New Star Wars show Maul – Shadow Lord's animation mixes CG and traditional techniques, like the Spider-Verse movies and Arcane

Disney Plus’ new Star Wars animated show Maul – Shadow Lord has a cutting edge approach to its animation style, blending CG with traditional techniques for a look that stands out. Maul – Shadow Lord follows a growing trend of finding new ways to incorporate old school hand drawn animation into CG shows and movies, notably Arcane, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, and of course the Spider-Verse movies.

“Dave Filoni wanted us to put the hand of the artist in every frame,” supervising director Brad Rau tells SFX Magazine. “So you see more brush strokes in the skin tones, in the buildings and in the [background] matte paintings. Joel Aron, our director of lighting, photography and effects, had this really cool idea, where his team would paint on glass with actual brushes, and then scan those brush strokes into the computer. In the pilot there’s this great hero shot of Maul as his lightsaber turns on, and if you look at the smoke next to him, there’s actual brush strokes in the smoke.”