LogInAlexis Wanneroy, a lead animator on the show, shared some details on the Riot Games & Netflix's Arcane and explained why it is crucial that the owners and founders of Fortiche – the studio behind Arcane – are all artists.
Netflix's new series, Arcane, impresses its viewers with its setting, its scale, and its poignancy so that both fans and non-fans of the original League of Legends can relish this masterpiece. And it's no wonder that the series quickly jumped to Netflix's top becoming the most-watched English-language show in November.
This giant success strongly influenced the boost of Fortiche, a French animation studio that created Animation and Cinematics for Riot Games. According to Alexis Wanneroy, a lead animator on the show, the studio initially employed around 15 people seven years ago and as the work on the Arcane project was progressing, the staff increased to about 300 employees.
As Wanneroy mentioned in a recent iAnimate.net podcast, it is crucial to Fortiche that the three owners and founders – Pascal Charrue, Jérôme Combe, and Arnaud Delord – “are all artists.” Previously working as a Supervising Animator at Dreamworks, Wanneroys notes that the larger studios like Dreamworks tend to "please more audience and stuff" rather than listen to the voice of artists. "If they trusted artists more [with] the design, the appeal, it would have changed a lot of things," speculates the animator.
Wanneroy shared that despite having a much smaller team and budget than Hollywood major studios, Fortiche still managed to produce five hours of high-quality animation within two years. He clarified that studio tech-like real-time rigs helped as well as some decisions like the reuse of shots (with several aspects changed).
In the podcast, Wanneroy thoroughly explained the artistic choices for Arcane, showing some storyboards. The video can be interesting for animators and artists as Wanneroy gives plenty of tips discussing the pipeline and Fortiche’s approach.
To learn more about the Arcane project and how it was developed, watch this video podcast. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.