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"Once the shot was approved for the Clean Animation stage, an Ink Key Artist would go through and put on model a selection of key frames from the animation - which we coined “Inkies” for this particular production.

Andrea Minella (Lead Key Ink Animator) provided the initial set of Inkies, then before it was sent through to the “Ink-betweening” (inbetweens) stage, which was the full inking of all frames to turn it into the final inked version of the animation you see on screen, I went through and added a few extra throughout, to help streamline the process.

This shot was worked on by so many Clean Animation Artists, mainly because it was just so huge!: David Leick-Burns, Katerina Kremasioti, Patrick Selby, Gerry Gallego, Raquel Juan Maestre, Estefania Romón. (Please give me a shout if I’ve missed anyone!)

To help achieve Charlie’s unique ink style but at the same time also making it doable for 2D animation, we had two layers of Ink. The first was the main Ink layer, which was the black, full form of the character. Then the second was a layer of thin lines (“Thinkies”), which are those wispy lines that would move in a fashion that was appropriate to what was happening in the animation. Here they move gently, as the movement is calm and delicate. For faster paced shots, they would be animated with a rapid fluidity, occasionally disappearing and reappearing with the characters’ movement. These thin lines were animated by the Clean Animation Artists to help ensure an organic feel to the final ink look.

Every shot also needed colour mattes provided. These were hand drawn coloured shapes that were needed by the Comp department to provide the final colour, painstakingly drawn frame by frame by the Matte Artists: Fabiola Tenorio, Leroy Ayton, Lewis Campbell, Jack Langridge Gould, Wayne Maslin and Monica Scanlan."