This month, Cross and Phillips have both revealed some of the secrets behind their work. Phillips has moved almost exclusively over to Toon Boom Animate, while Cross is pushing through The Pig Farmer in Flash. Below we’re treated to a glimpse into their production process:

Nick Cross’ Flash clean-ups – visit his blog for the full 9-step process

Adam Phillips – illustrating his rigging process in Toon Boom Animate – visit his YouTube page to see the full series

The episode, titled Damnesia Vu, premieres Thursday, March 19th (tomorrow!) at 12:15 am ET/PT. Below we ask him a few questions about the production, and his response includes a video tutorial detailing his one-man-band process. But first, here’s a :25 second clip from the 2:00 minute sequence he animated.

AARON SIMPSON: When did you produce this segment?

M. WARTELLA: The animation was done entirely by hand over the course of one month late last year. No assistants or in-betweeners or background artists or anything like that. Just cranked it out all myself, which isn’t too bad for a two-minute cartoon. I’d just come off a gig storyboarding the second season of Xavier, and I think the show’s directors, Vernon Chatman and John Lee, were inspired to try something different based on the illustrative style of the animatics I was doing. They asked if I’d be willing to animate a special segment, and of course I said yes.

SIMPSON: What type of creative direction were you given?

WARTELLA: Well, I had worked with John and Vernon on Wonder Showzen, so I already had a bit of insight into their particular brand of humor. The premise of this episode, Damnesia Vu, is that Xavier is kind of “Quantum Leaping” into different lives, sort of a reincarnation theme, and they had the idea that it would be a cool twist for Xavier, a CGI character, to jump into a flat 2D world. They wrote the script, and we just kind of developed it back and forth from there.

SIMPSON: What transpired during that back-and-forth?

WARTELLA: We actually ended up doing two different levels of animatics. The first pass was storyboarding the entire episode. I’d never worked on a CGI show before, so I was curious to see how my animatics would translate into CGI. But the animation house, Cinematico, did a great job and really took the basic boards and added some great 3D flourishes. The next step was going back in and doing a second animatic for just my 2D segment. The second animatic was even more detailed, and here the timing and action were finessed in even greater detail. I’d basically go frame-by-frame through each version with John and Vernon, and sometimes new ideas would come out right there and we’d work them in. Basically just refining and refining, adding more and more levels of detail each time, until it was dense enough and time to draw and animate the final art.

SIMPSON: How much Aztec reference did you pour over before your design style came together?

WARTELLA: A lot. I just spent a day digging online picking up everything I could. I’m into old books like Von Daniken‘s Gods From Outer Space and Landsburg’s In Search of Ancient Mysteries, so I had a few other references on my bookshelves. There’s a touch of Egyptian hieroglyphics in there, too. So it was basically comparing all these different images and then applying that look and color palette to my character designs. John and Vernon had this idea that Aztec art kind of looked like Looney Tunes stuff, so I think that was also an inspiration for the segment.

SIMPSON: Vernon Chatman described the show as a “warning… about the dangers of spirituality.” Your episode deals with false idolatry. Do you think the Adult Swim audience will pick up on these messages, amidst the comedy and bloodshed?

WARTELLA: Actually, I think so. I’ve skimmed over some of the discussion boards over on Adult Swim and you’d be surprised how much people pick up on. Personally, I believe that they aren’t nearly as nihilistic as a lot of people think, and that there is what David Lynch calls an “all-pervading happiness” that underlies their writing. But that’s something you’d have to ask them.

SIMPSON: How did the Cintiq change your process?

WARTELLA: Well, I’ve been working with the Wacom digitizer pads since the first PL model came out about ten years ago, and needless to say I can’t imagine working without one. Especially doing animation. The Cintiq is extra special because it gives you the luxury of a large drawing space. I just think it’s a great invention, as important a step forward as going from a typewriter to the first word processor. Now if the entire system were just portable….

SIMPSON: Tell us a little about this tutorial we’re going to watch.

WARTELLA: Well, I’ve spent so many years of trial and error trying to figure out the best way to make professional animation using Flash, and I just thought it’d be fun to share a few secrets with people who might be just starting out or doing animation in their spare time. I hope people will drop me a line and let me know if they found this useful. So in this video, I describe my basic process, as well as highlight a few “tricks of the trade” that were major stumbling blocks on my learning curve. It’s all jam-packed in there fast though, so take notes!

60-second D.I.Y. Animation Tutorial

Back in August, the Halifax-based animation studio Collideascope closed its doors. The studio, which began in 1995, was one of the first in the world to use Flash for broadcast TV, pioneering on the series Olliver’s Adventures. The shop will close at the end of this month, and co-founder Michael-Andreas Kuttner pointed us to a recent article that serves as “a eulogy.” The Halifax newspaper The Coast featured a story titled Empty Frames last week, which identifies Collideascope as producing nine shows, 90 hours of cartoons and employing around 400 animators from all over Canada. According to Kuttner’s blog, they had 120 full-time employees at their peak last year. It appears that timing was the culprit, as Kuttner points out. They were scheduled to start a new project this Fall but a delay pushed it off, plus the Canadian studios have seen a great deal of service work head to Asia in recent months. Regardless, the legacy they leave behind will live on in the projects they produced and the artists’ careers that were founded and nurtured at Collideascope. Us animators can also enjoy the many wonderful animation tutorials archived on their blog. Congrats on a great run, guys, and a very graceful exit.

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First is a step-by-step walk-through on how to build an “energy field cycle.” Not sure what that means? Here’s what it looks like in action (animation by Jake Macher):