Newcomers: parts one and two.
Ray’s character design is the Yang to Winston’s Ying. Where Winston’s design might have been the most difficult translation from film to animation, Ray’s design was no doubt the easiest. Of all four Ghostbusters, his translation is most direct, even down to the color choices. This can be contributed to the fact that Dan Aykroyd physically embodied most of Ray’s character traits so well.
And what are those character traits?
- Open minded
- Boyish/child-like enthusiasm
- Purist heart and soul
- Not intimidating
- Able to step in anyone’s shoes (brainiac, everyman, funny guy, business man)
How were these qualities translated into the character design? Lets take a look at the face.
As I wrote earlier, much of Akyroyd’s features were brought over due to the fact that he physically embodied the character so well. This is rarely the case with movie to cartoon translation. But one can contribute this to the fact that Ray Stantz is really just Dan Aykroyd with a fictional name. The part was writen for him, by him, about him. So many of Aykroyd’s qualities cross over. As you can see, they mimicked his chin, lips, and nose almost perfectly.
To accentuate the qualities of pure heart and child like enthuasiam they took Aykroyd’s already established features and made them more child like by making his head more round, adding a fair amount of pudginess to him and giving him larger eyes. As a matter of fact, Ray has the largest eyes of the Ghostbusters. The other main change is his hair. Winston and Peter both have dark hair, to add variety to the group, they gave Ray lighter, brown hair. Besides helping him stand out, the lighter hair also brings out more of the child like qualities since most children rarely have dark hair right out the gate.
As for the body, much of the same rules apply. They gave Ray, Aykroyd’s basic body, and altered it to enhance the child like characteristics and help him stand out from the group.
Just like with the face, they added some pudge to round him out, and give him a slight pear shape. They also made him the shortest of the group. This again shows him as more youthful, also makes him more recognizable standing along side the group. Since Ray is the character translated most directly from the movie, his suit colors reflect that by remaining the same and retaining the tan color scheme, with no variation in color along the collar and cuffs. Where as the other characters had color schemes that reflected their personality, Ray kept the colors of the movie. Why? Because Ray IS the Ghostbusters. He is the heart and soul of the team.
In the next chapter, I will discuss Peter Venkman.
Too Zuul For School
