Character Layouts
In my three seasons on Archer, I did character layout and keyframing for the series. An official layouts department was not established until season 13, with character layout nested under the “Illustration Department” list of duties.
I was frequently borrowed for layouts in season 13, and took on the title of Layout Artist in season 14.
On Archer we used a combination of assets that already existed from the prior seasons of the show, as well as new assets drawn and rigged by the Illustration team. For new assets in a layout, we’d use the drawings from the design sheets when possible. New assets in special poses drawn by a layout artist are indicated by a white fill with non-black linework.
But in the case of this John Carpenter-esque monster, my leads let me have a little fun with flat color and rim lighting :)
Background assets and vehicles on Archer were often 3D, while the characters and handheld props were 2D. Character Layouts would regularly work with pre-shot 3D footage for vehicles, and then define the 2D character’s interaction with it.
