Sep
16
2005
Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island Premiere
posted by hancock, 6.34 PM
http://coldhardflash.com/category/uncategorized
Some of you know that when I’m not digging around the
web for Flash-animation related news, I’m hard at work producing animation. And for the last year or so, I’ve been producing ‘Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island,’ which begins airing in the US tomorrow morning on Kids’WB! at 9:30am (EST). Along with my co-producer Marge Dean, Supervising Director Matt Danner, and Story Editor Ray DeLaurentis, we’ve pulled together a series we’re all very proud of.
The show is produced almost entirely in Flash, and Matt Danner (character designer and director on ‘Xiaolin Showdown’), who designed the majority of the main characters, created a unique look that we couldn’t have achieved if we produced it traditionally. To compliment Matt’s character designs, we designed intricate vector textures for all of the characters, giving a full, almost photographic, look to the show. And the world of Fruit Salad Island was also realized with a fresh look. Working with Photoshop, we used a library of photos to create a collage aesthetic that almost looks and feels 3D. We think it really jumps off the screen and the bright, tropical color palette is perfect for Coconut Fred’s world. Throughout much of our pre-production, Matt was busy with
his role as a Supervising Director, so he relied on the amazing skills of his design team - namely Chris Battle (’Powerpuff Girls,’ ‘Samurai Jack’ and ‘Dexter’s Lab’) and Mindy Allen (or as she’s known to some Miss Mindy). They built out the rest of characters in Coconut Fred’s world, and created all of the unique variations of the characters that you’ll see throughout the first 13 episodes. Pay particular attention to the eyes and mouths of the characters. As many of you know, animating in Flash allows the production team to ‘re-use’ many drawings, and this means the design team can spend a great deal of time crafting elaborate, intricate mouths and eyes that can be used repeatedly throughout the production. You can also see this on display in shows like ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’ on Cartoon Network.