Sony Pictures Animation’s “Open Season” Paves a New Way for Imageworks’ Paint Artists to Work Together
By: Shelby Swatek

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The hybrid look of “Open Season,” which combines realistic objects and stylized characters, presented texture and matte paint artists with a unique challenge.

The first feature-length CG motion picture from Sony Pictures Animation, “Open Season” recently debuted as the top film in U.S. and Canadian theaters. In “Open Season,” Martin Lawrence is the voice of Boog, a 900-pound domesticated grizzly bear who is released into the woods three days before the start of hunting season. Boog must rely on a fast-talking mule deer named Elliot, played by Ashton Kutcher, and a host of woodlands animals to survive. Reviewers gave the artistry of “Open Season” high marks. Claudia Puig of USA TODAY noted at the top of her review that “Some of the most notoriously tough things to animate via computer, such as fur, hair, and blades of grass, look breathtakingly realistic and dazzling in ‘Open Season.’” In the Star Tribune, Colin Covert remarked on the “photorealistic surface textures – you can almost feel the coarse density of the animals’ fur.” Reviewer Omar Aviles was taken by the “truly spectacular outdoor environments” in “Open Season.” We had a chance to sit down with Apryl Knobbe, the lead paint artist on “Open Season,” to find out how CINEMA 4D helped her and the other paint artists achieve such winning results.