During Digital Dragons 2023, we were lucky enough to talk with Tina Nawrocki, the animator of a little game you may have heard of called Cuphead. Her work also includes staying on with Studio MDHR to animate the game’s DLC, and all of it started working on film sets like The Aviator. However, after leaving the studio in 2020, her work has extended even farther with Netflix’s Green Eggs and Ham and WB’s Space Jam: A New Legacy. She even found time to provide original animation for Drake’s Knife Talk music video. Nawrocki also gave a lecture at Digital Dragons titled”The Art of the Walk Cycle: The Walk is the Whole Story,” where she showcased her experience with gaming, film, and television, breaking down all of the pieces of the process.
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The interview was edited for clarity and length after transcription.
BUT WHY THO: What’s the first game you worked on?
Tina Nawrocki: Ever? You wouldn’t know it. I started sixteen years ago; I know I don’t look like it. It was a casual game at the time; this was pre-smartphones. It was online portals for kids, National Geographic Kids. You could have little meetings. I did that for two years, and then I moved to Behavior Interactive in Montreal. And that’s when Facebook games became big. And since we were working on casual gaming, then the iPad [1st generation] happened; that was a big deal. Then they started promoting me too much, and I got pissed off.
BUT WHY THO: Did the promotions take you away from the art?
Tina Nawrocki: Of course. So I was doing meetings; I was like, talking with clients, and I wasn’t animating anymore. And my passion, and what’s really weird, my passion was for 2D traditional frame-by-frame. I came into the industry at a time when 2D was dying, you know. Pixar had picked up, Disney had just closed their 2D department. It was like 2D was over. I tried [3D], but I go, “That’s not me,” “I can’t do it.” I have a love and passion for traditional frame-by-frame animation. And maybe I was an idiot, or I was just stubborn, and I kept pursuing that. That’s what I wanted to do. And so when they promoted me too much, I got really pissed off.
I was eight years in the industry at that point, and I quit my well-paying job. I moved to Toronto to go back to school. I didn’t finish the program, but for two years, all I did was paper animation. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend my time in school doing the thing that I love, which is traditional frame-by-frame. At that point, somebody told me you’re supposed to put your work on the Internet. I was like, “Okay,” and so I started a little blog. I would put my pencil animations on there. And Studio MDHR from Cuphead got in touch with me because of that blog. And they’re like, “Hey, do you want to work on this game?” I did a test for them; they sent me a scanner by mail. And I started working on Cuphead. So that’s how that happened.
BUT WHY THO: How long did that process take?
Tina Nawrocki: Four years, and I myself animated sixty characters for the game. Because a lot of them were Run ‘n Gun levels that had a lot of characters in them, I worked on the boss fight, Baroness Von Bon Bon, in Sugarland Shimmy. And I worked on mini-bosses for the King Dice fight. I worked on the final Devil death at the very end. And that together was over 9000 drawings.
BUT WHY THO: So when you’re brought in on a project like that, are you responsible for the concept bible and things like that?
Tina Nawrocki: There is no concept bible. Are you kidding me? [laugh] This is the Wild West of it. This was a very small independent studio. It was a passion project. We never did turnarounds for characters. We designed our own characters and just animated them. And whatever you invented went, you know. You didn’t have a character designer or main character designer. You did your own design. You concept a lot; send it to the two brothers, Chad and Derek, our board and head of the studio. They will pick what they liked, give us some feedback, and off you go. The new game, when they needed the second edition, was a bit more structured. They learned some things and it was a bit more like a normal studio. But to be honest, I kind of liked that ragtag approach. It was really nice. It was exciting, an exciting time.
BUT WHY THO: How is animating for a game different from animating for television or a film?
Tina Nawrocki: So it’s a very interesting process because I started in games, and then I animated for TV and films. So I animated a Netflix series called Green Eggs and Ham. Don t know if you’ve ever heard of it. It’s a really cool one. All animated, beautifully framed by frame, an entire TV show, which doesn’t happen very often. And I worked on Space Jam: A New Legacy. So you know, I did a bit of both, but I started in games. And what’s fascinating to me is now I’m looking at a studio, and I recruited some animators that I met through different avenues to work on a game.
To me, it’s so natural because I grew up doing that. And watching them struggle with the different approaches to animation that a video game requires made me realize, “Oh sh*t, it’s not the same.” You know, to me, I thought it was easy to adapt from games to, you know, TV and film. Obviously, there are different challenges there. Lip sync a lot that I didn’t get to do, for example, Cuphead, where the character talks. But games [are] about body mechanics. There are a lot of loops that have to look beautiful and seamless over and over and over again. And for somebody who’s not used to doing a lot of that, you really have to focus on making sure you don’t make mistakes so that it doesn’t bother the player.
There are certain things that you have to adapt because the code says so. An attack has to have some keyframes and have to be seen within a certain amount of frames. It’s about how the body runs, walks, and attacks. It’s all about body mechanics. Usually, in TV and film, you’re focusing more, you know, close-up shots on the face, acting, on motion. And showing emotion and the show character through a far shot, through animating just body mechanics.
BUT WHY THO: And you mentioned you came in at a period where 2D was kind of getting a boot. But now the last couple of years, with the popularity of Into The Spider-Verse, Klaus, and a couple of other projects, companies have realized that people have always desired 2D animation. The industry just decided that nobody likes it anymore.
Tina Nawrocki: And then Cuphead sold millions, and they’re like, “Wait a minute…”
BUT WHY THO: It was something that was kind of ignored for a bit. So how do you feel about things coming back?
Tina Nawrocki: I’m so excited, but there’s this weird thing now. You have people like 15-16 years old who know how to do it. There are five of us in my age bracket because everybody told us not to do it. I’m joking about five—there’s more—but there’s not a lot of us because everybody told us that that’s dead and “don’t do it.” We stuck to our guns and did it. Now there are a lot of young animators who are excited about 2D again, you know, raring to go. So here’s this weird gap between these two generations of animators, and I’m kind of filling that gap.
It makes me very happy because I get to see this young generation excited again and open their eyes that they can become a 2D animator. There are more and more projects. It’s exciting, especially in indie games. Independent games are considering 2D as an option, it doesn’t have to be 3D. I believe it’s almost easier to make a beautiful 2D game on a small budget than it is to make a beautiful 3D game. You need less people, and the style can be very, very different. That’s where I think 2D shines. You can make something really unique because 3D does certain things very well and if you want to kind of mangle it and force it into a different look, you can, but it’s hard to do it. Whereas in 2D, whatever you draw goes, there are no limits to creativity. And I think that’s where it’s really exciting to see it enter the sphere of gaming. Cartoon Saloon does its movies in a completely different style like Song of the Sea, The Secret of Kells, and WolfWalkers. People are getting excited about the content of 2D animation.
BUT WHY THO: It’s interesting you brought up Wolfwalkers. Cartoon Saloon was just in the latest volume of Star Wars: Visions. It was one of the best episodes. It was very nice to see a couple of 2D animated shorts.
Tina Nawrocki: I don’t know if you remember the Animatrix. It featured all these shorts based on The Matrix. There’s a lot of good 2D animation there. It was really amazing.
But Why Tho: How do you, as a 2D artist, account for physics in a game versus how it’s accounted for in a 3D environment?
Tina Nawrocki: We have to have really good communication with the programmers. We have to know what we’re doing, how it will work in-game, you know? Just very good communication back and forth between the two. 2D does style very well. But mechanics are, you know. Obviously, you can’t move in 3D as much. You’re doing things like sidescrolling platformers are great for 2D games because you have that one view.
You are trying to give us a sense of depth through other things like power lapse, and viewing different layers in the background. And try and make the characters as dynamic as possible when the opportunity shines. Make beautiful 360 rotation, beautiful 2D VFX. I don’t know if you know this, but for example, League of Legends is a 3D game, but all the VFX is 2D, hand-drawn, and gorgeous. And so adding that layer of effects magic, smoke, fire, all that kind of stuff—it makes really juicy-looking gameplay. But you have to communicate with the programmer to know what you’re doing, so the mechanics work with animation. With Cuphead, what was really interesting is that usually, it’s the programmers that get precedent, like art needs to fit into what they want. Cuphead was different. The animators have precedent, what we did went, and the programmers had to f*cking deal with it. It was really interesting.
BUT WHY THO: Do you have any experience doing illustrations for novels, comics, or anything else we haven’t talked about?
Tina Nawrocki: I grew up completely not playing games. So the fact that I ended up in games is a real surprise to me. As a kid, I took art super seriously, super young. I was like eight years old like this is what I want to do. I was drawn to realism—hyper-real paintings of animals at first. I would do hyper-realistic paintings of horses. I was a huge tomboy, so I would paint warriors, war scenes, and battles in traditional mediums like oil paints on canvas. Then I started doing portraiture. And I would like to paint, you know, rich people; so that they can hang themselves up on their walls. So I did that for a long time.
My first industry [art] job was in set painting. I don’t know if you remember The Aviator with Leonardo Dicaprio; I painted sets for that movie. So that was my first industry job. And then, I took a small course called “Illustration and Design,” it’s not even Bachelor’s or anything, like a certificate for those who want to work. If you want to be a plumber or something, you have a little program that is a similar type of thing…All industry professionals teach a course at this college. So you had a really cool sense of what’s going on and what are your options. And there was one tiny animation course in that program. I tried that, and I was like, “Wow.” Because I love theater and I always wanted to be a theater actress, it was something I wanted to do as a side thing. Then I realized this is drawing and acting simultaneously, so I got hooked.
I grew up in Montreal, which is known for gaming. It’s like a gaming Mecca. And so my first job was video games. My first question was, “What’s a console?” I had no idea. I didn’t play games. And, like, my career, just because of a stroke of luck, spiraled into games.
BUT WHY THO: Do you have any upcoming projects?
Tina Nawrocki: Yes, I have a personal project which I’m working on. And I’m telling everybody about it. I’m super excited. So you’re saying there’s anything else that I do, and so animation is my passion. And I always wanted to like [do] one artsy project that’s just for art’s sake, you know, it’s not for a client. It’s not going to make any money. It’s just an art project. And so it’s going to be a short film. It’s going to be completely traditionally animated like Cuphead was. It’s based on a Polish legend. I’m a Polish immigrant. I was born in Poland, and then I immigrated to Canada. And it’s called Syrenka: Legend of the Warsaw Mermaid.
Warsaw, the city, has this beautiful emblem [which is] a warrior mermaid, she has a sword and a shield. And that’s kind of cool. And that’s her [Warsaw’s] coat of arms. There’s a legend that’s involved with that coat of arms. But the legend is a little bit, you know, the classic damsel in distress who gets saved narrative. I’m like, “Damn, she’s a warrior mermaid.” I feel like the story is not doing her justice. So I’m changing the story a little bit to be slightly more feminist. The mermaid saves her-damn-self.
I’m inspired by a certain art style, which is very well-known in Poland but not outside of Poland called Młoda Polska, the art nouveau of Poland. You know, like Klimt with The Kiss, that’s Art Nouveau, but it’s from different boundaries, and Polish Art Nouveau isn’t very well known. I’m inspired by that art movement and I am also working with a team of predominately women animators, so women and people who are gender non-conforming. Because in games, I don’t know if it’s a surprise to you, but I mostly work with men. This is a feminist story. It’s about female empowerment. So for my personal project, I wanted to do something with a team of women for once and see how that goes…We’re starting production this year. And right now, there’s an Indiegogo campaign that anybody can support. Because I am adamant that artists need to get paid and get paid what they’re worth. So all my team members need to get paid, even if I can work for free, everybody else needs to get paid. I’m applying for grants. Canada has a lot of amazing art grants to support independent artists, but I’m also doing Iniegogo campaign right now to raise funds to make this film.
You can locate the Indiegogo campaign for Syrenka: Legend of the Warsaw Mermaid here. The campaign ends on June 15th, 2023.
