Over at Sluganimation.com there's a fantastic article by Justin Hilden that goes into the color design and theory of the Halloween classic and it's a pretty fascinating read.
Fences change from warm browns to cool blues. The green grass loses its yellow tinge and becomes more saturated. While we have been busy watching Linus wrestle his pumpkin homeward, the very air around the characters has changed and we can feel the coolness of night and a hint of the excitement that darkness will bring to Halloween.
Though it's a bit "looking behind the curtain" I think most of us are adult enough to be able to read the article and yet still enjoy the special in the years to come. It will probably make you appreciate It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown even more than you may already do.
Check out the SlugAnimation.com article HERE.
5 comments:
very interesting. i love the peanuts cartoons and the great pumpkin is, of course, my favorite. but find myself watching them alone because my kids say they are boring. what do they know?
my mom banned me from watching 'snoopy come home' when i was a little girl because i would be sad for days. lol i'm an emotional girl, what can i say..
Diane: Thinking about your comment, I realized that when *I* was a kid, I didn't really "enjoy" the Peanuts specials when they were on.
Specifically, I remember not liking the whole scene of Snoopy "crawling across the countryside" and his sobbing at Schroeder's playing.
I really just had it on because I was excited about it being a "Special Presentation" and watching cartoons.
It's only been later in life that I've come to really appreciate It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and the other Peanuts specials.
Watching them today, they operate as time-travel devices that take me back to those times and those feelings.
Ok, enough sappy!
Interesting. I always enjoyed this and other Peanuts specials as a child, but I also remember disliking Snoopy's countryside sequence. It just seemed like unrelated filler which interfered with the main story. As much as I love the Great Pumpkin, I still feel this way. If I'm watching it on TV, Snoopy's sequence means it's time for a snack break :)
Cartoon Brew posted a link to this and I thought it was very interesting indeed! I saved a copy of the PDF and made notes on the color palette. I would like to try to do a Halloween piece based around those colors.
Color theory is very near and dear to my heart. In fact, I did a post on Halloween color combinations a while back. Loved this post!
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