The Art of Studio Ghibli - Part 9

The Layout Artist is one of the most highly skilled draftsman amongst the entire animation production team. They are often the unsung heroes of this industry, so here's the last post in my 'Art of Studio Ghibli' series honouring this often unseen part of the animation process. This week is a continuation of the layout design collection from several of Ghibli's films.

I always found one of Studio Ghibli's main strengths lied in how Miyazaki made excellent use of foreground, mid-ground and background. Rather than showing all of each character all the time, very often characters are blocked by objects in the foreground and middle ground, helping to place the characters within the situation, making them part of their environment and the story.

 

Click on any of these pics to get the high resolution version.
Below are the links to the other 8 posts, they include concept art, model sheets 
and hundreds of background paintings from most of the Studio Ghibli films.

See Part 8. 

  See Part 7. 

See Part 6.
See Part 5. 

See Part 4.  

See Part 3. 

See Part 2. 

See Part 1.