Team LoliRock

Ok, some of you might have noticed that (in)famous LoliRock director Jean-Louis Vandestoc posted a few interesting things on his instagram account…

So, while I don’t know much, it seems there might be talk of an incoming LoliRock season 3, at long last !

Let’s cross fingers that director Vandestoc will have the support to make something great… again. ;)

Note : I know some of you guys still follow this tumblr, and while it’s great I don’t have the time to update it anymore, so don’t expect much from it. I suggest you follow Mr.Vandestoc instagram for fresh news.

https://www.instagram.com/jeanlouisvandestoc/

Hi Lolirockers ! 

As you probably noticed, I haven’t the time to regularly update this tumblr anymore. Neither has the rest of the team, since we all scattered on other productions, while waiting for S3 greenlight (which may, or may not happen, in the coming years.)

There are nevertheless a few things the team wanted to give you. So, instead of doing it “one video or episode at a time”, we’ll make big posts at once. 

Here’s todays : I’ve just uploaded on the team’s youtube channel all 52 episodes and 10 clips full animatics. 

LINK : It’s all in this playlist

These are the very files we used during the production, for the whole episodes. As you’ll see, they often differ from the final episode. Sometimes it’s for the best, as we fix things that were unbalanced or not working. And sometimes, at the opposite, we lose some subtlety, such as specific posings and expressions, because they were too complicated or off-style to produce. It’s a shame, but this is quite normal on a production.

You’ll also notice that the style of drawing and staging varies sometimes a lot from one animatic to another, and even inside one animatic. It’s quite normal, considering a lot of people worked on thoses : Storyboard artist, storyboard supervisor, storyboard assistant, and even the director. Most of them don’t have either the same skills nor tastes. Sometime, some animatics even had so many corrections and fix from so many different people that we called them “Patchwork” or “Frankenstein” animatics. ;) This too, is quite normal on a french production as we have very limited budget.

Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy thoses ! On each video’s description, you’ll find the storyboard artists names, but to make it easier on “how did what” here’s the list of the whole team :

SUPERVISION TEAM : 

• Jean-Louis Vandestoc, Director of all episodes and clips
  
• Christelle Abgrall, Storyboard Supervisor of all episodes

STORYBOARD ARTISTS : 

Jean-Louis Vandestoc : 

• Opening Sequence
  
• Amaru’s Transformation Sequence
  

Christelle Abgrall

• All princesses’ Transformations
  
• Episode S01E02 “Flower Power”
  
• Episode S02E17 “Truth be Told”, part 2 (Ellen and Iris sequence, and Flashback)
  

Amanda Sun

• Episode S02E04 “Super Cute Kitten”, part 1

Anaïs Chevillard

• Episode S01E11 “Step Right Up”
• Episode S01E15 “Stitches”, part 2
• Episode S01E24 “Smart”
• Episode S02E24 “Forget You”
• Episode S02E25 “Crowning Glory (½)”
• Music Video #10 “Never Give Up”

Charles Lefebvre

• Episode S01E09 “A Promise is a Promise
• Episode S02E04 “Super Cute Kitten”, part 2
• Episode S02E18 “Dancing Shoes”
• Episode S02E21 “Stop in the Name of Lev (½)
• Episode S02E22 “Stop in the Name of Lev (2/2)
• Music Video #06 “Party Talking”
• Music Video #08 “Lolistep”

Christophe Yoshida

• Episode S01E07 “Sirens”

Eddie Mehong

• Episode S02E06 “Blurred Vision”

Etienne Guignard

• Episode S02E07 “Princess Brenda (½)”
• Episode S02E08 “Princess Brenda (2/2)”
  
• Episode S02E09 “Cute as a Doll”, part 1
  
• Episode S02E13 “I want my LTV”, part 2
  
• Episode S02E26 “Crowning Glory (2/2)”

Etienne Mattera

• Episode S02E05 “Wicked Red”

Fanny Marseau

• Episode S01E16 “Batty”, part 1
• Episode S01E15 “Stitches”, part 1
  
• Episode S01E22 “The Haunting”
  

Frédéric Mihailescu

• Episode S02E13 “I want my LTV”, part 1

Jun Violet

• Episode S01E16 “Camp Princess”
• Episode S01E17 “Heavy Metal”
  
• Episode S01E26 “Home (2/2)”
  
• Music Video #01 “Revolution”
  

Malec

• Music Video #01 “Revolution”
• Music Video #03 “We are Magic”
• Music Video #04 “Celebrate”
  
• Music Video #05 “Higher
  

Matteo Pincelli

• Episode S01E04 “The Birthday”
• Episode S01E10 “Lucky Star”
  
• Episode S01E20 “Raffle Baffle”
  
• Episode S01E23 “Spellbound”
  
• Episode S02E02 “If you can’t beat’em”
  
• Episode S02E10 “Amaru-niverse”
  
• Episode S02E11 “Rex”
  
• Episode S02E20 “Strawberry Fields for Never”

Simona Cornacchia

• Episode S01E03 “Be Mine”
• Episode S01E08 “Talia and Kyle sitting in a tree”
  
• Episode S01E12 “No thanks for the Memories”
  
• Episode S01E21 “Dance Craze”
  
• Episode S02E03 “Puppylove”
  
• Episode S02E15 “The Ruby of the Orient”
  
• Episode S02E17 “Truth be Told”, part 1 and 3
  
• Episode S02E04 “Amateur Hour”
  

Stéphane Robert

• Episode S01E05 “Sing for me”
• Episode S01E14 “Castles in the Sand”
• Episode S01E18 “Legend of Lake Agnes”
  
• Episode S02E01 “Musical Magical Tour”
  
• Episode S02E12 “Lost in the Shadows”
  
• Episode S02E16 “Loli-Lime Sublime”
  
• Episode S02E23 “Statue Game”
  

Thomas Astruc

• Episode S01E13 “Batty”, part 2

Thomas Monstel

• Episode S02E09 “Cute as a Doll”, part 2

Yann Legall

• Episode S01E01 “To Find a Princess”
• Episode S01E06 “Xeris”
• Episode S01E19 “Shanila Suprise”
• Episode S01E25 “Home (½)″
• Episode S02E14 “Desert Heat”
• Music Video #07 “Reach the Stars”
• Music Video #09 “New Star Generation

STORYBOARD ASSISTANTS & CLEANERS :

• Eve Annovazzi
• Lucie Gardes
• Karine Buge
• Stéphanie Russo
• Frédéric Mihailescu
• Nathalie Minard

That’s all for today ! Enjoy ! 

PS : I’ve been warned that another youtube channel called “Team LoliRock” exist, and asked if I’m their manager or not. The answer is simple : I’m not. I only manage the channel linked above and this tumblr, that’s it. 

Hi LoliRockers ! 

Here’s a big post, about Lyna and Carissa’s development. When season 1 was nearly completely written, we had a request from our producers : “Add two new princesses for season 2, and have a 5-princesses gang from now on”. 

Initially, the team was very reluctant : we knew we already had too many characters, therefore adding two more seemed a bad idea for the stories. Jean-Louis Vandestoc suggested that instead of a “5 princesses gang”, the two new princesses should be supportive characters : outside the main gang but always ready and willing to help when needed. That way, it would be easier to add them without upsetting the balance we created between Iris, Talia and Auriana. 

That’s why Lyna and Carissa were created as part of a second team : Izira’s Resistance Princesses, and why they’re not part of all the episodes of season 2 or live with the other princesses. Jean-Louis’ inspiration for them was Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune : he wanted Lyna and Carissa to be strong and independant, like Izira was. We had however to keep them both around the same age as our three main princesses, so we made them younger, and more like “princesses in training” rather than “mature veteran princesses” (much to JL’s disappointment)

Now, the question remained : what would they look like ? We wanted Carissa to be a “ fiery and tomboy warrior princess”, and Lyna to be a “snooty and delicate mage princess”. We also wanted an Asian princess, but didn’t know which one it would be… And so we started to draw…

All along your reading of this post and its designs, I let you appreciate all the little details and differences here and there. You can see what made its way up to the end, what was rejected. Just be aware that it wasn’t a straight path. It never is. 

1 - The First Researches

Finding new symbols became like a game for the whole production team, not only the artists. We all tried to suggest new cool symbols, and of course suggested a lot of very stupid and irrelevant ones. It was a good time. :)

As for the haircuts, we tried a lot as you can see. It’s probably one of the most important and distinctive feature of a magical princess, so we had to make a lot of tests.

Once we had these drawings, we made a few proposals to our producers & broadcasters, with combinations of magical and casual, and trying Lyna or Carissa as “the Asian princess”, one after each other. 

2 - First Proposal

For each of the proposal below, we tried different outfits each time. We knew that none of our proposal would be accepted entirely as they were anyway : you always end up with a patchwork of a little of each, that you have to put together somehow. Like it or not, it’s part of the process it seems.

As for the color palettes, well… “Pink”, “Orange”, “Blue”, “Red”, “Green”, “Black” were already taken. There wasn’t much left for the main colors that could fit : “Purple” and “Teal” were chosen for Carissa and Lyna. Yellow was rejected, as we tested it earlier with Auriana and… well, it really didn’t worked for the main gang. Maybe for an outsider princess ? But not for Lyna nor Carissa.

With Carissa as Asian, Lyna was Caucasian and we felt too close of Iris, and not young enough. With Lyna as Asian we could put Carissa as an Irish type, and this combination was much more appealing for us ! Everyone agreed, up to a point : we were asked at this time that Carissa should not be a redhead, as Auriana was supposed to be the group’s “redhead”, and another one was… “not needed”. Carissa’s hair color would go from red/orange to brown at this time. 

Much work was yet to be done though… We had a basic direction approved, but we needed to explore it more thoroughly and it was time for more advanced color test too. 

As for “Lyna-Caucasian” type, we kept the design and used it as a base for a character of season 2 : Debra, from episode S02E15 “The Ruby of the Orient”. ;)

3 - Color Researches

Choosing the exact outfit was a very complicated task, perhaps more for the casual outfit than the magical one. Below are a lot of our tests…

4 - Selected

In the end, here is the combination that was selected : 

… But it wasn’t still over. 

In fact, it never is until some production manager forcefully takes your model sheet, put the final approval seal, and flee with it before you can stop him/her. In our case, it didn’t happen, so, here we go for the final adjustments : 

For the princess form, we were good and convinced they were what we needed. But for the casual outfits and colors ? Not so much. 

5 - Final Adjustments

In this first model sheet, we tried different colors on both our characters to make sure the 5-Girl line up would work. We tried again color we previously rejected. We even tried to make Carissa black again. Well, it helped us confirm a few things, but we still weren’t there. For Lyna especially, we felt her top needed to be reworked : the knit, with or without sleeves, etc. (Note : we tried a lighter color for her eyes while we were at it). And of course there is always, all along the process, the question “how hard will it be to animate ?”. I confess this wasn’t a priority for a lot of people, but we tried to never forget it nevertheless.

Ok, at this stage, we had found the final shape for Lyna. We only needed to confirm our colors… We tried to put Carissa as the Irish redhead we originally wanted… and surprise ! This time it worked ! And everyone was convinced we had found her too ! 

And finaly, after a few months of work and back and forth, we could go clean and color the final model :

6 - Final Model

It’s fun to note that, even on the final color test we had, none of them was “the good one” : it was a bit of one, and a bit of another, in order to have the final model. As it always is. ;)

Ok folks, this was the last post of the season. :) 

I need my beauty-summer-vacation-sleep ! I’ll have a lot to prepare for September if I want to continue feeding you with model-sheets, development, backgrounds and stories of course… and I’m crazy late regarding the animatics and I want to fix this. 

Have a nice summer everyone, and see you back in September !