Haven't done those in a couple of weeks. I’m drawing a lot of new things and it’s frustrating when I’m not instantly great at it

Comments

[seraya7]

Wow, that's interesting! I don't know what to say to most of it. I do want to correct you slightly about Over The Hedge-there were 4 female characters. The skunk-who was the romantic interest gal-the hedgehog-who was a mother-the possum-who was a daughter-and the villain soccer mom lady (I don't know if she was actually a mother, fyi. I forget.) They were probably about as well developed as the other non-main duo characters

[seshathawk]

Okay, so I wrote this essay over several days/hours and it was a mushing-together of three separate essays: a review of Megamind, a critique/overview of my opinions of Dreamworks, and the results of my Bechdel test study. I kept switching back and forth between things I was working on so some things didn’t come out too clearly. Lame me!

1. I didn't forget about Over the Hedge! I think I said it was the only exception I could think of to the "lone female as love interest" rule. (Actually, I see how it got confusing; I referenced OTH in the middle of a sentence about lone female love interests but that's not how I meant it!) I totally forgot about the hedgehog but not about Catherine O'Hara, the skunk, or the possum. I was discounting them because A) I was pretty sure that if they ever spoke to each other it was not about anything but the raccoon whose name has slipped my mind; B) the skunk was A love interest (to the cat, IIRC) but not THE love interest (to the raccoon), and C) the only interesting thing I remember the possum girl

[seshathawk]

5. I guess I see what you're saying, I'm just confused about how we can make such beautifully animated fabric (the hardest thing to animate) (FYI: see Brave for awesome fabric) and hair and not find a reasonable skin texture that doesn't look creepy. I'm not talking about all-out texture like pores and skin flakes; I'm talking about very light skin texture. Example: step three in this tutorial. With all the technology we have, especially considering everything we were able to do in Tangled, this should not be an impossibility. There’s no reason to have plasticy-looking characters. I feel like there is (or should be) a difference between a more cartoony style and attention to detail.

6. I should pay attention to these things! I am woefully behind on Dreamworks especially and mostly behind on Pixar as well. The only reason I know about Chris Sanders is because of Lilo & Stitch! I feel like I've heard or read that another former Disney animator eventually went to Dreamworks as well. (Maybe there is something on that list I gave you?)