Here are a few attempts at trying to create these humanoid creatures while keeping in mind Genndy Tartakovsky style, looking at what his inspirations are and making sure the key elements are emphasized (comical, simple, key details like wrinkles sharp jaw, shapely but not too sharp depending on the character, emphasis on using the shape study as key element)

Gennady Tartakovsky was born in Moscow but moved to the US at age 7, at that point in his early life is where he was introduced to cartoons by watching Hanna Barbera cartoons, which is what most often aired on cartoon network, a few examples such as the flintstones, top cat, scooby doo and more. A style we recognize in Dexter’s laboratory, which started off with a short animation of dexter made while in university, that led him to be hired as a director for the show itself.

Movieweb, Genndy Tartakovsky: every animated series ranked 2022.

“helped pioneer the Cartoon Network global domination of the 1990s with major input in both Dexter’s Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls.”

“The Dexter character originally came out of an extremely impressive short that Tartakovsky had made in college – one strong enough for Cartoon network to commission a whole show on.”

Based on what was said, we already where his art style took great influence from, focusing on really exaggerating the shape study, very comical characters with exaggerations based on what message needs to be conveyed.

On an article by Esquire, we asked an animation legend about his five favourite cartoons

He mentioned a short animation by one of his favourite animators, Robert “Bobe” Cannon who worked on little rural riding hood (1949) he appreciated the exaggerated comical effect created as well as the simplicity of the characters. A style that stuck to him and is an element that should be kept in mind when trying to created characters in the hotel Transylvania setting through his style. This is an animation I had already seen and took some inspiration from the more beautiful looking red riding hood when I was stilling exploring the more pin up doll style of the 50s.( a different kind of exaggeration).

We also see and influence from comic books and anime:

Two anime’s of which he named as his favourites in Esquire for their story telling and character relationship rather then the style itself, (plot and story) being Laputa: castle in the sky (1986) which influenced him while working on Unicorn: Warriors Eternal (2023).

And CowBoy Bebop, the way the episodes were played out to vary each time inspired him for his future projects, and a little extra element I found amusing and something that shows how much of an importance to the world of animation he became (On a selfish note: one of the animators told me that he really liked Samurai Jack back in the day, and it helped influence them to make their next show, Samurai Champloo. That was amazing.”)(also from esquire)

(Although not American but maybe taking influence from there, it reminded me of comics I grew up with such as Lucky Luke by Belgian cartoonist Morris and Asterix and Obelix written by Rene Goscinny and illustrated Albert Uderzo both French.)

A side note:

knowing he came from a Russian background and lived there his early childhood, He might have not seen those old soviet era cartoons or perhaps he was too young to remember, but having grown with my mother side of the family as influence when it came to Russian cartoons during the soviet union. I recognise the comical look of some characters and at times the simplicity of characters, A short animation called Little Locomotive from Romaskovo (1967) The little girls reminded me of the powerpuff girls, it’s perhaps a stretch but it was fun remembering those old animations that fascinated me as a child. My mother also noted, because she is a big fan of samurai jack and used to watch it when it was airing on TV the sceneries reminded her of those landscapes also seen in the soviet era cartoons and wondered if the person behind it might have been from Russian origin. Not to be too repetitive, it might be a long stretch but it was a fun connection to make while exploring all the different cartoons he grew up with.

the notes:

To conclude:

Tartakovsky uses an emotion as a main base for the whole characters design ( sharp shapes, soft circle, posture, shapes, etc) as well as the shape study being a very prominent feature in the characters design. ( he mentions that in an interview with Techsupport, titled “Genndy Tartakovsky answers animation questions from twitter”). He also mentions often his love for the more old school times of animation in cartoons.

Those past five weeks I have had the chance to develop skills that were lacking due to not having so much experience, only knowing what a vertex is, how to move around and playing during my free time with the sculpt tool following YouTube tutorials. That being said, I did not know much, so these classes, although difficult at times when things either went wrong or having a vision and not being able to express it how I imagined it due to the lack of knowledge or even confidence, slowly helped build a bit of a base when it comes to 3D modelling. I did manage to get more comfortable and confident with my abilities and explored them more on the last two models, and had the joy of  including my love and little knowledge on medieval and renaissance armoury and weaponry. I tested out how much I knew so far, following the videos, but then trying to do things on my own to get to understand and practice better what I have learned without having to be depended on a step by step tutorial. On the other hand, due to not having so much experience with texturing, it felt a bit more worrying, due to not  knowing at all how it worked, but again things turned out well in the end, I have a bit more confidence but Substance painter a few practices alone should help.

For the final assignment we had to create a helmet and texture it using substance painter. We had a lot of freedom, which could have led to venturing so far off we could have gotten lost be it with the model itself or the texture. I went for a not too difficult or too simple model of a 14th century Sallet, again with the concept of putting the right amount of details for a good balance. But the main focus was the textures, I went for a rusted abandoned look of a helmet lost in the battle field, with a phrase that say in Latin “Deus Det mihi vires et imperium” in English God give me strength and power(control), With a beam of light that symbolises gods aid in the battle field. The cyan and orange, complementary colors read from left to right, to express a colder scene left behind and a welcoming glory to the right with the helmet facing it.

This was a fun task to, be able to bring my love for swords, specifically medieval and renaissance swords, into homework. The challenge here was to look at the reference and pick out which details were more essential as well as how to simplify them, and make the sword what it is without too many details, which could make the texturing process too difficult, given that we have just learned how to do it. I had a bit of a struggle with the UV but with help I got the hang of it. I also experimented with wooden textures for the little tree stump to create this type of legendary weapon that was just acquired by the protagonist.

The Zubat model was a fun nostalgia of my childhood, and I believe of mane others. As well as a first using a reference within blender, which did lead to trying to make it as close as possible to the reference even if the 2D model was for most images of the creature, at an angle and the teeth that kept on coming out with a sort of ribbing all over, but I eventually managed to minimize that. But using the mirror tool helped a lot.

For this homework, I tried to experiment a bit more when it came to the guns, using simple shapes to give the illusion of details, it was a much smoother task compared to the ones to come. The animation, was a bit more tricky but I tried as best I could, to not make it too fast but not too slow.