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I know that anatomy in Balto movie isn't 100% accurate and proper because of stylization and cartoonization. I meant to note that that some stylization, anatomy alternation and tweaks were used in the first Balto, but characters are generally kept accurate in their shapes with smooth and realistic movement. You don't see that in second movie.
For example:
Yes, that's Balto

And this is pretty much the same Balto:



Here is an "okay" Balto from second movie:

And some weird creature shown few scenes before:





(I know we're getting kind of offtopic but hey, that's a non-drama Balto discussion. Someone should move those posts to different topic.)

The difference I can see here is that the first stretched image of Balto is an animators trick to emphasise the mover and speed of the team working in much the same way as a wide angle lens would on a video camera.

The chosen image from Balto 2 is just a bad drawing LOL

It's not just Balto and Balto 2: Wolf Quest.

The same is very true for The Lion King and The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, and The Lion King 1 1/2.

My biggest question in regards to what you say in your first sentence (the good ol' 'this is a cartoon, anatomy doesn't matter', which requires an essay in itself of why this rule is incorrect) is why the first Balto movie gets off scot free with its animation bloopers (and they are there) and the other two do not?

I don't know why I have this 'meh' attitude towards Balto's animation in general, maybe it's because The Lion King came out a year earlier and yet somehow:

1) The animation is more smoother, sleeker. You can tell animators have put their blood, sweat and tears into this movie.
2) The animators actually bothered to study real animals in preparation for what they were about to do. They had to go to Africa to see actual lions in their habitat. What excuse did the Balto animators have? Dogs are everywhere, surely one of them owned one?
3) You can tell the lions in The Lion King are lions by the way they move. Some scenes with Sylvia in the first Balto look like they were animating a horse. And don't get me started on Jenna's twig legs, they would realistically break in half if she attempted to pull a sled.
4) The Lion King had stylisation in the big eyes, exaggerated chins and manes. The 'stylisation' in Balto is sometimes outright anorexia in dogs. It's quite distracting to look at as opposed to the latter.

So, yeah, anatomy is quite important in animation as it shows that the animators put effort, research and every ounce of their skill into their craft (as well as making the animation not so cringeworthy). If the animators are not prepared to throw themselves into the making of the film and treat it like their newborn child (which it is, in a sense) and have confidence in it, why should the audience?

Actually, Universal did study real Huskies while the film was in production. And If I remember correctly, the howls in the Heritage of the Wolf scene was a recording of a real wolf howl. I know that really has anything to do with anatomy, just throwing that out there.

Edit: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112453/tri ... =tr0629203
http://www.timduru.org/balto/Real_Balto.html

My bad.

Still, I don't understand why they saw that husky and immediately thought 'fat' or 'stick legs'. I know you don't see a lion and think 'big chins' but that's a small amount of stylisation as opposed to making a character outrageously fat or skinny.

Whether they just looked at the dog and called it a 'model' or actually studied it and took sketches of it with it in front of them is anyone's guess. I just think something went wrong between concept art and animation here.

Either way, I have no problem with the animation in any of the three films (making an animated feature with the 24 fps rule is tough) but I'm with Jersey on the whole 'let's rip the sequels a new one but let's leave the precious classic that is the original alone' problem. I didn't think the style they were going for in the original worked with the story they were trying to deliver (kids are dying in this movie so let's insert these strange character designs in here, that's what it really needs). At least the sequel's 'silly' animation style matched the atmosphere and what they were aiming to deliver, which was a DTV kid's flick who low budget and expectations.

I did not mean that "cartoon so can crew anatomy", but I have no problem with even highly stylized anatomy for cartoon purposes and I can see if animators know what they do or not. There's a difference between cartoonized anatomy and crap anatomy. Someting I stated long time ago here - post1437310.html#p1437310

And yes, Balto creators did have real dog models, at least for Balto, as far as I know. And animation itself looks pretty realistic to me, especially compared to sequels.

If I recall, The Lion King creators had real lion, lioness and cub models as well. Not sure about it's sequels, but that's another story.

^THIS. So much.

Extreme exaggeration is absolutely OK in the cartoon world. A cartoon with completely unrealistic proportions CAN, in fact, show just as much skill and hard work as a semi-realistic style as shown in Lion King.

HOWEVER, before you can create that stylization, you HAVE to learn the anatomy. This is where the younger and/or more naive artists get tripped up in their "it's a cartoon it's not perfect" arguments.

No matter how realistic or exaggerated a style is intended to be, an understanding of the anatomy behind it is ESSENTIAL. Balto, for the most part, performs this relatively well. Wolf Quest does not.

This is what I think happened. The team for the original Balto did study real dogs (I believe there is a video floating around somewhere on this site showing some of the models and references they used in the character development for Steele), and it shows in their work. The team for Wolf Quest, however, seems to have tried to match the fist movie's style rather than actually looking back actual life models. It's like a newer artist who tries to learn to draw by copying cartoons rather than learning the anatomy: it's never as good.


Summed up: stylization is irrelevant as long as the animators understand the anatomy behind said style.



[EDIT] I found a few paragraphs in one of my animation books concerning stylization vs. realism in animation and cartooning. Thought they might be good to post.


"Many cartoonists and animators say that the very reason they do cartoons is to get away from realism and the realistic world into the free realms of the imagination. They'll correctly point out that most cartoon animals don't look like animals--they're designs, mental constructs. Mickey ain't no mouse. Sylvester ain't no cat. They looks more like circus clowns than animals. Frank Thomas always says: 'If you saw Lady and the Tramp walking down the road, there's no way that you are going to buy that they're real dogs.'

But to make these designs work, the movements have to be believable--which leads back to realism and real actions, which leads back to studying the human or animal figure to understand its structure and movement. What we want to achieve isn't realism, it's believability."

--Richard Williams, The Animator's Survival Kit, page 34.

I think both Jenna and Aleu are both Beatiful in there own ways.

In my opinion, Jenna is more beautiful because of her fur colors and her tail.

Aleu It's sooo beautiful Character, I love it, but Jenna is cute, the two are soo pretty.

Well, if they animators did Aleu in the style of the first movie, then I would go with Aleu.

I personally think Jenna. If they had kept the styles of the characters in the first movie, Aleu would be very close to being my favorite. They made Aleu's paws a funny shape and she is taller and thinner than Balto. I also think that they could of made Aleu look a little more like Jenna, as they are both females and Jenna is her mother. Aleu's legs are very thin and she is meant to look more of a wolf than Balto and wolf's are stockier than dogs so this is a bit of a fault. However, they are both beautiful in different ways as Jenna has pretty colours and has a cute face where as Aleu had beautifully detailed eyes and facial features.

I strongly agree with you