Drake
Thornton: Monster Hunter is similar in tone to other adult animated shows
like Archer or The Venture Brothers but it has a
distinctly different look. While Archer uses some 3D modeling for
backgrounds and vehicles and then "paints" the characters on top this
show has kind of a unique visual style because it's entirely created and
rendered in 3D.
My earliest animation efforts were
also 3D but a very different kind as I used action figures and painstakingly
moved them in tiny increments in a style known as stop motion. While it was a
nightmare to work so slowly and carefully I really liked the look of 3D
characters and settings but the world of computer animation was still many
years away.
About five years ago I discovered
something known as "machinima" where one could use a computer game to
create original animations. By hacking into the code characters could be
controlled and instructed to perform specific animation cycles on demand
instead of having to "play" the game and hoping that they would move
the way you wanted them to. Using The Sims 2 I started creating a
series called The Way It Should Be that was intended as a showcase
for my band The Fluorescent Penguin Exchange. The show featured
musical numbers and a surprising amount of monsters which served as the
inspiration for Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter.
Unfortunately machinima has a lot of
limitations, especially where lip syncing is concerned, so I decided that I
needed to learn professional 3D modeling if I wanted to break free from the
restrictions of having to work within the confines of a computer game. Over the
next few years I started producing a variety of 3D animations and experimenting
with different tools and techniques. I really liked the semi-real look of The Sims 2 characters which were distinctly "human" yet
stayed far enough away from the "Uncanny Valley" effect where 3D
people are so close to reality that they become creepy and disturbing to look
at.
I love the look of traditional
hand-drawn 2D animation when it's well done but unfortunately it tends to take
a lot of a people, a lot of time and a lot of money to do it properly. 3D
offers some big advantages, especially for an ongoing series, in that once
you've created a model for a character or a setting or a prop you can use it
over and over again without having to redraw each frame by hand. Of course it
takes an enormous amount of computer power and storage space to produce 22
minutes of HD animation in 3D at 30 frames per second but for our purposes
there really wasn't any other logical choice.
Because the look is a little
different it probably takes a little getting used to but hopefully people will
enjoy the more cinematic aspects of Drake Thornton: Monster Hunter.
Scott Freiheit
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