Maue, shape-shifter

For those who need context, here's an overview. Chimptopia is an animated pilot created by Robert Pagliaro, or at least it will be if the team meets their Kickstarter goal. To get eyes on the project, Pagliaro released a now-infamous trailer of the Chimptopia characters beating up a parody version of Gobbles, the pink dinosaur from popular animated pilot Gameoverse.

And, well... It certainly got attention, but the backlash was swift. Many expressed their belief that bashing other indie projects isn't the way to get yours noticed, and I agree. Just because others are winning, it doesn't mean you're losing. It's unwise to burn bridges so early in one's career (according to Pagliaro's Twitter, he graduated from SCAD this year), and your project should be able to stand on its own merits without tearing down another one.

And that's the million-dollar question: Does Chimptopia stand on its own merits? Putting aside the ill-advised trailer and the resulting outcry, is there a worthwhile series here? Well, here's the premise on the Kickstarter page:

“Chimptopia” is an animated sitcom about three 20-something year old friends who need money so they don't get evicted by their landlord, Chimp. The pilot follows Robby, Nolan, and Waffles as they gain wisdom from The Wise Cow to figure out how to solve their money problems.

Just based on that, there's not much of a hook. The animal names stand out as unusual points of interest, but the impression I get is that the show will be mostly bland with a few moments scraping the bottom of the "lol, random" comedy barrel. (Unfortunately, the first minute of the Kickstarter video supports this, with lackluster voice acting, comedic timing that's much too slow to be funny, and Chimp performing a series of random actions that I guess were intended to make us laugh.)

But if the log line doesn't grab you, maybe the visuals will. Here's the initial illustration meant to show off the series:

Lookin' a bit like a Family Guy clone if you ask me.

To the team's credit, though, they've since embraced a new, more expressive art style, and the characters now look much less generic.

Giving their outfits colors other than blue, gray, and tan is also a step in the right direction, making it easier to tell the characters apart from one another.

One problem, however: The new designs still don't communicate much information about the characters, or at least nothing beyond the basic emotions of "happy", "angry" and "nervous".

Look at these three again. Which character do you think is the most organized? Which one loves "get rich quick" schemes? Which one is big-hearted? Any ideas?

On top of that, their clothing is still painfully simplistic. I get that overly-detailed character designs are poison to hand-drawn animation (which we've discussed before), but on the other end of the spectrum, you don't want them to be too nonspecific either. Sure, it's obvious they're wearing shirts, pants, and shoes, but what types of shirts, pants and shoes? And what good does it do Waffles to wear a button-up shirt over a hoodie? The expressed intent on the Kickstarter page is to tell stories that feel authentic, so why not bring a little authenticity to the designs so they feel more grounded in reality? Just a few more lines here and there should do the trick.

Other folks have pointed out that it'd be much more fitting and interesting if all the characters were chimps (the show's called Chimptopia, for god's sake!), but let's see how we can make the human designs stand out and convey their personalities more clearly.

Robby

First off, there's Robby, the main character and the first one we saw in the trailer. Per the Kickstarter:

Big-hearted, painfully gullible, and not exactly known for his critical thinking, Robby will happily follow Nolan into any half-baked scheme because he genuinely believes it'll work. No matter how bad things get, Robby is convinced they're just one lucky break away from turning it all around. While Nolan is quick to take advantage of his blind loyalty, Waffles is usually the one steering Robby back toward the right choice—assuming he can get to him first.

Obviously, this isn't the same cynical douchebag from the trailer, who led a harmless little dinosaur behind a tree to get his ass kicked. It seems the team wasn't confident enough to show us the actual vision of the character they had in their heads, so they gave us a false one that they thought would be funnier and more appealing. Really struggling to understand the logic on that one. It's like if the first time we saw Spongebob, he chopped someone's head off with an axe. Truly a bizarre character assassination before we even knew who the character was.

But, fine. We have a description. I looked up the older character descriptions as well just so I'd have more to work with, and Robby's sheet revealed that he's an aspiring artist who likes cartoons and working out, and dislikes getting dirty. With all that in mind, here's my revised sketch and some notes.

With all these designs, I tried to stay true to the established art style while adding some specificity. Robby now wears athletic shoes and shorts to indicate his love of working out, a digital drawing glove to show his artistic aspirations (I considered paint splatters on his clothes, but remember, he doesn't like getting dirty!), and a graphic tee showing a cartoon monkey. Maybe when the lads first meet Chimp, he could see the character on Robby's shirt and rant about how that show was full of monkey stereotypes (and maybe he doesn't trust Robby from that point on, lol).

Something else I noticed is that the revised designs color-code the characters with red, blue, and yellow. Red definitely makes sense for Nolan (the hothead of the group), but I felt that yellow was more fitting for Robby's optimistic, sunny personality, and that blue was more fitting for Waffles as the low-key, responsible, exhausted one. I also prefer not to use pure black for a character's hair, as too much black can be visually oppressive and doesn't look as naturalistic for hair as a very, very dark brown does. So here's Robby with the new colors!

Nolan

Next up is Nolan, who I found the most interesting of the bunch. Here's what the Kickstarter says:

Leading many of their questionable money-making schemes is Nolan, a hotheaded opportunist who's always looking for a way to get one over on the system. Every terrible idea sounds like a guaranteed success in his head, and he's always chasing the next get-rich-quick scheme. He has a hair-trigger temper, picking fights over the smallest inconvenience and refusing to admit when he's wrong.

His older description also mentioned that he's extremely confident. Perhaps a con man of sorts? There's also the question of why he's always chasing money. Maybe he enjoys the appearance of importance money gives him, and I liked the idea of an image-obsessed character who's broke but tries to look rich. More in the notes!

Here's where it's pretty apparent how much a little more specificity in clothing can add to a character. The polo, the Rolex, the slacks, the boat shoes... Typical rich-guy attire (or at least what Nolan thinks it is). And I've always thought a forced smile on a temperamental character is much more interesting than a perpetual scowl.

Also, similar to the color swap of the previous design, I swapped hairstyles between Nolan and Waffles. The spiky, flame-shaped hair paired much better with Nolan's hot temper, while the more reserved hairstyle was better suited to Waffles. And yeah, it's time to address the elephant in the room:

We've got Robby, Nolan, and I'm guessing "Waffles" is Jake's nickname. Yeah, it's pretty clear from the characters' names and appearances that they're the writers' self-inserts. While there's nothing wrong with giving a few of a writer's traits to a character, imbuing them with too much of yourself makes it difficult to see them objectively (and, therefore, improve them where necessary). Suddenly every criticism of the character feels like a personal attack on you, and you dig in your heels to the detriment of the story you're trying to tell. The characters' looks were obviously intended as a nod to their creators, but maybe it's best that we sever those bonds for more creative flexibility.

With all that in mind... Yeah I changed Nolan's hair color too.

I felt the red-orange would be more appropriate given the fiery shape of his new hair, plus I felt having two brown-haired guys in the group was too samey. Which brings us to our final character:

Waffles

(Though I'm calling him "Wallace" for the sake of this post. He seems too practical and professional to prefer a silly nickname.)

This was the hardest one for me, mainly because his description is damn depressing.

Waffles (AKA Waffs) is the exhausted voice of reason in a house full of idiots. Organized, cautious, and allergic to shortcuts, he'd much rather solve problems the right way than chase Nolan's latest get-rich-quick scheme. Before Robby and Nolan derailed his promising career, Waffles had his life completely together. Now he's stuck in Chimptopia, spending every day cleaning up their messes and wondering how everything went so wrong. No matter how hard he tries to keep the trio on track, Nolan's bad ideas and Robby's blind enthusiasm always drag him right back into the chaos.

Look, I know comedy is just tragedy plus time, but holy shit it would take a master comedic writer to wring laughs from this guy's situation. Do I trust the minds that brought us that awful trailer to pull off that level of finesse? Nah, not really. And I get that somebody's gotta be the straight man, but does the straight man's life really have to be this miserable? Kind of a giant friggin' downer in your sitcom, no? But that description is what I had to work with, so let's try to make the best of it.

Wallace seems the most responsible and mature of the three; basically the only real adult in the room. I didn't want him to look like someone's dad, but I also think maybe he still dresses as if he's going in to work, just to keep himself in that headspace as he searches for a new job. His old profile said he aspires to be an engineer (didn't specify what type of engineer, because of course it didn't), which gave me a hint as to what he'd wear. A button-up shirt, jeans and dress shoes felt like a safe bet.

Also, I gave him a slightly huskier body type than the other two just for some variety. We already have a muscly tall guy and a skinny short guy, so let's mix it up. (Another great example of how detaching yourself from your characters ultimately benefits them: It doesn't feel personal if their body type changes!)

Now let's see how his colors look.

As I mentioned before, I felt blue suited his personality best, so he swapped colors with Robby. I did think the grid pattern on the other design's yellow shirt was kind of clever (making Waffles look like a waffle), but didn't see much point in it if this character opts out of using that nickname. After losing control of his life to a couple quarter-wits, he's gotta retain whatever dignity he has left.

Here's how they all look together!

I wish we knew more about these guys so I could have a better read on where to take their designs, but this'll have to do for now. The designs are still pretty simple in a way that's suitable for animation, but now they're more closely tailored to what each character needs to communicate.