Ghostheads, the Ghostbusters community podcast, has launched its second episode. Ron Daniels and Jason Hughes were kind enough to invite Proton Charging’s Chris Stewart and yours truly for a roundtable discussion. The show notes are below, enjoy!
In this chapter, I will delve into the character design behind Winston. Winston is perhaps the hardest character to design for animation, as he is the most underdeveloped Ghostbuster in the entire movie and didn’t appear until half way through the film. Since character design is heavily based on personality traits, this leaves the Real Ghostbusters art team in a real pickle.
Now lets break down Winston’s character traits.
Down to Earth
Common sense type
Blue collar worker
An every man
Unassuming
Athlete of the team
Possibly the most religious
Most relateable by the audience
So how does one translate this into animation? You start with the face, as that is what people relate to, and most camera shots are close ups.
To make Winston match those traits, you have to keep him looking looking generic so he is relateable by a larger demographic, but also kind and approachable. First is the get rid of the mustache. While it works well in the movie, in animation a mustache either ages you, makes you look like a tough bad ass, or turns you into a villain. Thinner eye brows also also takes attention off the brow and makes a person exude more confidence.
They also gave his hair more shape to break up his silhouette a little bit, as well as made him look a little more conservative with a more groomed, classic cut. Finally they gave him larger, more friendly eyes. A sharp contrast to Ernie’s narrow, more skeptic eyes.
Now comes the body.
Even the suit has to reflect his personality. That is where the Real Ghostbusters conceptual artists were really brilliant. They used color to separate each character to further establish their character traits. With Winston, the artists choose blue with maroon trim. Blue represents soft, soothing, compassionate and caring,Blue is the color of deliberation and introspection, conservatism and duty. Patient, persevering, conscientious, sensitive and self-controlled, Blues like to be admired for their steady character and wisdom. They are faithful, but are often worriers with somewhat inflexible beliefs and can be too cautious, and suspicious of flamboyant behavior. This clearly represents Winston. He is loyal and has a sense of duty to the Ghostbusters, but is also a little reluctant when it comes to their more outlandish ways. This is represents in the movie when he decides to get his own lawyer. He isn’t the type to jump to a mess and is indeed cautious.
He is the Ghostbuster who probably has his life together the most. His blue costume is trimmed with Maroon. Maroon represtents harsh experiences, which has probably matured the Maroon person into someone likeable and generous. It is often a favorite color of someone who has been battered by life but has come through. It indicates a well-disciplined Red personality—one who has had difficult experiences and has not come through unmarked but who has grown and matured in the process. This also fits Winston and his blue collar roots. He didn’t come from a cushy University Job. Winston started from the ground up. Works all sorts of jobs and knows the city from the streets up. That life no doubt had difficult experiences that matured Winston into the man he is today.
All these elements are well thought out and purposely chosen to represent Winston in the animated world of Real Ghostbusters. In the next chapter, I will talk about Ray and his design choices.
I have always been fascinated by the transition Ghostbusters took from the movies to the cartoon. The character designs for each character are so radically different from their movie origins, yet they work. Egon has blond hair and a rat tail….yet we accept it! Why? I will attempt to explain that in a Ghostbusters.net blog series I like to call From Real To “Real”
I have been doing character design and 3D animation for years now, and with those years of experience came a new appreciation for the character designs used in Real Ghostbusters. Successful character designs from film to cartoon only work when the artist visually captures a character’s personality, not the actor’s likeness. The great thing about actors is they can change their personalities when acting. This is why we can accept the same face as different characters in different films. But in animation, if a character begins to look too much like the actor that played them, it gets to be too destracting because in most cases, they never look quite right.
While very skilled and well done, the characters are a bit distracting because they look like the actors…but at the same time don’t. And by focusing more on the actors likeness and less on the character traits, the spirit is gone. Venkman lost his charm and charisma and now looks weathered and unfriendly. Stantz lost his boyish nature and pure heart. Winston no longer has the down to Earth, everyman sensability. Egon is the most accurate, if only because he is the most stylized.
An actor gets an entire movie to define their character. But in TV animation, you get a limited amount of time. Not to mention you don’t get the subtle changes in personality that a real actor can provide. So in animation you have to cut to the chase and define the character instantly with their visual appearance. That is where animation is at it’s most powerful. Each characteristic from body shape, colors, hair styles, etc has to define their personality. Plus these various characteristics have to be instantly recognizable. What is the main test to see if a character is designed well? The silhouette test! You should be able to instantly recognize a character even if it is totally in shadow.
Each of these characters are classic and each are readable in silhouette. Sometimes you have to defy reality to achieve this, but that is why animation is animation! Now if the designers simply tried to copy the actors from the movie, they would fail this test. Here is an example of the movie characters in silloute along side the animated characters. Which is more readable to the eye?
At best Bill Murray is readable due to his hair. But you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis. Below is another example using Janine.
Clearly the movie version doesn’t read nearly as well and has no place in a cartoon. But don’t feel bad for her, someone with her qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.
Designing characters for animation isn’t easy. But the artists behind Real Ghostbusters got it right! In the next chapters, I will go into more detail behind the designs of the four main characters.
I remember when I first witnessed what appeared to be a trailer for a Ghostbusters game, awhile back… it looked as if it took place in an apocalyptic world, with HUGE space marine-esk equipment, and the Ecto-1 had just appeared on “Pimp My Ride” and came out a pimp-a-licious wreck.
It was my greatest fear come to life. There was a buzz in the air for a new Ghostbusters game that had lost all the Ghostbusters charm! I didn’t want Peter Venkman as Master chief! No! I wanted the Venkman that I remembered and loved! Soon after, things quieted down and the idea of a Ghostbusters game left the public’s immediate consciousness. But recently news of an official Ghostbusters game resurfaced, and guess what!…it was the old Ghostbusters I know and loved! YAY!
But then I noticed some things.
With all this Ghostbusters game footage being released as of late, I have noticed many modifications to the equipment. Some subtle, some not so subtle. First is the PKE meter. The entire front plate is now a big screen with a bar graph showing the levels of Psycho-kinetic Energy.
Another subtle change I have noticed are the addition of new lights to the pack. What was once simply a label or hook/clamp is now a series of blinking or rotating lights.
Perhaps the biggest alteration to the classic equipment is the merger of the slime blower with the proton pack. It now appears to have a small slime canister attached to the left side with an extra tube feeding into the proton gun.
Now you may be wondering, “Is Too Zuul For School not for these changes? Is he talking smack about the new game?! Blasphemy!”. Not at all! As a matter of fact, I actually enjoy these changes! First off, the new PKE display makes perfect sense. I always felt the old design had a screen that was way too small to be practical in the field. As for the pack lights, I have always subscribed to the theory “The more flashing lights, the better”. This hold true with space ships, robots, ray guns, and proton packs. Why have a label with science mumbo jumbo when you can have flashing and rotating lights! WAY MORE FUN! And lastly, the slime blower attachment. This one had to grow on me a little, but I found it makes more sense than having a separate piece of equipment all together like in Ghostbusters 2. And the use of the slime as a tether is rather brilliant. Plus it was integrated in such a way to not destroy the design of the classic pack. Over all, it is a grand update on a classic look.
But this creates a whole new playing field in a specific sub culture of fandom…..THE PROP MAKERS! For nearly 20 years now, Ghostbuster fans have had a limited selection of props to recreate. You had your two movies, and to a lesser extent, The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters. With no Ghostbusters 3 released, it seemed like the idea of any new equipment was dead. But now you have “Ghostbusters: The Game” nestled nicely between the movies and the cartoons. How long before we find pictures online of prop replicas for the PKE meter (Video game variant), or the Proton Pack (with slime shooter attachement)?
As a matter of fact, I would like to set up a challenge right now! I want to see if anyone is able to recreate a full size prop from the video game BEFORE the video game is released this fall! And those who do, I would like to premiere the pictures on the Ghostbusters.net Blog for the world to see!
It’s a good time to be a Ghosthead. Post your reply here.
Hey all! I thought I would share with you one of my favorite Ghostbusters experiences. This was about 2 and a half years ago. I was taking a Ninjitsu class in Capital Hill, Seattle. I don’t take the class anymore as there was some political infighting that caused the class to self destruct. Sadly, I was not able to witness the final class. From what I hear, it ended with a 102 year old master going super Saiyan on everyone’s asses leaving a wake of destruction only rivaled by Chuck Norris.
Anyway, I digress. The Dojo in which the class was held, was used by many different classes and the Ninjitsu class was the final one of the evening. The Akihito class before us, hands over the keys to the building so that we can lock up. My chum, Sean, was in charge of all that. The Akihito instructor, a woman in her late 30’s, asks our group who is in charge of locking up. Sean was in the back getting dressed so I took it upon myself to answer on his behalf. It went a little something like this:
He’s in the back, getting changed. You see, he is the keymaster. I am the gatekeeper.
She just stood there, looking at me and didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to, her face said it all. Her expression either said “I have no idea what you are talking about, you are such a dork” or it said “Oh, a Ghostbusters fan, what a dork!” She could have killed me with one touch…and I am sure she contemplated it for a moment. But either way, I was the grand champion that night!
Well would you look at that!…Ghostbusters.net is back! Funny how things come full circle. In this case, it’s a full circle with a slash through it!
I remember when Chad Paulson first brought my attention to GBN. It was the early 00’s. The Y2K scare was over, those bomb shelters were converted into game rooms, and Puff Daddy was all the rage, which directly led to my brilliant screen name “Stay Puft Daddy”. Please accept my humble apology for merging the world of Ghostbusters with such a lame rapper. He’s no “Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew” I can assure you!
Spirit, some people hear it, some people fear it
Spirit, some people just won’t go near it
Sho’ as I’m me and the skies are blue
The Ghostbusters are back and all brand new
Sorry, I digress. During this time, GBN was at it’s peak. Chad was rolling out a new design and I was creating flash cartoons for the homepage. It was a full on geek orgy and we were crossing the streams! But college soon approached, and the world of animation came calling. Before I knew it, my time was monopolized and I dissappeared from the GB world. But I assure you, my heart never left.
Here it is, 2008, and once again I am called upon to contribute to GBN. This time it is the random and chaotic thoughts in my mind that are in demand. So here I am, back in the heart of the Ghostbusters community blogging for GBN. What will I blog about? Well, whatever tickles my fancy. I’ll share fun situations where Ghostbusters comes up in my life. I’ll post art from time to time. More importantly, I will pepper in a different perspective to the GBN blog.
