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Cuphead is having a creepy stop-motion trailer to mark the release of the surprise PS4
Cuphead, a hard-as-nails run-and-gun title, is coming to PlayStation 4 today. Studio MDHR confirmed the game's arrival at Sony's console with a fun (and creepy) stop-motion trailer featuring Cuphead and the evil King Dice.
Cuphead was already popular for its hand-drawn art style that made it feel like a 1930s cartoon you might watch. But the new trailer put two of the most famous characters in the game in a whole new animation style influenced by the 1933 groundbreaking film The Peanut Vendor, Studio MDHR co-director Chad Moldenhauer said in the PlayStation Blog post.
Studio MDHR collaborated with the Toronto studio Stop Motion Department to make the trailer and "went the extra mile to ensure that all of the same techniques were applied to stop motion animators of the period," according to Moldenhauer:
The film itself was animated without the assistance of the computer programs that allow modern stop motion animators to preview their shots and correct errors. Instead, Philip [Eddolls] and Evan [DeRushie] limited themselves to drawn-out charts and metal gauges to record the position of each puppet, before lining them up to their next position. This mimicked the “try your best and see what happens” limitations of the early stop motion productions.
Finally, the whole thing was filmed using real lenses from 1930s known as “C Mount” lenses, which blow out the footage and give it a deliberately vintage look. Each shot was used as-is, with no corrective editing or compositing, meaning that if you look closely enough, you will see supports and other animation implements in the background.
I 'd say the original short is a lot more disturbing than the Cuphead trailer of today, but you can watch the video for yourself to judge.
Cuphead was released on Xbox and PC for the first time in 2017 and made its way to the Nintendo Switch this year.
