Bertrand Todesco is a top visual development artist and character designer and Supinfocom graduate who began his career working on the popular international hit Gormiti: The Lords of Nature Return. In recent years, his distinctive work has been featured in popular series such as Doug Unplugs, Glitch Techs, Cleopatra in Space, LoliRock, Monster High and The Legend of Vox Machina.
We had the chance to chat with the talented artist about his career and what it takes to become a successful character designer for some of today’s biggest animated shows. He was kind enough to provide us with some very helpful answers:
Animation Magazine: Can you tell us how you got started in animation?
Bertrand Todesco: After graduating from Supinfocom (Arles, France) in 2004, I started my career in a small Paris-based production company specialized in full-CG commercials, CUBE Creative (now part of Xilam). I learned a lot there and directed a few commercials. What I preferred was drawing characters and storyboards, though. In 2008, I joined Marathon Media (producers of Totally Spies! among other hits) to create the style and main characters of the show adapted from the toy phenomenon Gormiti. I am very grateful for this first job in the animation industry, with such an important role.
When was the first time you knew you wanted to work in animation?
I grew up in France, where there is a real comic-book culture (French-Belgian bandes dessinées like the Smurfs), so I thought I would become a comic artist. I used to watch a lot of TV series, mostly from Japan, and I think I didn’t even realize that it was made by people and that it could be a job — I don’t know, a little bit like people think animation is made by a computer alone. The CG-specialized school Supinfocom (based in Valenciennes) was opening a branch in my hometown, Arles. I watched the student films of the previous years, and this is when I knew I could and wanted to work in animation.
What were your biggest animation faves growing up?
My generation was super lucky in France, because in addition to the French/European cartoons and the American shows (Doug, TMNT, Batman, DuckTales, M.A.S.K, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors), we also had Japanese anime, really earlier than in the U.S.! These shows were really addictive because they were more epic — and more particularly, they were serialized! You really didn’t want to miss the next transformation of Goku in Dragon Ball, the next game of Captain Tsubasa, the next fight of Saint Seiya … I loved City Hunter, too, whose author Tsukasa Hojo really inspired me in my way of drawing characters.
You have been a character designer on beloved shows such as Doug Unplugs, The Legend of Vox Machina and Monster High in recent years. What do you love about each one of these projects?
First of all, thank you so much, I am very grateful that the shows I’ve been working on are popular and mean something to young viewers, like TMNT or DBZ meant a lot to me.
My favorite part in the character designer role is to create (or work on) different styles, for different audiences. Every new show gives me the opportunity to evolve in my art! After creating the style of several shows in Europe (Gormiti, Basketeers, LoliRock, MarbleGen) with a Japanese influence, I moved to the U.S. in 2018 to work on Cleopatra In Space at DreamWorks TV. You can still feel the Japanese influence in this amazing show, mixed with an American vibe, thanks to the supervision of art director Angela Mueller (Avatar, the Last Airbender).
Then, I worked on Doug Unplugs, my first preschool show, my first CG show, still at DreamWorks TV. In 2021, I joined Titmouse and an incredible team of rock stars on The Legend of Vox Machina. This heroic fantasy 2D show for young adults full of blood, bad jokes and epic adventures, animated by the talented studio Production Reve … It was terrific! It was also the first time in my career that I was not the style creator or the lead character designer on a show. I learned a lot from my lead, Phil Bourassa (Young Justice) and art director Arthur Loftis (Voltron: Legendary Defender).
I am currently at Nickelodeon as the lead character designer on the wonderful Monster High TV series, a CG show again, for big kids this time. It is so interesting for me to supervise the characters creation from rough drawing to the final textured 3D models, including turnarounds. I feel like I’m giving the full benefits of my years of experience and knowledge of 2D and 3D pipelines. It has been really rewarding to work with so many talented people from Nickelodeon and Mattel, on such an iconic IP!
What is the toughest part of your job?
Working on short schedules that don’t allow enough time to create the best characters I could do can be frustrating sometimes. The production’s gotta keep moving forward!
What would you say is the biggest misconception people have about the job of a character designer?
I think the job can be divided in two parts: creation and technical stuff. Most of the people seem to think this is only creation! It is of course very important to have the creativity to draw an original character with a cool pose and cool clothes, in a three-quarter front view in color. It is equally important to build a solid turnaround (line only) tracking volumes, shapes and details — drawing a hand construction sheet, mouth open, blink, bottom of the feet … This is the “boring and painful” job that many people don’t want to do.
Character designing for animation is not creating nice illustrations, it is providing the next person in the pipeline (animator in 2D, modeler in 3D) the coolest design and the right amount of information in technical sheets so they can do a great job, too.
What were some of the most challenging characters to design and why?
The characters of LoliRock were pretty time-intensive to draw because of their long hair and the amount of little details on the clothes, including multi-layered dresses …
Yet, without a doubt, the most complicated character I designed in my career was the Orthax in The Legend of Vox Machina Season 1! It is a huge villain made of multiple layers of smoke swirling around a possessed character. It is basically a mix between a character and a FX design, with several transparency levels … I created the concept without really thinking about how to do it. We only wanted to find a design that was epic and that everybody (the Critical Role team, Amazon) would love. And they did. So I had to make the turnaround … Ouch! Hahaha!
What kind of career advice would you offer animation students who want to get into character design?
There are two parts in my advice, too: networking and developing your art. With social media, it is now super easy to share your art and talk to other artists, even your favorite ones. Do it now! Chat, like, comment, start building your network today.
In parallel, improve your skills: observe a lot (not like a creep!), deconstruct subjects in volumes, assimilate shapes, study movements (muscles and clothes) then draw a lot. Be curious and feed your “reference library” with various types of animation and graphic styles, look at various centuries and various cultures for outfit designs… Build a portfolio with characters of various age, gender, color. Draw humans, animals (anatomy skill), aliens, monsters, robots (creativity skill). Now, draw them all in three to five different styles (adaptation skill), including your own style to show who you are and what your world is. Bravo, you have a solid portfolio you can show to the network you built for the past months/years!
You can check out more of Betrand’s amazing art and designs at
www.instagram.com/bertragram and b-tod.tumblr.com/
