This is my preferred color thinking for cartoons. Colors and techniques that make the cartoon seem warm, real and inviting. Even though this is very stylized-not realistic, it still has much depth.
I love the colors and textures in these BGs from an episode of the Flintstones.
The underpainting level is a salmon color (the sky)
Then Art painted the other colors on top, leaving some areas transparent so that the sky color blends with the other colors.
If you look at the walls, you can see a lot of clever decision making at work.
There is a fine sponge texture between the sky layer and the more contrasted brush strokes on top.Note the big broad brushtrokes at the edge of the round house. Those are placed deliberately around the edge-not in the middle.
CONTROL YOUR CHOICES
This is a good use of contrast and control. The strokes themselves have a lot of flair and aren't parallel-yet they still wrap around the house. The organic shapes of the strokes make the house seem real, not mechanical. Lozzi has made many creative decisions, rather than just fill his whole painting with equal amounts of texture or evenly spaced brush strokes.
Looking closely you can see that the textures and brush strokes are not the same exact color tint as the underpainting. There are all kinds of subtle tint and value variations. This keeps the picture from looking monochromatic.
There aren't any simple colors. No primaries or secondaries, and the overall effect of the clever color choices makes the environment be more colorful than the typical garish colors 
you see in many cartoons, both past and present.
More good stuff...
Subtle variations in texture and color make the overall main color seem much richer and not so simplistic and flat as pure garish primaries and secondaries.
I love the rocks in the original Flintstones.Is there anybody out there who can paint like this and needs a cartoon to let him?
23 comments:
We totally had eye-gasms looking at this a few days ago!
GENIUS, GENIUS, GENIUS! I ♥ Art!
Very nice examples. You don't see that kind of talent anywhere today.
rather than just fill his whole painting with equal amounts of texture or evenly spaced brush strokes.
That's what kills me about these modern cartoon backrounds. Even when I see some decent ones, the artist still want to make everything far too even. It dosen't look natural. Lozi obviously noticed that when you look at a rock,tree,etc. up close, you see all sorts of colors. You don't see any real pattern or measurement of what is color used wear. And like you said, no primary or secoundary crap.
Oh and let me add that CAMP LAZLO is a modern cartoon that has some decent backrounds. They have one too many primary and secoundary colors but still, it isn't that bad.
That first background is gorgeous. I'm always amazed at how great those backgrounds were considering the tight schedule they were on. Great stuff.
Beautiful! My college has a bunch of original Flintstones backgrounds, (and a ton of HB layout drawings and cels) in their archive and they're even better in person!
It's weird...now companies are trying to make their products in "Sixties colors", like A&W Root Beer. They just put brown and orange, and a browny yellow or two and say "Look, it's hip and retro!"
Hey John, I hope it's not to late to submit my Bugs Bunny construction lessons. Here they are: (sorry, I forgot how to make an actual link)
www.holyshenanigans.blogspot.com
I love these backrounds, My own attempts can be seen here-
I'm working on it.
www.steveameycartoonbackrounds.blogspot.com
you can also check my attempts here;
www.cactusville.blogspot.com
scroll down to the btoom and click on the images to enlarge them...
The colors are too garish... but I'm working on it.
John,
Yeah, I go to Edinboro University of PA...
I think George Nicholas dumped a lot of this stuff here (he taught here before he died).
Unfortunately, I don't think there are any scans. We have a lot of the large ones used for pans which would be difficult to scan. I do want to take pics of them sometime, though. There's a lot to learn from them as far as painting technique when you look at them up close. They're really elegant and simply handled.
Wow, I never realized just how amazing The Finstone's backgrounds actually looked. Now that's talent that will (probably) never be duplicated. But you never know. There's always fresh blood out there with just as much to prove, whose probably just as amazingly talented.
Thanks for sharing man.
How can people see that modern image of the Flintstones and think it's even remotely similar to the design (character lines, colors, textures, overall warm feel) that existed in the original version?
If I owned that autograph I'd be thrilled to have it, but secretly wished that it was on an original work and not that still from, well ... what is that from?
HEY JOSH, I went to your blogs - great stuff!
i LOVE salmon (color and fish)
Did you get those pictures off a DVD? They look so clean and sharp. And cool examples.
Got to love that nuclear green on the Bambi cover. Brings back fond memories of bile.
I love these colour choices, I collect them and try to use them when im doing my own stuff...hello, me name is Adele K Thomas, and I am a primary, secondary, and saturated victim of colour...IM SORRY!!!!!
Thanks for posting. Flesh color and neutrals seem to be a soft and calm combo.
What kind of paint did he use?
I've started using old Hanna-Barbera backgrounds as desktop computer backgrounds. Try it.
That Rescuers image of the mice dining out makes my teeth cry...
Hey, TCM is showing all these Great Gildersleeve movies today. The voice of Captain Huffenpuff must have been inspired by this guy, because he sounds just like him. Having been ignorant to the Gildersleeve, I never had any idea where the voice came from. He's got an awesome way of talking. Maybe you can grab some clips for the blog.
Mr. K,
How would one go about designing these backgrounds, and making those sort of bruch choices.
And just so I am clear, is warm really the overall preference for a cartoon. I am working on something now in which I deliberatally make the background cool, something I also prefer.
to true what you say about the rocks way to many cartoons i've watched are just crap mostly from how sloppy the BG's where done.
by the way i'm a big fan of your work i was fortunate to talk with capunicus and some of the staff about the weird al video sweet work and i hope to see alot more
cheers
I developed a pretty heavy crush on background design a year ago and knew I had to give it a go.
Washed out scan of an abandoned attempt:
http://webspace.utexas.edu/ace67/bg.gif
Unfortunately for yours truly, I was obsessed with lithography at the time, perhaps the most impractical medium for exploration into background work. But boy did can it ever produce some great textures.
One question, did Art Lozzi ever begin with colored paper, or did he merely start with a white board and wash it with one of those delightful, salmon pinks? The one thing I don't understand is how current cartoons view the word 'subtle' as a bad thing.
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