Boneheads

Sorry it’s been a while since the last post so here’s a big one!

One thing can be said for Boneheads and that is that it has a style all its own. But Boneheads didn’t always look like this. The original design was a lot fleshier and looked a lot more human.

Here is an explanation by Bonehead’s Creative Producer, Kenji Ishimaru, on why they made the change and how they came up with the new design.

以前からあったモデルを採用しなかったのは、
それをデザインした時からもう随分時間が 076;ち
古く感じたのと、新しく 771;えていたコンセプトに
もう合わなくなっている、と感じたからです。
The reason why we did not use the original character design was because we felt that it looked to old fashion. It just did not work for the new concept that we had in mind.

新しいコンセプトとは、原始時代の荒削りで
力強い色や形、それにシンプルな動きや面白さで
複雑になりすぎた現代の多くのアニメーションの
中で新鮮なものを作ろうと思いました。
In the new concept we aimed to create something fresh and edgy looking. Something unlike anything we’ve seen out there. To really express a character from the primitive age, we tried to design them with edgy unrefined forms with powerful colors. This style should help to define simple actions and help out the strait forward stories and jokes.

それで、このコンセプトに合ったキャラクター
デザイナーをネットで探してたのですが、幸い
あまりにもイメージにピッタリのデザイナーのムラバヤシケンジ氏を
見つけました。
To accomplish our concept we had to find a good character designer. Fortunately we found Mr. Kenzi Murabayashi and his work on the internet. His great work was perfect for our new concept and ideas.

そして彼はその時偶然、個展を東京で開いていて、
地方から出てきていたので、慌てて会社を飛び出し
会場に足を運び、その場でデザインを依頼しました。

ムラバヤシ氏との出会いはこのプロジェクトにとって
なくてはならないものだったと思います。彼のデザインなしに
Oh Yeah Cartoonの枠は取れなかったのではないかと
思います。
It just so happened that at the time we found him, he was having an exhibit of his work in Tokyo. This gave us the perfect opportunity to meet him, considering he lives in Osaka, a town about three hours outside Tokyo. We hired him on the spot so that he may begin designing the Bonehead characters immediately. The encounter with Kenzi was one of the most important things to happen to this project. We believe that without his design, we wouldn’t have gotten the Oh Yeah Cartoon spot.

Interesting side note, Mr. Kenzi Murabayashi actually designed the characters in wood. If you would like to see more of Kenzi’s work please visit his personal blog at:
http://www.kenzi.tv/

–Hadley