The Amazing World of Antoine Perez

Antoine Perez knew animation was his calling when a careers advisor described it as ‘a technical way of expressing art’.

More than ten years later, Perez has built a successful career deftly marrying the technical and the artistic aspects of his craft to “create feelings you’ve never experienced before” - be that driving a car through a vintage screenprint illustration, bringing a painted boy to life through animated brushstrokes or plunging into a mythical spirit domain inspired by Japanese woodblock prints.    

Currently working as an animation director/art director at East London animation studio The Line, Perez has been happily mixing tech nous and artistic flair since high school, where he taught himself how to program, build websites and code while obsessively drawing knights and dragons as a way of focusing in class.

As a director you don’t really get to ‘make anything’, but ultimately, you have creative control.

These days, he’s swapped his sketchbook and pens for animation software, but continues to mine the rich seams of his childhood imagination when developing characters, narratives and worlds for clients including Channel 4 and games developer giant Riot.

Above: Here, Tomorrow is a music video for season two of Riot Games' League of Legends’ Spirit Blossom game.

Describing his style as “malleable”, Perez enjoys bouncing between his dual role as art director and animation director. “It’s a good way to see two sides of the same coin”, he says. “As a director you don’t really get to ‘make anything’, but ultimately, you have creative control. Whereas as an art director, you have to create something that fits the director’s vision, you work in a more confined context and don’t have the final say on a shot - but you do get that hands-on creativity.”    

We were young and happy to work silly hours as [Gumball] was our first job after animation school.

While his current workload is creatively diverse – ranging from directing big-budget music videos and game trailers to small, in-house experimental films – prior to joining The Line, Perez spent a solid decade working on a single show: Cartoon Network’s cult animated series The Amazing World of Gumball. 

A stone-cold cartoon classic, Gumball is as famous for its mixed-media animation as its oddball characters (talking peanuts; a goldfish with legs) and multi-layered humour (like all the best kids’ shows, the jokes work on an adult level). Each character is animated in a different style, from 2D flash animation, to 3D, CGI and stop-motion, and overlaid on live-action backgrounds, which made for a “fairly difficult workflow”, remembers Perez. 

He initially joined the crew on season one as a background artist, quickly moving through the ranks to art director, assistant director and finally co-director on seasons five and six. (A much-anticipated TV film, which Perez was slated to co-direct with series creator Benjamin Bocquelet, was part of an unfortunate coterie canned by Warner Bros).  

Every time we made [a process] more efficient, we used all the extra time to aim higher, make things more complex. We needed to challenge ourselves to stop us getting bored.

How did he keep his creative mojo working on the same show for ten years? “At the beginning, it was this wild adventure. We were young and happy to work silly hours as it was our first job after animation school,” he remembers with a wry laugh. “But with each season, it never really got any easier. Every time we made [a process] more efficient, we used all the extra time to aim higher, make things more complex. We needed to challenge ourselves to stop us getting bored.”

Gumball might have felt like a “long endurance race”, but it paved the way for Perez’ next move to The Line. The studio had just taken on its first big job for the world’s most-played game, Riot’s League of Legends, and brought in Perez based on his experience in mixed-media animation and photographic backgrounds. Although a lack of budget meant everything ended up being painted instead, the project kicked off a long and fruitful partnership with games developer Riot, culminating in Here, Tomorrow, a music video for season two of League of Legends’ Spirit Blossom Beyond. 

A still from Here, Tomorrow for Riot Games.

In games, usually you notice the polygons and the fact it’s 3D. So how do you hide the surfaces and the technique?

Gorgeously animated in 2D with intricate backgrounds, the video is a three-minute long adventure following the journey of a “spirit blossom” to a Day of the Dead-esque festival, intercutting between the ancient forests, natural palette and lamp-lit traditions of the mortal world, and the richly textured landscapes and hyper-saturated colours of the spirit realm.

“‘We wanted to explore ancestral mythical storytelling,” explains Perez, pointing to the use of cinematic imagery like magical masks, submerged statues, and lakes resembling dragon footprints, which “intuitively invite curiosity and play with your perception: is this real, or is it a myth?” 

Four months in the making and involving a team of 30, the video exemplifies Perez’ seemingly effortless knack for combining the artistic and technical elements of animation.

What was really interesting for me was trying to create the visuals to feel like an actual illustration you could explore.

The stunning visuals are underpinned by a series of intricate shots, such as the moment the spirit blossom is carried down a waterfall into a pool below. The ‘transition’ between two worlds on the threshold of the water involved a 3D camera move combined with 2D effects, while the surface of the water had to be drawn frame by frame, matching every shape and droplet to a piece of 3D animation. “We were scared of that shot!” Perez admits. “But even though it involved some of the most complex choreography I’ve ever done with different artists, the end result doesn’t feel ‘technical’ - it doesn’t pull you out of the experience, it’s part of the natural flow.” 

As part of The Line's experiments, the short film above was created in Blender. It's entirely generative, with no hand painting and features a brush painting effect using Geometry Nodes.

Blender is like a Swiss Army knife for small-scale creative projects - you can storyboard, edit, put music to visuals - plus there’s a real community around it.

Alongside commercial work, Perez devotes plenty of time to creative experimentation - something The Line actively encourages through its development department, a new branch of the studio focused on R&D, original content, games and short films. Recently, he’s been exploring non-photo-real styles in 3D, with the ambition of hiding the “dryness” and sterility of 3D, “and making it feel like there’s something more artistic in the depiction.”

Tapping into his love of games, Perez has created an original game concept, Cargo, a Ghibli-esque take on a driving adventure through beautiful landscapes inspired by southern Europe. “What was really interesting for me was trying to create the visuals to feel like an actual illustration you could explore,” he muses. “In games, usually you notice the polygons and the fact it’s 3D. So how do you hide the surfaces and the technique?” The resulting concept recalls a vintage screen print with flat colours and frayed edges. 

Clients don’t want us to use AI at the moment - they’re scared of the backlash it might attract.

Another venture into non-photorealistic 3D is his generative short film: https://thelinestudio.com/work/theline-experiments which uses a brush painting effect to mimic hand-painted brushstrokes. “I was curious to see what an animated painting would look like,” he explains. “With some techniques, the brushstrokes end up looking stuck on the surface. But if you actually painted every frame of a film, it would ‘vibrate’ so much it would be off-putting. I was looking for a sweet spot in between.”