Extended Research: Eddie of the Realm

Eddie of the Realm is a cartoon pilot that was made for Amazon Studios alongside with other pilots to compete for public votes as to which would be given the green-light. Creators and writers Bob Roth and Bill Motz worked alongside with director Paul O’Muiris and Tomm Moore to create this gorgeous animation. Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch the pilot however I was able to watch sneak peaks of the episode, which showed off the detailed animation and overall aesthetic to the animation.

I love the main characters, Hobi and Eddie, the personalities work so well together and lead to hilarious gags. Their personalities in general has really aided me with my own characters for Extended. I wasn't entirely sure what strong personality I wanted for my main character, Cy, I liked how he could be mischievous, courageous and naive but picking the most defined element for the character was difficult. I didn't want Dusk, the shadow spirit, to be too strong of a personality so that he stood out compared to the main character. I decided to go with two of the personalities combined for Cy, especially for the pilot episode as it would help with it introducing the characters to the audience.

I love the design of the characters, Hobi's head is completely circular whereas Eddie's head is more shaped, this successfully depicts the difference between the Realms that Eddie travels between. I quite liked the shape of Eddie's hair and ears, they worked well with his character, and I was quite inspired with the rounded hair rather than spiky. I believe that spiky hair is linked to a Japanese esk style of illustration which I wanted to step away from and absorb a more Western approach. At first I found the body proportions quite odd with Eddie as his legs were extremely long, however after awhile with the animation I quite liked the proportion; it worked well in the action scenes and angles that were combined.

The animation for the cartoon is effortlessly smooth, full with anticipation, squash and stretch and secondary animation, that just brings the story and characters to life. The cinematography used really aids the animation, it makes it more interesting and dramatic which works so well, giving that movie quality to it. The gif images that I have added to this post do not give the animation any justice as watching the clips shows how gorgeous the animation is.

Hobi character sheet

Eddie character sheet