Chris Battle, Confessions of a Animation Monkey

Over the last year or so I've been fortunate enough to know television animation character designer Chris Battle. Chris is one of those cool down-to-earth guys and I've admired his work for a long time. I’ve wanted to pick his brain for awhile now and recently he took the time out to answer some of my questions.

Enjoy!

Cartoon Funland: Tell us about yourself—who you are, etc.?

Chris Battle: I'm Chris Battle and I'm a Character Designer working in television animation.

Cartoon Funland: What made you become a Character Designer?

Chris Battle: A lifetime of drawing combined with a lifelong love of cartoons, comic books, and comic strips collided with the 90's animation boom and I wound up with an 8-year old's dream job.

Cartoon Funland: What sort of things (art, cartoons, movies, music, books) gives you inspiration or are you influenced by?

Chris Battle: Cartoons, comic books, film, video games, graphic design, toys, urban vinyl, artist blogs and sites ... everything! Inspiration is everywhere.

Cartoon Funland: How do you go about designing a character—what's the process, from beginning to end?


Chris Battle: Usually it starts with a script or outline and a discussion with the Director about what they want for the character. Then you do some thumbnails and character exploration. Depending on the Director/Supervising Artist's reaction, you might move forward to a final design or back to the drawing board. After that, you'll draw turnarounds and assorted poses. Then it goes off to a Clean-Up and Color Key, where it becomes a "real" character ready to be animated.


Cartoon Funland: What techniques and programs do you use when creating?

Chris Battle: Post-It Notes are my favorite medium these days. After that, Photoshop is a must.



Cartoon Funland: How did you get involved with Rob Zombie's THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO? What was the experience like, how much freedom did you have, what sort of things did you look at for inspiration, and what where your favorite characters to work on?

Chris Battle: After the usual end-of-season layoffs, it was time to find a new job. I heard some of my of my pals from my POWERPUFF GIRLS/SAMURAI JACK days were working on something cool and gave them a call. After meeting with the Director and Producer, they dug my stuff and my friends' recommendations did the rest.

I had a surprising amount of freedom on ESB. With a whole world of monsters and ghouls to populate, they just let me go wild and I had a lot of fun doing it.

For inspiration, we always looked to old monster movies to get the details right. Be on the lookout for cameos by your favorite creeps when it finally comes out. As for my favorites, I can't say who they are, 'cause we still can't talk about specifics before it's released!

Cartoon Funland: You recently wrapped up work on THE MIGHTY B over at Nick. What's that like?

It was tough!! All first seasons are usually crazy, since you're creating everything from scratch. I'm curretly back at Cartoon Network, working on something cool that I'm not sure I can talk about yet.

Cartoon Funland: What's your favorite project to date and why?


Chris Battle: Without a doubt, my 7-year stretch at Hanna-Barbera/Cartoon Network, where I worked on DEXTER'S LABORATORY, POWERPUFF GIRLS, and SAMURAI JACK. Truly amazing shows that I'm personally very proud to have been a part of, working alongside some of the greatest talent this industry has to offer, who I'm now happy to call my friends.


Cartoon Funland: Do you have any personal projects that you would like to work on?

Chris Battle: Cool shows with good pals that I hope will happen one day if the network execs say "yes."

Cartoon Funland: What is it about being involved in art shows that you like?

Chris Battle: It's great to be able to see everyone's personal stuff that they do in their off time ... even better to have your stuff hanging up next to theirs! Plus, it's always a good excuse for a party.

Cartoon Funland: What are your favorite cartoons when it comes to style, art direction, writing, etc.?

Chris Battle: I mainly respond to everything with a strong visual style that is, above all else, entertaining: EL TIGRE, CHOWDER, FOSTER'S, SPONGEBOB, MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT, Genndy's CLONE WARS, all of Warner Bros.' DC superheroes shows (the Bruce Timm-verse, TEEN TITANS, THE BATMAN, etc). Hiyao Miyazaki is an animation god. As for lifetime favorites, ya can't beat Looney Tunes. I also have a soft spot for early Hanna-Barbera (Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, etc.).

Cartoon Funland: For those aspiring artists out there, what sort of advice can you give them?

Chris Battle: You gotta make a living somehow, so you might as well make it doing something you love, right? Keep drawing/painting/sculpting/animating. Learn the basics, hone your skills, and then get it out there ... be it on a blog or portfolio site like deviantART, or YouTube, or a self-published 'zine. Keep at it!! If you want it bad enough, work for it. It's definitely worth it.

For more of Chris's character designs and Post-It Note art please visit his blog Chris Battle Illustration!