Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

[JTurner]

At this point your best option is to keep an eye open for whatever 2D animated films come our way, regardless of who is releasing them to keep it alive. (I do agree Disney needs new leadership in order for 2D animation to truly return; I honestly am pretty underwhelmed by their WDAS output coming up.)

But there is hope: There's that Looney Tunes movie, The Day The Earth Blew Up, which, although shopped around, at least seems to be en route to a moive theater release.

Another project worth keeping an eye open for: Aang: The Last Airbender. That project is going to be using 2D animation. I love this show. And I am looking forward to that one.

And of course, there's always GKIDS. Their release of The Boy and the Heron paid off handsomely. It shows that there's an audience hungry for handdrawn. The problem? A lot of executives are very much risk-averse. That's why something needs to change.

I have to admit that I AM intrigued by that 2D character in Inside Out 2. I wasn't particularly interested in seeing that movie at first, but the sight of an actual handdrawn character there is enough to change my mind.

[MoonMarc21]

So I was scrolling through the Studio Ghibli subreddit and found out that there will be a movie inspired by the artstyle of the Studio called “The Glassworker” coming out this year. It’s said to be Pakistan’s first 2d animated film which I kinda find that hard to believe, but it looks very promising, with the story and again, the artstyle, being my main points of interest for this film. They faithfully recreated it while also giving their own “flavor” to it, if you know what I mean Anyways, here’s the trailer and it’s poster:

Trailer

EFF57FB3-0D1A-41DA-8CB6-FDAB45F74E68.jpeg (148.61 KiB) Viewed 9335 times

[Sotiris]

We first heard about The Glassworker when the film's director was trying to fund it on Kickstarter back in 2016. I'm glad he was able to finally complete it. He's a big proponent of 2D animation and really loves the medium. And while the animation is clearly not up to par with anime or Western animation, it's a good start. Hopefully, the film will be successful enough to inspire more 2D films in the region and help 2D animators there hone their skills.

[Sotiris]

I'm so sick and tired of filmmakers of CG films claiming their movies have a hand-drawn "look" or "aesthetic" for street cred. Either make your project in actual 2D or STFU.

‘Ultraman: Rising’ Reinvents the Iconic Franchise with the Hand-Drawn Look of Manga and Anime
https://www.indiewire.com/features/anim ... 235015752/

‘The Wild Robot’ Trailer Sees DreamWorks Channel ‘Bambi’ and Miyazki for Hand-Drawn Aesthetic
https://www.indiewire.com/news/trailers ... 235014278/

'The Garfield Movie' Animation Goes for 2D in Origin Story
https://www.indiewire.com/features/anim ... 235008429/

[Kyle]

They don't need to shut up, there's nothing wrong with taking influence from physical media, having more tools at your disposal isn't a bad thing. Some projects are more successful at it than others. The wild robot is a particularly interesting project to me, I've not really seen anyone pull off that painterly thing like quite like this so far. And come on, its Chris Sanders.

It's not a replacement for hand drawn obviously, but they're going for a certain look and some of them get to a nice look in the end. Even if all some of them do is animate/model things toward the camera which is the new trend it seems, that's still a win in terms of appeal.

[Sotiris]

To me, these type of articles feel like them wanting to take credit for doing something involving hand-drawn animation without actually doing it. They also confuse people and make them believe these projects involve 2D animation or are some sort of hybrid when that's not the case. Lastly, they seem to be implying that 2D animation is not needed anymore and doesn't have anything over CG now that they can better translate 2D principles or use 2D aesthetics.

[Kyle]

I don't see how this could confuse anyone unless they have horrible reading comprehension skills. It lays out the thought process of the art direction in these, that's all.

[The Disneynerd]

It sometimes feels like its an attempt to replace 2d or being an alternative , but as long they are not trying to fully replace the exact 2d look and just experiment with styles, im happy, like those 3d looks inspired by more than just classic 2d, like Spider-Verse comic style or oil painted looks (that Disney has still time to claim after their failed Rapunzel Unbraided attempt pls)

But this one goes indeed too far:

The Wild Robot’ Trailer Sees DreamWorks Channel ‘Bambi’ and Miyazki for Hand-Drawn Aesthetic
https://www.indiewire.com/news/trailers ... 235014278/

throwing in Bambi or Ghibli movies that look NOTHING like the Robot movie... its Literally the same style as Puss in Boots 2, nothing new. Its clearly not channeling Bambi or Ghibli lol

[Sotiris]

New Disney Princess commercial that features some 2D animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjtccGTG1c

[Kyle]

New still released for Tom Bancroft's The Light of the World

[reee9948]

New still released for Tom Bancroft's The Light of the World

I honestly don't vibe with the the art style, but I hope the movie is a success because we need hand drawn animated movies to come back in the Western countries.

[DisneyFan09]

New Disney Princess commercial that features some 2D animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjtccGTG1c

Well, the animation wasn`t much to brag about. At least the birds looked passable, but Mushu just looked lackluster.

New still released for Tom Bancroft's The Light of the World

He looks like a character who could fit right in The Prince of Egypt and Joseph King of Dreams-universe. He looks very DreamWorks-esque.

[UmbrellaFish]

New Disney Princess commercial that features some 2D animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjtccGTG1c

A version of this ad popped up on my Facebook feed yesterday. It caught my eye because the animation and the tagline appeared new, but I wasn’t sure if it actually was.

[Sotiris]

In the summer of 2021, I was approached by a production company wanting to create a trailer to pitch a 2d action-adventure feature film in the Studio Ghibli style. Here is the finished trailer followed by a reel containing the various shots that I animated for them. They were animating digitally using Toonboom’s Harmony however, at the time, I had not yet learned how to use Harmony so I animated these shots in ToonBoom’s StoryboardPro instead. They were so accommodating and great to with. I wish the production the best of luck in getting the funding that they need to make this show!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dcUWjWoCOA

[JTurner]

New still released for Tom Bancroft's The Light of the World

I honestly don't vibe with the the art style, but I hope the movie is a success because we need hand drawn animated movies to come back in the Western countries.

I think it looks rather nice. I really do appreciate that the Bancrofts are going in on this.

New Disney Princess commercial that features some 2D animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjtccGTG1c

The animation shots looked quite lovely to me. Much better than the D.I.Y. Donald short IMO. That one felt kinda cheap and lazy. But this one I thought looked pretty good. I'm hoping someone will visit the "Once Upon A Studio" panel to ask if anymore such projects are being made.

In the summer of 2021, I was approached by a production company wanting to create a trailer to pitch a 2d action-adventure feature film in the Studio Ghibli style. Here is the finished trailer followed by a reel containing the various shots that I animated for them. They were animating digitally using Toonboom’s Harmony however, at the time, I had not yet learned how to use Harmony so I animated these shots in ToonBoom’s StoryboardPro instead. They were so accommodating and great to with. I wish the production the best of luck in getting the funding that they need to make this show!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dcUWjWoCOA

That looked really good. I hope this does get made into a movie.

Also, on another note, it sounds like The Glassworker is doing well in Pakistan theaters so far. It's apparently breaking records, which is good news considering how much effort they put into it.

https://www.geo.tv/latest/557679-the-gl ... n-few-days

[Kyle]

Another still from Light of the World. The post on instagram makes sure to point out that this is before any shadow/shading pass has been done.

[Jules]

Honestly, I really like that flat look! I am not sure that shadows and shading will make it objectively better.

[Kyle]

I think it depends on how well its done. I think too many modern hand drawn has pretty lousy shadow passes. I'll point to greeneggs and ham on netflix, the lineart and animation looks great, until they add the lighting pass and ruin the whole thing (imo). It cheapens the whole look.

But 90s and 00's disney, they knew how to do it in a way that really added to the look.

[Jules]

I haven't watched Green Eggs and Ham, but suddenly I am reminded of DreamWorks' The Road to El Dorado. The first time I watched it I distinctly recall feeling that the animation was very fine, but somehow something felt a little off. I suspect it was the digital ink and paint system DreamWorks used at the time. And now I also wonder whether the shading pass may have been inferior to WDAS' work.

[Kyle]

If you ask me, El Dorado's ink and paint was every bit as a competent as disney's. I do think they could have integrated the CG better with the hand-drawn (so you ended up with background and foreground elements that clashed a bit stylistically), but that's a minor quibble. I'm mainly talking about the basic shadow and highlight passes to the main character elements, to that end I think they are largely identical in execution.