Animation Source Forums

"Excessively fluffy", or just FAT? Either way, it's a poor job. To wit:





And now, REAL working huskies...from the time (from Balto's team), and a shot or two of modern working huskies (I see not so much as a single fat or "fluffy" dog...and I'm really not trying to be sarcastic here):






And now let's have a look at how they drew background huskies in Balto 3, for a base comparison:





Okay, my judgement here is STILL that the production team of Balto 3 did a MUCH better job of drawing and animating huskies than the production team in Balto 1. Okay, sure...ultimately, they're both just cartoons. However, when people UNFAIRLY criticize Balto 3 as being terrible, in comparison with Balto 1 (and especially when they talk about what an excellent job was done on that cartoon), I simply must respond. And I'm not singling you out, Cat. But you are one of the most ardent proponents for how Balto 1 is the ONLY decent Balto cartoon. And that is entirely a matter of opinion.

I say again, and anyone who has mushed on either an amateur or professional level will back me up on this: there are NO fat huskies. And the only "fluffy" animal you're going to see pulling a sled (and certainly NOT in a race) is an Alaskan Malamute. Even then, not THAT fluffy. Even Ralph, in Balto 3, isn't as "fluffy" or chubby-looking as, for instance, the lead dog in the opening race, on the team challenging Steele's.

Oh no, I agree with you when it comes to how the huskies were drawn. I loved their structure in Balto 3. But I was more against the animation in general. Not just the dogs.

I think we must also remember that Balto 1 was a theatrical release. There was certainly more money available for its production. And more of a team. Balto 2 and 3 were direct-to-video (DVD AND VHS). Budgets for such projects, and the size of the production teams, are ALWAYS smaller. So, in a way, comparing them really is unfair. There simply was not the same kind of money available for the sequels, as is always the case in direct-to-video releases (the same with most Disney and other cartoon sequels which are only direct-to-video, instead of theatrical).

You should ALL keep that in mind when you're hammering on the scripting, artwork, and animation (and even voicing and musical scoring work) of Balto 2 and Balto 3.

I dunno....Kirby was pretty freaking chunky LoL There were scenes in Balto 1 where the huskies were slimmer (like when they were running, or just merely walking) and looked more like they did in the real picture you showed. The ones in B3 were just too based on Balto himself (with the non-curl tails and his "big paws" trait, which I believe only ran on one side of his family [the wolf]) But ANIMATION-wise, paying no attention to their design at all, I still believe the ones in B1 were better.

And I do keep budgets and time and stuff in mind about B2 and B3, but none of that matters when it comes to a good plot. I can't state that enough. Lots of movies can have crap animation but still have a good story.

I seriously agree with you 100%!!! The background Humans and dogs of Balto 1 were horribly animated...

And, in screenshot #1 that BaltoSeppala has put up, look at Kaltag. His neck is incredibly fat. Which is freaky

I honestly don't know how you people are judging this animation thing. XD

B3's husky designs may be more accurate, but the animation in B3, as with B2, is very inconsistent with colors and proportions. Granted the first film does have some bloopers like these, but they are nowhere near as noticeable and do not last very long, maybe a second at the most. Whereas in the sequels some of these issues go on for an entire scene.

Skinny here and what is up with her paws? They shouldn't bend that way.
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/100.jpg
Chunky here
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/101.jpg
Super Skinny legs
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/116.jpg
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/117.jpg
Woop his legs are back to normal..or almost.
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/120.jpg
Um yeah his foot?
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/122.jpg

Attention to detail...he's missing his socks and this happens a lot in the sequals. Also lots of shortcuts are taken, and the animation is blurred in places because of this.
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/125.jpg
Again consistency:
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/191.jpg
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/189.jpg
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/176.jpg
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/175.jpg
http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/gallerie3/192.jpg
Color issues and where's his eyebrows
http://www.theicecave.org/balto3/woc_057.jpg
He broke his legs
http://www.theicecave.org/balto3/woc_244.jpg
Super short leg, he must compress his bones.
http://www.theicecave.org/balto3/woc_256.jpg
now his skeletal structure stretches and mini-Kodi!
http://www.theicecave.org/balto3/woc_271.jpg

Let me reiterate, the first film is not without its own similar issues. I've seen some of the continuity problems that it has, but there are nowhere near the amount of bloopers in it like both B3 and B2 have. Yes much larger budget for the first but a lot of the issues in these sequels didn't have to be there. I've seen cheapquels with decent animation and they had just as small of budget.

Exactly GK thank you! And should one of you say "well, how can you say its a blooper when you can't tell if the movie is going?" or something like that, everything she pointed out, you CAN INDEED notice if the movie was rolling. Just to save you guys some objection.

Um, isn't this topic supposed to be about the animation of the movies, not the amount of bloopers you can catch in the movies when you pause them? Other than that, I get the point, there's little animation slip-ups everywhere . . . Who cares?

I sure could care less. As Steet mentioned a while ago, all films have their mistakes and animation flaws. There's more to a movie than its mistakes - ever think about the story? The music? The message?

I rest my case.

= = = = = = = = *clears throat* = = = = = = = =

Okay, now that that's over with, here's my answer to the topic on hand:

This is a tough decision, since I like each of the films equally. Not just for the animation. But since this is about the films' animation, I have to split up my answers for certain reasons:

Now if you based it budget wise, it's obvious that the first Balto film wins, hands down. The character designs are beautiful, the animation is fluid, and the studio took a lot of tedious time to make the film theater-worthy.

And to not dismiss the hard work that the Universal Cartoon Studio did to provide a continuation to Balto's story for us fans (although we know they probably knew us not, of course), WQ and WoC were actually done really well when you think about it (even with a not-so-huge budget to work with):

- Focus-wise, Wolf Quest was done well, especially with the backgrounds and the focus of "nature" (not Aleu's quest of discovering her place in life, as you may think it was from the back of the cover) that was all around the main characters. Sure, the characters themselves were not drawn or animated perfectly (not much consistancy), but those forces of nature really seemed to stand out (which ties with the totem pole and the Inuit beliefs of them "connecting with nature". Typical native people stuff. Awesome cool.) the most to me.

- Story-wise, Wings of Change was well-animated (yes, I think it was quite up to par to the original, and it was an improvement from Wolf Quest, of course), this time, the story was based on the plane, the skies (which the sunlight in the horizon was breath-takingly stunning), and anything else that was given the gift of being able to fly (the dandelion seeds from the ending shots, the birds in the opening, and . . . well, you could say Stella was a flyer . . . she was well-designed for a new character IMO (her sex appeal was a bit much though, but it was a good change for once).) . . . hence the title - Wings of Change. Again, the characters still weren't as good-looking as the original Balto, but at least it wasn't as flawed as the WQ character design. (Still, a tad bit of consistancy problems . . . with itty-bitty things, this time . . . not huge things like in WQ)

So yeah. I really can't decide which has the better animation for your poll, because I think that they were all well done in their own way.

That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

- Juuchan17

I'm not adding on to conflict anything, but I must say when animation (meaning the animation alone, obviously) like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgdP2K4-AEo exists in a movie, I cannot say it's good. I just need to point that particular scene out because it bugs me that freaking much XD

I wasn't referring to the storyline of any of the films, I was referring solely to the animation. Which is what I thought this topic was about, not the plots of the films.

It's still a cartoon. Maybe it's early in the morning. Or maybe the producers thought that "midnight sun" occurs in the spring (instead of the summer, when there's no snow on the ground).

Personally, I think the animation of Balto's pace is spot-on with a real dog. Maybe his focus is not on his feet. But they still have a cartoon to make...and one that is being marketed to kids. They don't expect a bunch of teenagers and college-aged young adults to nitpick over little details like this.

And Juuchan - I would like to thank YOU.

Agreed. It's a stupid debate really.. I guess that the dogs are drawn the way the animators wanted them to be. There's nothing we can do about it.

Were you not just ranting about how huskies shouldn't be fat? I BELIEVE this is a KID'S movie and that it DOESN'T MATTER to them. I'm done here. You've just proven yourself once again. Congrats.

Precisely! That's what I said originally. Kids don't care.