“Potapych, the Bear who Loved Vodka,” by Darren Price. Such lovely design. And a true story!

The official site has Hi-res Quicktimes.

From the AnimWatch mini-interview with Price:

Putting cel shading together with hand painted backgrounds was the general idea. Each frame had to look like an illustration.

Great success! The look of gouache on rough paper works like it worked for studios in the 50’s: it’s economical and evocative without being distracting, an excellent foil for the simple, cel-shaded characters. However, unlike many of those studios (I’m looking at you, Hanna-Barbera), rather than throwing backdrops up slapdash, Price uses the simplicity and versatility of the style to take the design further: he can afford to give nearly every shot in “Potapych” its own background, with colors and design carefully tuned to match the mood of the story at that moment.

The hereby-mononymous Amid elaborated on the vicissitudes of this style in one of his notorious cage-fight death-match posts on Cartoon Modern: “Hanna Barbera vs. Walt Peregoy/Eyvind Earle.”

Go bears!

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