Ricky Nierva - Research

    In this research post I decided to look at Ricky Nierva - an animator who spent many years working in the animation industry. Ricky Nierva graduated from the California Institute of the Arts and worked in Pixar Animation Studios for 21 years, where he worked on a good deal of great movies (Nierva, 2021). I chose Nierva because he has created characters that are very recognizable, which I think is very important. A good example of that is Mike Wazowski. Just his name is enough for people to visualize the character, because it is so specific, it is difficult to forget. 

    The character designer wants to create characters that people remember, a character that is appealing but different and new. If there was a new movie which would have a character to Mike Wazowski, everyone would immediately connect those two. Completely new characters are more intriguing, they do not immediately have a personality of a different character people connect it with. 

    Nierva (2009) states that Pixar Animation Studios stay on top because of the environment created in the company, it is open for ideas and if someone has an idea - it does not have to be a person from the art department, they can pitch the idea anyway. The focus on letting anyone bring the idea, is what makes Pixar great as a studio. 

    In this research I decided to look at Nierva's process of creating characters and see how I can use his tricks when doing my set project. 

Below, there is an image presenting two characters created by Ricky Nierva - Carl Fredricksen and Russell. 

The characters Russell and Carl in Pixar’s film “Up.”

Those two characters are definitely very recognizable, and the truth is, they both are based on very simple shapes. Carl Fredricksen is based on square-like shapes, to also portray his personality. Russell is created on circular shapes because he is a well-rounded character. They are exactly opposite in the way they look and their personalities are completely different. 

On "Up", Nierva worked together with the director Pete Docter, who is one of the most important and well-known people at Pixar. This is a simple example of how shapes can represent personalities. "Using simple forms to build lively personalities, Mr. Nierva literally helped the characters take shape."(Murphy, 2009). Simple shape, does not mean simple personality. The character can still be complex, but the shape can be simple and that only adds, to the character. 

Carl Fredricksten is a good example of a complex character, whose appearance is based on simple shapes. Carl is not a bad person in the movie, he is missing his wife, he is lonely, he is hurt, he is disappointed and he is angry at himself. He seems like a grumpy old man, however there is so much background for his emotions and for the way he behaves and speaks. There are complex emotions inside of him and it is why I think it is not a character that is simple to explain in a couple of words. He has his own story and the way he acts is a consequence of what had happened in his life.  

Here is a Tedx talk given by Nierva in Athens in 2014 considering creating characters out of simple shapes.  

I think this video represents the idea of using simple shapes to present character in a very good way. 

It is not only something specific about "Up", when looking at other characters created by Nierva, the use of simple shapes is definitely recognizable. For example, Mike Wazowski, he is a round creature, because he is very cheerful, well-rounded character, especially in Monsters University. Sully, in comparison is more of square - rectangle like character, in Monsters University he was presented as more of a jock and looking at that his appearance really showed his personality. He was bigger than Mike, not only by appearance but also others seen him as a bigger personality. I think it is a really interesting duo. It is important to keep in mind that they are not simple characters, they are definitely complex.  

After watching the video of Ricky Nierva showing how he creates a character I decided to try his technique on my own. Just to create a simple sketches using simple shapes to see how this process works and what I can quickly sketch giving for example 5 minutes per sketch. 

I created 4 sketches: 2 round characters and two rectangular characters: 

These are the drawings I have created and I noticed that when the line is straight and harsh, the characters come out very angry looking and cold. The round characters look a lot more friendly and approachable. I realized that it was a challenge for me to create a friendly rectangular character and an evil round one, therefore I set the timer for 5 minutes again to try to create a round not friendly character and a very friendly rectangular one. I want to see how far I can push myself and how much I can exaggerate personality traits that they start being visible in the physical appearance. 

Here are the effects of my second practice:

I found this task incredibly difficult. I noticed that every time I was thinking "this character is friendly" I would immediately soften the lines and edges. I made the task difficult for myself to challenge myself and see the effects and I am quite happy with what I created. 

In this research I looked at Ricky Nierva's method of building characters out of simple shapes. I think this is a very useful research for my project, since I am designing characters. I am definitely going to use this method when creating initial sketches of my characters because it brings very interesting results. I think all the sketches I have made, even though they all have been done in 5 minutes, look interesting. Just by looking at each one of them, I can create a story behind them in my head and that definitely defines an appealing character. 

Reference list

Disney/Pixar (n.d.) Ricky Nierva, Pixar Art Collection. Available at: https://pixarartcollection.com/pages/ricky-nierva (Accessed: 02/02/2021)

Murphy, M. (2009) 'Well-Rounded Boy, Meet Old Square', New York Times, 15/05. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/movies/17murph.html (Accessed: 02/02/2021)

Nierva, R. (2021) Ricky Nierva [Linkedin] available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricky-nierva-b44069158/ (Accessed: 02/02/2021)

Nierva, R. (2009) 'Pixar's 'Up' production designer a Filipino', interviewed by ABS-CBN News, ABS-CBN News, 03/07. Available at: https://news.abs-cbn.com/pinoy-migration/07/02/09/pixars-production-designer-filipino (Accessed: 02/02/2021)

TedX Talks (2014) Don't be afraid of the blank sheets: Ricky Nierva at TEDxAthens. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbCaLlnyuwM (Accessed: 02/02/2021)