To be fair, I haven’t see the new movie, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, but as a fan of the original Peabody’s Improbable History animated shorts from the Rocky and his Friends TV series, I wouldn’t be inclined to think of recasting the very 2-D, very limited animation series — in which writing and voice talent came to the fore — as just another in the string of incessantly jaunty, hyper-kinetic, 3-D CGI animated moves that we are currently barraged with these days.
The movie itself may well stand on its own as a piece of entertainment, but having seen the trailer, I can’t help but wish the producers could have opted to leave the typical 3-D CGI look to other films, and cast the movie as a 2-D animation with the look of the concept art created for it by visual development artist Priscilla Wong (images above, top 7, ©Dreamworks Animation).
Wong’s concept art not only has that wonderful springy, lively quality possible in drawings — and never quite realized in 3-D modeling, but her rendering is so lush and textural that I don’t think audiences spoiled for 3-D would have been at all disappointed for a sense of completeness. Looking through her preparatory work for the movie, I kept picturing how the images might appear in motion, and thinking “Now, that would be a cool looking movie!”
Wong has an extensive article on her blog devoted to her visual development art for Peabody and Sherman, and there is also a selection of it on CGHub.
On Wong’s website and blog you can also find more of her work for other projects, both personal and professional.
[Via CGHub]
