Welcome to a spoilerless episode of Scribble Kibble, a show all about animation and how
it’s made.
This episode of Scribble Kibble is brought to you by… you.
That’s right, you.
You’re the greatest!
Yes, you’re the greatest in the galaxy!
And Wander Over Yonder is probably cartoon with the highest quality animation on TV right
now.
Or was, I suppose, since it’s over and I’m so sad.
AAAAHHGH I’m so sad.
The animation is a love song to the 80’s with that era’s bizarre color choices, black
lines, and minimalist design but with all of the power of modern digital animation software.
And the writing is so snappy, so clever, so funny, and on occasion shocking and intense.
I admit, I cried once.
It was an episode about Sylvia.
The characters are fun and I love them, but the animation, the animation!...
The people making Wander Over Yonder really understand how animation can put zing into
a joke in a way no other art form can.
There’s one episode where the main characters spend 15 minutes trapped in a blank white
space where they can do anything.
It’s a real treat to watch the animators go crazy with it.
The production team uses Toon Boom Harmony to make the animation.
This newest version of Toon Boom has a special engine for dealing with puppets.
If you’ve seen The Lion Guard, Disneys’ spin off Lion King TV series, it also uses
this Toon Boom Harmony technique.
But with Wander Over Yonder, instead of doing what you would normally do with a puppet,
which is position the different static pieces, the studio takes the hand drawn pose sent
to them and liquifies the puppet pieces, molding them to the shape of the storyboard drawing.
It’s 2D sculpting.
If you’ve seen the show everything is very droopy and smooth.
There are not very many hard edges or sharp points.
While the show uses puppets, it’s not really much of a puppet show, since the artists redraw
the puppets constantly to fit the storyboards they’re given, rather than reusing a puppet
that already exists.
Haha.
Efficiency is not the idea here.
Really fun, energetic animation is.
Now I will say when you hit Season Two, the is a sudden noticeable drop in animation quality.
It looks and feels very much like your typical puppet cartoon.
As the season progresses it gets markedly better and catches up quality-wise after a
few episodes, but it still feels different from what they had going on in season one.
I’m not sure what caused the change.
Budget cuts, time cuts, changes in the workflow, switching production studios, it could be
any number of things.
It’s not that uncommon for animation styles to change between seasons.
We’re lucky because some of the animation notes for Wander Over Yonder are floating
around the internet.
This sort of reference sheet, or show bible, is very useful when you’re trying to learn
about animation.
I greatly appreciate that the show has its own animation mechanic, which they call the
Lava Lamp or Lava Theory.
Gravity acts on the characters as if they were full of water.
Especially Sylvia.
Her snout is always flopping around.
Some of the highlights here are the rules of appeal for each character that show how
to draw them so they look their best, and the fact that when you draw Lord Hater you’re
supposed to start with the emotion, not the construction lines (which are the circles
and lines you see in most artist’s rough sketches).
That explains why he has the most spontaneous, exaggerated posing out of any of the other
characters.
I’ll link the animation sheets below if you want to look at them.
And on that note, I’ve got just one last thing to say.
AAAAAGH!
Animation is so hard.
People who do this for a living deserve more credit and respect.
I have a feeling there might be some first-time Scribble Kibble viewers.
Shout out in the comments section if this is your first episode!
My favorite Wander Over Yonder character is actually Commander Peepers haha.
Along with Lord Hater.
What’s on screen now is art people sent in.
A good amount of it is way beyond what I can illustrate.
I mean, look at this.
Wow.
You know, one thing I hear artists say a lot is they can’t come up with their own art
style, but when I look at each piece of art here I can see the style in it already.
Notice how Reuben’s lines don’t connect.
Neither do Tyler’s, but the look and feel is very different.
And here’s the sketchy outline style of TheEchoThatLasts.
Plus everybody has their own way of drawing eyes
and noses.
That’s all for today.
Come back next Friday for a new episode.
This show is run by you.
Tips and Patreon support all the way.
And hey, it never hurts to help!