The Pencil's Place in Animation

Today, we have a very special guest post from civil engineer, animation enthusiast and author of The Animation Anomaly Charles Kenny. Check out his blog, follow him on Twitter and share the love in the comments section below!

The Pencil’s Place in Animation

Pencils are the handy tool of many artisan crafts, and animation is no exception. Without a shadow of a doubt, animation has been defined by the pencil and even with modern CGI, continues to be subject to its abilities. It’s also worth noting that even though animation is present in many styles throughout the world, the pencil is omnipresent in all of them from the very best American animation to the cheapest Japanese anime.

I am of course talking about animation in the traditional sense; that is hand-drawn animation. From the very first animation in the early 20^th century to the very latest Disney films, pencils have influenced and been influenced by animators.

Perhaps the first great illustration of how fruitful this relationship can be is in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from 1937. This exquisite film set the bar for what high quality, hand-drawn animation should be. Perhaps fittingly, people have been imitating it ever since.

So just how does a pencil define the look of animation. Surprisingly enough, the influence is found on multiple levels. For instance the very look of a film can be directly impacted by the use of pencils in the design. Think of any modern Disney animated film (that wasn’t CGI). Those graceful lines of each and every character were not created on a computer. Rather, they were sketched using a pencil on paper many, many times before they were inked and painted in actual production.

There is plenty of evidence to support this. Former Disney animator Andreas Deja regularly posts many examples of sketches from both his time at the studio as well as that from before. Plenty of artists also proclaim their admiration for their pencils; Jenny LeRew, for example, whose Blackwing Sketchbook blog is clearly influenced by a certain brand of pencil.

That is not all, however, because the animation itself can contain the product of many penciled lines. The proof is in the pudding of practically all of independent animator Bill Plympton’s films. Famous for their dark yet hilarious brand of comedy, they also tend to display the penciled look that Bill has managed to make a trademark of sorts over the years. This was never more evident than when he contributed one of the more unusual couch gags on The Simpsons earlier this year:

http://youtu.be/EFbdcObHHSU

What’s clear is that despite the onset of CGI in all shapes and forms, traditional animation that was created by and defined by the pencil continues to flourish and amaze audiences, and its place looks set for a long time to come.