BOURASSA: Hey, guys, this is Phil Bourassa, lead character designer on Son of Batman.
RA'S: Here is your legacy, Damian.
Here is your inheritance.
BOURASSA: So the job of the lead character designer...
...is to establish the look of the characters for the film.
Essentially, setting the style, creating the costumes.
The great thing about working on the DC characters...
...is there's a lot of history and lore that you can pull from.
For me, my job is to dig into that reference, dig into that source material...
...and translate it through my own stylistic filter...
...and come up with a look that's really gonna tap into that tradition...
...while also making it new and fresh...
...and something that works on a mechanical level for the medium of animation.
One of the exciting challenges...
...was being able to design Damian Wayne as Robin.
Damian has several looks in this film.
He starts out in ceremonial garb, reflecting his upbringing.
After that, he dons the garb of the League of Shadows...
...reflecting his ninja training.
This is how he goes out into the field.
One of the things that was cool about working on Damian...
...was he initially sees the Robin outfit in the film and he kind of makes fun of it.
Looks rather effeminate, don't you think?
BOURASSA: He's giving Dick Grayson a hard time about the way the outfit looks...
...because we went with a more traditional look for that scene...
...which Damian makes fun of.
I thought a fun challenge would be a way to...
...get him to actually put the suit on but incorporate elements...
...from his ninja background...
...and make that work in concert with the traditional Robin outfit.
So in his ninja uniform, he's wearing sort of gauntlets and greaves.
The armor plating from the ninja gear, he kind of spray paints it dark green.
He takes a lot of the elements from his ninja outfit and incorporates it...
...with the Robin gear to come up with his own unique look.
One of the cool things, I thought, from the comic book...
...was he's got this black hood that goes over the classic yellow Robin cape.
And I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if that hood...
...was more something he cut up from his ninja gear?"
He sort of cuts up his ninja hood and he drapes it over the cape...
...and that's how he achieves that look.
And I was really thrilled to get a chance to draw this particular version of Robin.
My job starts with reading the script...
...discussing the tone...
...and setting out to come up with a look that's faithful to the tradition...
...but also works for the context of our story.
And then I pull all my comic-book reference...
...because I wanna make sure that there's specific nods to the comic-book tradition.
But I also wanna know when I'm departing.
I wanna be very sure why I'm departing...
...just so that it's not change for the sake of change...
...but it's change that suits the story and hopefully makes it work better.
So I do a concept drawing. It's usually pretty loose and rough...
...just to get the basic elements down.
The basic purpose is just to see if I'm on the right track...
...with what the director's thinking, and the other purpose for that is...
...to get our storyboard artists something to work from.
That's the beginning of the process.
From there, we move on to doing the rough turns.
The character model turns are pretty much informational.
It's taking the approved concept and working it out from several angles...
...as many angles as you can fit in, giving as much detail as possible...
...for the animators at this point.
As an animation artist, as a designer, you have three tools at your disposal.
You have line, you have color and you have shadow, and that's it.
So you have to be very economical with all your choices...
...and it's all about finding something very simple that can translate...
...because animators have to draw it a thousand times.
So you wanna give them something...
...that can be interpreted by many different hands.
So I'm trying to come up with a style that is simplified but still has personality...
...and that animators who understand the fundamentals of anatomy and drapery...
...that they can really wrap their heads around...
...how this character's gonna move, how they're gonna turn...
...how we're gonna create the illusion of three dimensional space.
So color is a really important aspect of the process of design.
Not just in terms of palette...
...but in terms of really giving you a sense...
...of how the characters line art is really working.
I usually start roughing out my turn...
...and while I'm doing my rough character turn...
...I'm also adding rough color placement.
I'll drop the colors into the silhouette of the character to really see the shapes...
...because there's a difference between looking at something just as line...
...and you're imagining how that shape's gonna work as a silhouette.
And then seeing the actual silhouette with the color inside it...
...really gives you a sense of how the volumes are working together.
So I'm constantly switching between line art...
...and a rough color treatment while I'm drawing.
That helps me to really see the characters and make sure...
...that I'm keeping the shapes consistent from one view to another.
A super important part of the design process...
...is the close-up shots, the head turns.
When we're designing, we have a very limited amount of time...
...and so there's only so many shots we can draw of each character.
What I like to do is cover the basics first.
And then doing a really nice close-up and trying to get...
...all the volumes and shapes and the way the shadows are cut...
...give a sense of dimension to the characters.
So I'm always really specific about the way I cut in my shadows.
It helps to describe all the forms and give the animators a sense of...
...how the general lighting condition should be.
Like if there's a big explosion, there'll be a high contrast...
...or if somebody's in low light or they're backlit...
...we might do a rim-light treatment.
But in general, I like to do a default shadow treatment on all the characters.
One of the final stages in the process of design...
...is expression shots of the characters.
And that, essentially, is drawing the character in not the static...
...informational poses that you'll see on a character model sheet or a turn...
...but giving the character some gestures and expressions that describe...
...how the character moves and the types of acting that's possible...
...and how the anatomy works when it's in motion.
So once the rough turn is done...
...and I've figured out the character from all the important angles...
...all this stuff gets cleaned up, or inked.
In animation we call it a clean-up line, which is to take the rough pencil art...
...and put a fine, crisp, confident line over it.
So all this inking is done digitally...
...and, at this stage, it's really just about making sure that all the lines...
...are where you want them to be and they really are containing the shapes...
...and describing the features and the details.
I like to make sure that the animators have comprehensive shadow guides...
...for all the main characters, head turns, body turns...
...so that they really know how to complement the line...
...with the shadows and really describe the shapes.
So the goal, essentially, with the design...
...is to create a style that everyone can follow, that we can all draw well in...
...so that we can have consistency from one artist to the next.
It should look, at the end, like it's the hand of one artist...
...animating all the characters.
So this has been Phil Bourassa...
...talking about character design on Son of Batman.
For me, it's a great honor to work on these characters.
I'm incredibly enamored with the tradition of the DC characters...
...and I feel like we have had a wonderful relationship...
...and a wonderful collaborative spirit working on those characters...
...at Warner Bros. Animation.
I hope you guys enjoy the film as much as we enjoyed making it.
Thanks a lot.