Character Design Veteran: There's so many broken designs in Animation today! Peter de Sève | E021
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ม.ค. 2024
- Character design and Illustration titan, Peter de Sève is nervous about A.I. Not for its capabilities but because studios are so driven by the bottom line, they’ll lean on the tool more rather than human imagination. There’s an epidemic of generic character design in the industry at the moment and de Sève wants to fight it.
Speaking to Peter on Animator's Breakfast today was a huge honour of mine. He breaks down his incredible career, Illustrating for the New Yorker to moving across to animation starting with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and his seminal work with Blue Sky Studios on Ice Age.
I’m delighted to have shared this discussion with him about:
- How studios will seek to use A.I. as part of their design pipelines
- Imposter Syndrome
- Advice on how to become a great illustrator
& so much more in this conversation!
Can't wait hear your opinions and thoughts!
Find Peter’s work here: peterdeseve.com/ - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
😅 To answer the thumbnail: Yes & No. I honestly don't believe A.I will ever be able to replace a writer or an artist because art isnt about output: it's about humanity, telling stories & collaboration
I love this! Exactly that reason, when the art is made to speak from your own soul, then it’s very hard for A.I. to replicate that.
But the money aspect is the problem. Artists don’t work for free they work for money for Disney. They rarely ever collaborate on an original idea. How many artists could have gotten together and made a movie all those years but didn’t. Shorts and fanfilms. Now creators and idea people can utilize AI to make up for the money they don’t have.
Same was said about chi, digital painting and 3d, but one toy story later 😂
Human will always use tools to tell the best stories, the tools don't define the souls. You can bent the AI to not give you generic design by tossing conflicting and random word too, try Disney princess peach in the style of Wilfredo lam drawn by Rockwell 😂
A nice sentiment. But don't bullshit yourself. History shows that greed always wins. The generations coming up are being conditioned to not care about where their daily dose of "content" comes from. They're also being conditioned to not be able to tell the difference.
I hope we get a book on the anatomy of how de seve draws
In regards to character designers and authorship, I can think of Jorge Gutiérrez, whose style has made the leap from 2D to 3D maintaining his unique style and identity. I suppose Tim Burton would be another, though not so practicing in the medium of animation these days. But very much agreed - they are few and far between that get to leave their distinguishing mark within the pipeline we know today.
I think studios are lead by (risk adverse) committees and that's why we see the same old generic/safe/perfect-for-AI styles coming out. They hire a gaggle of artists to kick out character designs, on a freelance capacity, then have the internal team pull a "George Lucas" and mix 'n' match various things from all the designs that they like in an attempt to "craft" the best character. And that usually falls in line with something we've seen before/is familiar (the risk adverse part). And so there's not one vision that really dominates. No lead designer that really creates the character. No style that really rises to the top and creates an identity for the characters and potentially the movie. At this point, the way the characters look, is the actual "brand" of the big studios. Diverging is a no no.
In some ways Spider-verse is good and bad thing that happened. Sony too, hired on a bunch talented artists to take stabs at the characters and mash together the best parts, though they still came away with something that is still radically different than what we've seen (that is, after firing Alberto Mielgo). Something special there. Maybe it was the directors, the team, all on the same page pushing for something new. Willing to take a risk. Within the busted "everyone-contributes-to-the-design" pipeline, and with an uncredited art director, it has still done extremely well. Proving that the broken system still works (not to mention I've heard stories of artists crunching hard to make all sorts of tweaks/changes up to the last minute.)
Another thought along side that: artists have all really gotten GOOD since the 90s. A lot of character designers at the studios are so strong today. Fast. Flexible. Digital. Many of them could probably take the reins on a movie and offer their own style/unique vision on a studio production. In the 90s, at the start of 3D animation, a Peter de Sève was something special to have on the team. But these days, more and more people are "special". (not to take anything away from Pete at all, talent just started to grow and get snapped up as the productions grew). So we have a lot of talented folks that COULD author their own characters for a studio project, BUT the process is still busted. These talented artists could be enabling a broken process because they're so good/fast/flexible/dedicated, etc.
I worked in games and lead a small animation team and my biggest challenge was getting everyone to support and respect "the process" (of how animation is done and how it fits into the puzzle of game production). Producers, art directors, executives, etc. all needed to be on board and trust that if we take these steps, it'll all come together. We've all heard the phrase "trust the process" and often times we as artists have to convince OURSELVES to do just that! Trust in our own process, our own vision - trust ourselves to work through a visual problem in our own way. Now how are we supposed to convince a team of executives to trust the vision of a singular character designer? Ha! That is to say, I think the key to a lot of this is everyone supporting a process that allows for some innovation. Gotta take risks. Let individuals have voices and trust the process. Of course, easier said than done when the bottom line is really steering the ship.
Anyway, love the content, and loved this show in particular. Candid stories, genuine thoughts on the state of the industry, so much I agreed with - thanks very much to both of you!!
There’s so much value in here, thank you so much for sharing. One thing that struck me in particular is trusting the process. I’ve heard it before, like you said, the most important thing for an art director to have is a good producer. It’s never an us vs them, but should be and us + them attitude. Production will always have the budget and time attached to a conversation which are great constraints for artists to work within and push against. As long as it’s not too heavy lily opinionated from one side, there’s always a good balance in there. Absolutely fight your battles for what you care about and understand they will have to as well.
@Any-mation So true. In regards to producers/executives, it's so easy for me to personally say, "ah, they don't understand us, they're not artists". Which, in all honesty, is part of the fun - working with others who DON'T necessarily think like you and still making it all work, earning that trust for the next project. But to your point, it's less of an obstacle when an art director has a good producer. A working relationship that already has established trust. You know, it just makes me think - there are so many moving parts, subjective parts, contrasting parts (art and business) to animation production that it's kind of amazing anything gets made at the level we're seeing! Is there a more complicated commercial medium?? Ha! Thanks again -
Thanks a lot for this amazing episode, peter de seve is one of my fav. artist and I loved how he managed to keep his creative gut going so good over those long years. Totally agree with the "good enough" designs, I am going to steal this and use in my convo, with my friends.
I loved that too, this idea that “it’ll do” or “it’s good enough”, I really feel that in large studio films lately
Thank you for this, wonderful discussion with a nice slow pace in a world of speed and rushing. Much appreciated. The last advice from Peter is gold ! There is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for one's willing to remain curious at all time !
Thank you for listening, I’m really glad you found some helpful wisdom in there!
Fantastic conversation as always. I liked the shout out to Nico Marlet too, I'll be crossing my fingers for him as a guest some day too!
I’ll see what I can do 🙏🏻🙏🏻
This is like Life of a Ceo but design
I'd rather artists be jaded and honest, let's hear your opinion so its in conversation how artists feel. It helps to keep informed and to feel not alone in how you feel, mostly when ai is being pushed so much and normalized in the design world and amongst social media and friends its gross but its main stream so you feel like the odd one but you know its wrong.
What a wonderful compliment, thank you
Great. Thanks for this
Thank you for watching!
Legend.
Very nice and enjoyable chat!!! Listened to you guys while I drew a greyhound :)
Awesome! Is there anywhere we can see it?
love the chat. i do believe that AI will be a prominent tool, it’s just too efficient to ignore specially in a capitalistic environment which sadly the mass majority of entertainment falls under. i don’t believe it will replace artists entirely but non art people in marketing, branding, sales etc. are open to embrace it. we are already seeing the slip ups from wacom/ wizards that are coming from people in these departments. Thanks for the conversation, Peter De Sève is one of my fav!
I think you’re right, it’s inevitable these tools will become part of workflows. I’ve already seen them being used by designers to generate ideas on Film and TV shows
For some reason this did not show up in my subscription feed, which is a real shame because it's a great interview. I wonder if this is happening for everyone. TH-cam still showed it on my home page though, which is strange. Maybe it's the talk of AI that got it shadow banned? I have no idea. The Watanabe piece is up like normal though, so this is a new thing.
I’ll have to look into that! Thank you for flagging it. I’m glad you found it all the same and even more so enjoyed it!
I’ll be putting out episodes every two weeks, Monday morning 8am GMT!
@@Any-mation I look forward to them! And I hope this issue doesn't persist because people deserve to watch this. TH-cam, free anymation!!!
Effictive hooks in the beginning, cutting just before the juicy parts - but honestly a bit frustrating tbh
Thank you for the feedback, I’d love to hear why it’s frustrating
it‘s missing a small pay off before the intro finishes.
Interesting, I’ll definitely think about that and experiment for future videos, thank you Lukas 🙏🏻
That scattered first 2.5 minutes just had me in confusion
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts here
Love the discussion! Great job!
Edit: No sorry that was a lie, I’m glad it’s over. Finally.
You and me both 😂
Ai can't experience like a human, have emotions, and diementions of road blocks and possiblities.
Freedom byond ones own expectations and limitations of living.
I think that’s quite a big question really, and I think watching narrow AI learn will be an interesting insight into thinking in new ways
He looks like green goblin .
I’m something of an illustrator myself .
Godspeed Spider-man
Peter is brilliant. The interviewer - not so much
I’m open to all feedback, I’d love to know what you mean
@@Any-mation how do I explain how to be more interesting. OK, let's see, for example, when someone cracks a funny joke in conversation, responding with something like "Oh, that's a joke, I've heard of these, you have a sense of humor - that's gona be really great for this show" is not something you're gonna see someone like Conan O'Brien or Joe Rogan doing, don't you think? I mean, I appreciate that your're "open to feedback" but I think this is the kind of feedback you might as well ignore, because it's not something that can be changed easily or at all even if you wanted to.
I’m still not sure what you mean. Are you saying it’s down to a sense of humour and how someone engages it?
@@Any-mation no. I'm saying it's down to personality. Humor is just an example. It's ok don't worry about it. You can't be liked by everyone.
Oh I get you, well thank you for the feedback either way. I appreciate it
I think artists who dismiss AI in the workflow without having tried it don't really know what they are talking about. The challenge of getting interesting and good results remains. You have to really massage the machine to get something other than the out of the box shite. Paradoxically the use of AI could push design even further & faster as everyone tires of the flood of generic Pixar style crap that the good enough mentality engenders. Midjourney is a great land of happy accidents, and the real fun is in using it to push boundaries and remix all sorts of styles.
I’d love to know how you’ve integrated AI as part of your workflow!
@@Any-mation I was out of animation work because of the strike last year, so I decided to dive into the AI and play around a bit. I've mostly been doing seamless tiles to sell on Etsy (which ain't gonna make you rich ...LOL). I did do a pitch deck for a Live action feature for buddy of mine, which showed the potential of AI especially in Pre-Vis and VisDev.
The process of doing thousands of tile generations trying to get various looks (different than the out of the box prompts) showed me that you could get very interesting results, but that it wasn't easy. Same with the pitch deck. It was a difficult process to get coherence in the results, especially in these early days and you had to learn various ways to move the machine towards your own goals. I had to resort to comping in most cases for the final images to get what I was envisioning. But at the end of the day I was able to create a very nice Pitch Deck for my friend in a very short time.
I can see it being used for rapidly generating character designs, turnarounds etc. But you will still need someone with a good eye to shepherd the results. We will see about story boards. The tech isn't there yet for that, but will be there in a year or two.
I’m glad you debunk the theory that it’s a way to get rich fast hahaha
I think you’re right, the technology will catch up quite quickly. The more input it has from artists, the faster it will learn to replicate them. We’re still right at the beginning here, so it’s anyone’s guess where it will go
A lot of dead air in this video.
Thanks for the feedback 🙏🏻
i enjoy it, it makes the video feel more like a conversation and less like an over-edited polished podcast. its easier to take in whats being said as drawing bg noise.