I just saw the new Peanuts/Charlie Brown and Snoopy movie (and loved it), and both thematically and aesthetically it's given me a lot to think about. The way the film is animated combines grainy cartoon-esque line work with vibrant computer generated colours and surfaces (e.g hair, clothes) and I feel that is works as a beautiful modern update on the old erratic line work of the Charles Schulz comic strip, without being garish or desperate like a lot of modern neon technicolor nightmare reimaginings (*cough* Thunderbirds *cough*).
The film also had a lot of themes that I found refreshing and interesting, as a lot of children's movies today assume that children are stupid and just like bright colours and loud characters that fall on their arses a lot (*cough* Adam Sandlers Pixels *cough*), but Peanuts deals with themes such as self confidence, selflessness, the importance of being honest and general values of childhood friendship and family relationships. For this reason Peanuts will be a big influence in the way I choose to select and design a character, as I think a picture book is the perfect opportunity to tell a story larger than just what is on the page and hopefully get across a similar message that means something, which is the main driving force behind why I'm doing illustration in the first place.
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