Battle Kitty was finally released on Netflix this week, after such a long wait! I started on the show about 3 years ago. Here’s some of my artwork from the first episode, Orc Island.
Battle Kitty is a 3D show, animated in Unreal by Plastic Wax studio in Melbourne, Australia. The studio does a lot of work for video games. Our design team at Netflix Animation Studio in Los Angeles were mostly 2D artists, with animated TV cartoon experience. We had a lot to learn… we experimented with procedures and figured it out as we went along.!!
The first two images above are what I’d usually call a “key” design in 1 point perspective. A key may be used on screen but is also used as reference for lots of other small shots.
After episode 1, we stopped sending the studio so many keys. They look great on paper but aren’t quite as useful as overhead maps and schematics. We made one map for Orc Island. This area got used in the first episode, and in some flashbacks later.
I made a few props for the show. One thing I learned about working with a 2d studio is that NOTES and diagrams are often more important than a good, clean drawing. Although we did a lot of both. I was very polite with this one, wasn’t I?
One more overhead illustration for Kitty and Orc’s last moments on the Island, facing off against Orc King.
Here’s a background and a character design/pose reference for when Kitty is imagining his beautiful exciting future on Battle Island. One of these monsters wasn’t used in the show!!! So this got changed later!
