MTV Geek has an interview with Thundercats 2011 Designer Dan Norton. Along with the interview are looks at some of his designs. Included is our first look at the new Jackalman! In the interview, Norton talks about his design influences, his approach and what he’s looking to bring to the young series.
“When I’m looking for reference, I pull a lot from nature: national monuments, photography, live photos—I mean really, there’s a lot of nature that’s already impressive. So just going into an entirety of being a fan of all sorts of fantasy shows, cartoons, movies—you know, one of my favorite movies was Conan the Barbarian. There’s just so many different cartoons, more than I could probably name. I was a big fan of Escaflowne, Record of Lodoss War, all of those rich, fantasy cartoons. Even the old school Rankin Bass [movie] The Last Unicorn and Lord of the Rings, you know, just seeing that and feeding on it for so many years and then seeing people pushing the limit in other shows—you just take what inspires you and add your own edge to it.”
For more, check out the interview Here. Click the headline of the story for the images.
Hello everyone!
An interview with new Thundercats series designer Dan Norton has been posted!
Here's a link!
The Man Who Built Third Earth: An Interview With ‘ThunderCats’ Designer Dan Norton » MTV Geek
Spoilers:
The interview also includes a model sheet of a character's new appearance! This is our first look at the updated Jackalman! Also, if the file name is any indication, Jackalman might have the new name of Kayner.....
Nice update to Jackalman. It's a fresh design, and he's definitely more wild looking, but he's still recognizable to me. Also, the name Kayner is a nice fit to his design.
Edit: Read through the interview, and I can tell that Dan Norton really knows what he is doing. Got me even more psyched for future episodes. I can't wait to see how they've redesigned some of the other characters. Most especially Monkian.
Nice design on Jackalman. Looking forward to seeing him introduced. Thanks for the heads up.
The article also shows a design sheet for some other characters. I recognize the Ro-Bear but not some of them:
I believe the blue cat should be Snow Miow
He looks great. Leagues better than the old Jackalman. Hope his voice is good.
Article is a great read. I look forward to this show every week.
Article is a great read. I look forward to this show every week.
I see some great character designs jackelman looks sick and snow miow looks perfect I was wondering if they would to the robear berbils I think will be getting some more great figures to come in the future!!!
I love this new design for Jacka... erm, Kayner. He actually looks... quite noble, with that face. He will certainly be no laughing matter like the old one.
-Sarrow/Saurro, the lizard tracker from episode 4.
- ??? No idea. A gnome?
- A Robear Berbil from the old series.
- Kamai, the chameleon-like leader of the lizard trackers from episode 4.
- a Trollog (trollop?), again in the old series they were creatures who stole candy-fruit from the Berbils to feed their oppressors.
- This pig-man looks a LOT like the tax collector from the old episode "The spaceship beneath the sands"
- Probably one of the canids/dogs, Jackalman's people. I have a hunch he'll be appearing in "The duelist and the drifter" if that huge sword is any indication.
- Three members of Captain Koinelius Tunar's fish-men crew, including the first mate.
- The Petalars, from episode 4.
- elephant-men, no idea where from...
- Snow-Meow, the mount of the Snow-Man from the old episode "Lord of the Snows".
- A Giantor, the creatures who oppress the Trollogs and force them to steal the fruit of the Robears.
JackalMan looks good (He was always one of my fav designs along with Rattaro) but some of those other Denizins looks like they escaped from a Japanese Role Playing game to me.
I'm kind of surprised they have included the Robear Burbils I would have thought the'd be a temptation to dump them from the franchise as unmarketable.
I wonder if Willa (or was that Willow?) and the Amazon girls will be included or not ? - I always found her interesting as she was the only thing that helped quash the Tigra is Gay rumors.
Wow!! They need to release an art book at the end of this season!!
Kayner..? OH... K.. Whatever. As long as they introduce him as Kayner the "Jackalman" and refer to him as Jackalman, I'm good. Love the look and I am psyched to see his introduction.
Damn, Jackalman went to the gym! And he looks like he won't take Slithe's insults! I like it!
I'm more interested on Pumyra's design for this new serie. I saw on a site that Michael Jelenic said that many fans wants to see her back on the show. No lies, check here Thundercats Ho! An Interview with Mike Jelenic | AWN | Animation World Network
This were Michael Jelenic words: "We look at the message boards and we see whom the original fans want to see, so as much as we can – without throwing characters in for some random reason – we want to make sure we have at least a cameo or a one-off for each of these loved characters. You'll see Pumyra, with several episodes devoted to her"
About her voice actress...there's not a word about the subject but since I'm interested on Hynden Walch to voice a character in this serie, I guess Pumyra wouldn't be a bad option!