WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Here’s an animation that’s been recommended
a lot the last few weeks.

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It’s called Diamond Jack.

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Link below.

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Honestly what really struck me about the entire
cartoon is the music.

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I thought it was an already published song
animator Rachel Kim used, but it’s actually

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an original composition by another CalArts
student, Connor Spiotto, made specifically

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for this animation.

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I’m really impressed.

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It sounds exactly like the grand old days
of big band music.

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The song is a nice descriptive backing for
what is happening in the cartoon, of course.

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There aren’t any animation techniques in
Diamond Jack that I haven’t talked about

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before, but the art style of the animation
is quite different from what we usually see.

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Actually now that I think of it most animations
around here are visually unique.

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Most of Rachel Kim’s animations feature
very loose sketchy linework with lines of

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even thickness throughout.

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Initially it struck me as something you would
animate in Adobe Animate.

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It’s doable.

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But I suspect it’s not that, because Kim’s
earlier works have linework reminiscent of

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a program like TV Paint or Toon Boom.

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The great thing about these loose lines is
it allows you to focus more on character animation

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rather than cleanup.

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In animation, the cleanup phase is once all
your drawings are done, you have to go through

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each one and erase lines, close line gaps,
look for any glitches, la la la.

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There’s less cleanup with this animation
style.

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You can leave construction lines and overshot
lines if you like.

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The characters in Diamond Jack seem so strikingly
familiar to me.

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I wondered if it was a fan animation, but
it’s not.

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A lot of people write the character designs
are like a combination of Astroboy and Lupin

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the Third.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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You can get a little album of character test
sketches from Rachel Kim for free.

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They show a tiny bit of the behind-the-scenes
tests of how Jack should look, what she should

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be wearing, and her attitude.

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A feature Diamond Jack has that’s really
nice are the painted backgrounds.

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They are deceptively simple.

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In reality there’s a lot of careful planning
of colors and elements and point of view.

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Even though they’re simple in composition,
they have a lot of texture to them; they’re

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not plain flat colors.

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The few colors that exist in each shot are
very bold and there isn’t blending or soft

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shading between colors.

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The backgrounds also use an interesting technique
I’ve seen a few times, mostly in TV cartoons,

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where items are sometimes only lines and the
fill color from items that should be hidden

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shows anyway.

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Here’s some invisible people.

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Invisible chairs.

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It’s really interesting because the style
is not necessarily consistent even within

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the same background.

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These chairs are colored and these aren’t.

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The slot machine line shows here, but not
here.

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The results can be kind of funny.

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Here’s Jack rolling, somehow, in front of
a woman who should be in the foreground.

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Haha.

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While we’re talking about style I may as
well point out the choice to only make the

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two main character’s eyes have white fill.

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Nobody else gets whites.

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The point of doing this is to emphasize the
main characters.

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It’s also great the diamond has hinges on
it in the beginning.

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They’re right there, hidden in plain sight.

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Did you notice them?

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I sure didn’t.

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I think I’m going to keep it simple for
this one.

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It’s an animation that focuses heavily on
character animation, with plenty of expressive

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faces and poses, and a classic cartoon approach
to backgrounds.

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Thanks for watching, and I look forward to
hunting down some more new animations!