Monday, February 13, 2006

In search of a gag

Some time ago I promised to post an example of an idiot-style drawing that had a practical application. Of course, I also promised a moratorium on the Super-D - but I'll still keep the first promise. Here's a page of idiotic scribbles in search of a gag for "X".



Sometimes it helps to feel your way through a scene like this before you storyboard it. Most of this was in the script (probably not the multiple SD Starfires), but I can't find a copy of the script around, so take my word for it for now. I still wonder if the gag would have played better with a full-sized Starfire standing on Robin's head. Also, it looks like I forgot to include the drawing of Robin with an X in place of his eyes. Oh well. Another X gag lost to the pressures of deadlines. Remember kids, haste makes waste. I think we hid enough Xs in the show as it is. In any case, that becomes this -
















And then we make this (this is my only character design for Titans)-



Then Derrick takes a pass to make it actually look like the rest of the show, Chris Hooten colours it, and we get this-



And then Tom McLaughlin adds the timing, and it gets sent overseas, where Lotto subjects it to their mysterious and wonderful processes. Then they send this back to us-



Then Joe Gall plugs that into his avid and turns it into this (I don't know why this is the only version I have in widescreen)-



The next step is very mysterious to me, since I'm not involved in any way. Someone writes some music, someone else adds some sound effects, Scott redubs a line or two of dialogue, and they all get mixed together to make this -



I guess I kind of lost track of the point in there somewhere.

3 comments:

John Slaughter said...

As an animation junkie I just LOVE to see this sort of stuff. I'd hang around your offices all day and just absorb what you guys do if I could. (And if security would let me!)

Very awesome stuff.

=)

Goggles said...

This stuff is great, I love seeing the things put into making an animated series go, especially something as cool as Teen Titans. You guys are the best!

Any chance we could see any of those lost gags?

Anonymous said...

*whistles* Cool stuff, very cool stuff...

And my sister's favorite part of Teen Titans...seeing how it's done. ;)