Wolfboy and the Everything Factory
I was the first retake animator hired for seasons one and two of this new series for appleTV+, produced by the LA and Atlanta teams at Bento Box Entertainment and a few overseas studios. Twenty episodes of hybrid rigged + cel-animated, the show evolved to fully cel animation by the end of production.
Challenges ranged from technical and compositing fixes, lotsa on-the-spot FX design-animation-templating, some character acting and a few big ol’ action shots when we needed some punch. Below are some clips from the show I animated from scratch, fixed, or ‘plussed’ (the industry’s favorite catch-all term for ‘inject life into these technically-moving parts’).
As the production grew, I was given fewer ‘hangnail’ shots to fix and more acting, action and effects shots. ‘Wolfboy’ strived for real emotion, subtle acting at times, and heart. The art direction and voice talent was exquisite, and it was great to give small moments the respect they deserved whenever I had time in our schedule (rare).
WB runs along and creates symbols for the council. This shot began as flat symbols hanging without movement in the air. Way too many golden wisps and blobs to animate! Added atmospheric wisps rising, brought the top three to life a touch, and animated the bottom two from scratch. A quick shot, but I do like that bobbly flower firework I did.
Wolfboy has a moment of wonder with a wisp, before it flies off and he’s once again alone in a new place. I liked shots like this, and the challenge of pushing him from joy and engagement, to loss and a bit of sadness. Many kids shows and animated projects have as a baseline note that characters must never look sad, and I’m proud this show was interested in something more meaningful.
A bubble-bounce I did of which I’m fond. Nyx is meant to float from toetip to toetip, and her outer bubble was supposed to bounce and react like this around her in every shot. That got scaled back considerably through production.
The disarray Wuji destroys a portal. Designed and animated the FX for the blast, the portal pop explosion, and the lighting for these shots.
Snefton, the local captain of the guard, on the lookout for rascals and runaways. I had to fix his walk, so I decided to redo the torso and add some strut and swing to his buffoonery.
Seth puts her destructive powers to productive use, and leads the trio on an escape through caves. This was originally one long shot that required the cave tunnel to be revealed as they ride through. I composited backgrounds, added all FX, and re-timed and animated the kids and dinosaur flying through as I figured out how to pace the camera moves. Shoutout to Norman Jr. (the dinosaur).
Astralynx reveals some hidden truths to WB and friends. My note was to figure out a way to reveal the map underneath and make it feel magical and aligned.
The Winds of Change. Animals evolving to survive in a new landscape. Fixed and filled out wind assets to meet compositing, camera / framerate and staging needs. The FX always needed to remain “charming and hand-drawn”, which meant leaning away from a slick or polished character, while looking fundamentally sound and maintaining something that felt like flow. Animated the frog’s tail situation, the owl shakeout and that dive-splash.
Young Luxcraft rides in on his bubble to protect an old friend. He had to charge in, pop the bubble and land to initiate some magic FX we had not yet finished designing. This flashback sequence was expanded quite a bit and didn’t really have storyboards, animatic or roughs, so I made sure he hit the ground like a bolt and started charging something, to give the next shot and animator some momentum.
We needed a KO shot but nothing too jarring or violent. The staging for this sequence was a bit of a 180º headache, and shaping any camera moves or new animation to meet a rolling edit was always a challenge, especially in a climactic moment. I threw in a spinning ball we already had, tweaked Luxcraft’s swing animation for a little more punch as I put them together, animated Nyx from rough to clean based on director pose suggestions, and figured out a camera move that might work.