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.

Look at this art from the talented Dapper Dan.

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.

Too Zuul For School

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.

We’re back in business!

Stay-Puft Daddy Too Zuul For School