Smurfs (race) | Smurfs Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Gallery You may also be looking for the cartoon show called Smurfs . For information about the history of the comic book characters themselves, see Smurfs (comics) . The Smurfs are the main character species that appear in the Smurf comic books , the Smurfs cartoon show , and any visual presentation featuring them with the exception of the Johan And Peewit comic book series and " Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue ", where they appear as supporting characters. Their first appearance is in the original comic book story " The Smurfs And The Magic Flute " in 1958. They are little blue human-like creatures that live in a small mushroom-house village hidden within a forest , the exact location of which is unknown to all but Smurfs and Mother Nature . According to the 2011 Smurfs movie, Smurfs are native to the European country of Belgium and were originally known by their French name Schtroumpfs, as documented in-universe by Peyo.

NOTE: Most of the following information is derived from observations of the Smurfs cartoon show and pertains mostly to the cartoon show universe of stories and characters. Applications to their counterparts in other visual media will be noted here. Contents [ show ] Physical Makeup Physically, a Smurf is usually no more than "three apples tall" (in human measure, probably around 3 inches; the 2011 movie records them as being 7.5 inches) and has a pear-shaped body with an oval-shaped head, springy legs, and limber arms, with a short stubby tail sticking out from his or her buttocks. The springy legs allow a Smurf to jump to high places or across rocks and branches rather easily. According to the Sony Pictures Imageworks animators, the Smurfs in the film can run up to 10 feet per second and have a vertical leap of 4-12 inches.

Smurfs are primarily a single-gender race that are generally born male (though Smurfs do not physically reproduce, they do come into the world by a stork that delivers them to the Smurf Village from an unknown location); very few Smurfs are female, and those that are are most likely magical creations rather than natural-born Smurfs. Nanny Smurf may be the only exception as far as female Smurfs are concerned, but since little has been revealed about her origin as a female Smurf, it is uncertain whether she truly is a naturally-born female Smurf. The male Smurf is mostly bald and relatively hairless. He does not begin to sprout facial hair (a beard and/or moustache) until sometime around his 400s, as mentioned by Papa Smurf in " Symbols Of Wisdom ". The "non-canonical" Gutsy Smurf , interestingly, may be the only exception to this rule, as he wears sideburns despite being around the same age range as his fellow Smurfs.

Grandpa Smurf , being in his 1000s, is the only known male Smurf at present who also has head hair growing around the back of his head, indicating that additional hair growth may be a sign of advancing age for a male Smurf. Because of the lack of head hair, male Smurfs wear hats on their heads. Besides that, male Smurfs also only wear pants, though a few Smurfs do wear clothing on their torsos; no specific reason is given for this, though it simply may be a matter of function and/or comfort for them. Given that on occasion few Smurfs would wear nothing more than some gloves and a scarf in addition to a hat and pants in cold weather, it would appear that Smurfs are also somewhat physically adaptable to weather changes. Smurfs tend to age slower than humans and thus live longer than humans. A Smurf reaching his 100 years of age is usually considered an adult, with relative mental maturity of humans somewhere between mid-adolescence and early twenties, though some depictions of young Smurfs have them behaving more like pre-adolescent children.

It is rare for a Smurf to live to around 1000 years of age, as Grandpa Smurf has done. In the cartoon show, this is due to the effects of the Long Life Stone , which has kept the Smurfs from accelerated aging and their possible destruction. No similar explanation has been given for their longevity in their other media appearances. Hefty eating a hot dog in "King Smurf" Though it is suggested that Smurfs tend to be vegetarians, there are rare occasions where some Smurfs are seen eating meat-based products, such as Hefty with his hot dog in " King Smurf ". A few plants that are essential to their diets are sarsaparilla leaves and smurfberries . Smurfs are considered highly sought after by wizards, since they are part of the ingredient for the formula that turns base metals into gold. In "The Miracle Smurfer", It's said that their blue skin cures every human illness. In the 2011 Smurfs movie , Gargamel prepared a formula made from a portion of Smurf essence, mostly from Smurfette's hair, that had various magical properties, including restoring the youth of Odile Jouvenel 's mother .

General intelligence The general intelligence of the Smurf race in whole seems to be based on a level of obliviousness. Examples of that can be found in stories like " The Purple Smurfs ", where Handy Smurf carries an infected Smurf over his shoulder, leaving himself wide open for that infected Smurf to bite him and infect him as well. Or when the Smurfs have succeeded to capture an infected smurf and bring him to Papa Smurf's lab, but only Papa Smurf was smart enough to flee the scene when that infected Smurf escapes while all the others just go "He bit me!" and basically let themselves be infected. Another good example is in the comic book version of the " King Smurf " adventure, where the nameless Smurf who would eventually become King Smurf had figured out that the way to get the others to elect him as their replacement leader until Papa Smurf returns is to make them promises, but he has no intention whatsoever to keep them. The others never even considered that King Smurf would betray their trust, and it's only when they are forced to build his castle that they realize this. King Smurf made good use of how gullible the other Smurfs were and they resent that.

In that same story it's Brainy Smurf who most clearly shows the obliviousness that seems to be part of the Smurf race. When he sees the pamphlets promoting the future King Smurf, he goes "How nice of them to print pamphlets for me, but they forgot my glasses." He also time after time fails to acknowledge that he's not that popular with the others and is genuinely surprised to find that he received only two votes at the election. Furthermore in that story, when King Smurf is taking his troops into the woods to look for the rebel camp, he tells them to imitate the hooting of an owl to signal when they found the camp. Failing to understand the seriousness of their assignment, some of them actually start practicing how to make that sound leading to some false alarms. Cumulating into King Smurf being drawn to a real owl that's been hooting and one of his troops going.

"Ah that smurfs it, I figured that was a smurfily good imitation." Even Papa Smurf, who is regarded as the wisest of his kind, has displayed the same obliviousness, most obviously in " Smurf Versus Smurf " where during the duration of the story he was completely unaware of the unrest in his village, being too engrossed in his lab work. As he finishes his lab work with an astounding success, he is completely caught off guard when he finds that not only has the language problem not solved itself, but that the village has been split in two and the two halves are at war with each other. To his shame he admits to himself that if only he had paid more attention to what was going on, he would stop it before it went as far as it did. Lastly, the Smurfs ALWAYS fall for Jokey Smurf 's joke with the exploding gifts, no matter how many times they received one before. Society Structure And Culture Papa Smurf, the leader The Smurfs are led by a single adult Smurf of advanced years, who happens to be Papa Smurf, who is around 542 years old (546 in the movie).

He functions as both a village leader and a father figure, directing them in their daily tasks and serving as a mediator in disputes, using his skills, wisdom, intelligence, and power with benevolence. Each Smurf is given a name that's usually based on a talent, an occupation, or a dominant personality trait exhibited by that Smurf; the name can define that Smurf's particular role in their society, though at times a Smurf may seek to expand his range of talents and abilities or to outgrow certain traits they are named after. (In the Smurf comic books, unnamed Smurfs are simply called Smurf.) Sometimes a foreman would be selected among the young Smurfs to direct the other Smurfs in their tasks, such as Hefty. Why Papa Smurf is the only Smurf that wears red clothing while most of the other Smurfs wear white is unknown, though it may simply suggest leader status. Grandpa Smurf's wearing yellow may also indicate that different generations of Smurfs wear different colors.

The Smurfs' community generally takes the form of a cooperative, sharing and kind environment based on the principle that each Smurf has something he or she is good at, and thus contributes it to Smurf society as he or she can. In return, each Smurf appears to be given their necessities of life, from housing and clothes to food. The Smurfs have no use for money , though at times they may trade something valuable to outsiders in order to get something they need, as Wooly has done in "Wild And Wooly". An attempt to introduce a capitalist monetary system in the comic books' depiction of Smurf society in " The Finance Smurf " has resulted in the Smurfs turning entirely against it. In either media, this is usually interpreted by some readers and/or viewers as the Smurfs promoting communism, though their society is more of a close-knit family than a nation of individuals.

The Smurf Village The Smurf community at the present time of their adventures consists of a little over 100 Smurfs, which includes Papa Smurf, Smurfette , 98 male Smurfs of around 150 years old, Baby Smurf , three young boy Smurflings of 50 years old who were originally adult Smurfs around the age of 150 years old , Sassette , Grandpa Smurf, Wild , and Nanny. Some additional residents of their village include pets such as Puppy , a 1000-year-old dog that Homnibus the wizard had given to the Smurfs, Smoogle , a pink marsupial-type animal that has been a companion of Nanny, and Feathers , a crane pet of the Smurfs and a mode of transportation, Smurfs communicate in a language that they call Smurf , which is just basically a variation of a human language where the word "smurf" is used to substitute for a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. The language is rather intuitive since only Smurfs can understand what each other are really saying in Smurf.

Smurfs dancing in a typical Smurf celebration Smurfs celebrate birthdays and holidays , including some that are rather indigenous to the Smurf community at large. They also enjoy various recreational activities as well as arts and music, including their local sport of smurfball . Smurfs usually sing the Smurf song whenever they're happy doing something (or just happy). Smurfs tend to be nature-based in their belief system (though some do hold to the concept of a "heaven" and a "hell" , as demonstrated in " Heavenly Smurfs " and in " The Egg And The Smurfs "), and have certain rituals that involve elements in nature. Marriages (between male and female Smurfs) are very rare, if they even happen at all, though it is possible that such do happen. See the article Smurf customs for a list of customs indigenous to the Smurf people. History As far as established history goes, Papa Smurf was born the son of Grandpa Smurf, who left on a 500-year journey to find the purest sources of the four known elements to restore the Long Life Stone.

Nanny Smurf had followed after Grandpa Smurf in order to look for more yarn, which left Papa Smurf for the most part alone, though he was taught magic by a wizard named Palladore , who was trapped in stone along with other wizards by a group of druids. Roughly around 150 years prior to the present time set in the cartoon show, Papa Smurf became the father of about 98 young Smurfs, though it is not known how they were raised with Papa Smurf as their sole parent. They first met Gargamel when he was in his late teens, which inspired his desire for revenge against them when they had foiled his first plot to capture them. Years later, Gargamel created Smurfette to be his weapon to destroy the Smurfs, but when Smurfette expressed her desire to become a real Smurf, Papa Smurf used his magic to change her into a real Smurf, thus foiling Gargamel's plans. From that time on, other Smurfs have joined the group, and the Smurfs have met other humans which included their constant allies Sir Johan and Peewit.

In the animated version of " The Smurfs And The Magic Flute ", their first encounter took place when Peewit came across a magic flute that the Smurfs were looking for that fell into the hands of a thief named Matthew McCreep , and together they helped Johan and Peewit stop the thief and his associate Earl Flatbroke from taking over their kingdom . Eventually seventeen Smurfs have been trapped in time due to the misuse of the time crystals , leaving the future of the Smurfs uncertain from that point on. The Smurfs are about to discover their own legend has been recorded! In the "non-canonical" 2011 Smurfs movie , their history and legend has been documented by a cartoon artist named Peyo (who in the real world is their creator ) and written in a book called L'Histoire des Schtroumpfs which the Smurfs find in Mr. Wong's Mystical Emporium in New York City , which they search through in order to find the spell to make the blue moon appear so they could open the portal back to their own place in time.

Name Translations The name Smurf is derived from the Dutch translation of their original French name Schtroumpf when their comic book series was first published in Belgium. Since they have become internationally known, the name has also been translated into various other languages, as follows: Arabic: سنافر (sanafer) or singular: سنفور (sanfur) Basque: pottokiak (singular: pottoki), after the Basque pony race pottoka. Early editions used pitufoak, straight from Spanish. Bulgarian: Смърфовете (Smurfovete) - The Smurfs or singular: Смърф (Smurf). Catalan: Barrufets (singular: Barrufet), that in Catalan means little wind evil or goblin. Croatian: Štrumpfovi (singular: Štrumpf) Czech: Šmoulové (singular: Šmoula), name based on their light blue colour. Danish: Smølfer(ne) (singular: smølf).

Originally published as "Snøvserne" (singular: snøvs) Dutch: smurfen (singular: smurf) Estonian: smurfid (singular: smurf) Finnish: smurffit (singular: smurffi) [the word "strumffit" (singular: strumffi) was used in the 1970s, but smurffit became the de-facto-standard translation during the 1980s]. When they were first published in Finland in the early 70's, they were called Muffet (singular: Muffe). "Smurffit" is also a slang word for public transport ticket inspectors, who wear blue uniforms. French: schtroumpfs (singular: schtroumpf) German: Schlümpfe (singular: Schlumpf). The original French schtroumpf sounds very similar to the German word Strumpf meaning "sock" or "stocking".

Greek: Στρουμφάκια (stroumfakia) or singular: Στρουμφ/Στρουμφάκι (stroumf/stroumfaki) Hebrew: דרדסים (dardasim) or singular: דרדס (dardas). Dardak is a small child. The somewhat rare Hebrew word "dardas" has a totally unrelated meaning (slipper or overshoe), and therefore should be treated as an invented word when referring to smurfs. It is still used in an insulting manner towards short people. Hungarian: törpök (singular: törp), and also: hupikék törpikék (singular: hupikék törpike). Please note that it is a spelling mistake to write these terms in capital letters.

Icelandic: strumparnir (singular: strumpur) Italian: puffi (singular: puffo), the name has been reinvented from scratch because in Italian language the "schtroumpf" (or in Italian spelling 'strumpf') reminds speakers of the slang Italian word "stronzo", literally meaning 'turd' and, by extension, 'asshole'. The fantasy name "puffi" is derived from the word "buffi" (singular: buffo, as in opera buffa) a word meaning at same time "funny" and "strange".

Japanese: スマーフ (sumaafu - a phonetic approximation) Korean: 스머프 (seumeopeu - a phonetic approximation) Lithuanian: smurfai (singular: smurfas) Macedonian: Штрумфови (Štrumfovi) or singular: Штрумф (Štrumf) Mandarin (Chinese): 蓝精灵 (Simplified Chinese) /藍精靈 (Traditional Chinese) (lán jīng líng) - blue fairy spirits/elves/pixies; 藍色小精靈 (lán sè xiǎo jīng líng) - little blue fairy spirits/elves/pixies Norwegian: smurfene (singular: smurf) Polish: smerfy (singular: smerf; since the 1990s used as a slang word for traffic policemen due to their blue uniforms and white caps) Portuguese: In Portugal they're known as estrumpfes (singular: estrumpfe); in early editions they were called Schtroumpfs, as in the original French.

Brazil knows them as smurfs, but when first introduced in the storybook format they were called "Strunfs" Romanian: Ştrumfi (singular: Ştrumf) Serbian: Штрумпфови (Štrumpfovi) or singular: Штрумпф (Štrumpf) Slovak: Šmolkovia (singular: Šmolko) Slovenian: Smrkci (singular: Smrkec) Spanish: Pitufos (singular: Pitufo; female: Pitufita or Pitufina). The name derives either from "Patufet", a slightly similar looking character (short, smurfish cap wearing) of the Catalonian folklore (basically, the Catalan counterpart of British Tom Thumb), or from pituso[6] ("cute child"). The term "Pitufo" was later incorporated in Spanish slang meaning "local policeman" due to their blue uniforms. In 1974, the Smurfs appeared in TBO Magazine under the name "Tebeítos".

Swedish: Smurfer(na) originally, currently more often called "smurfar(na)" (singular: smurf) Turkish: Şirinler (singular: Şirin; feminine – Şirine) the name means cute in Turkish. Urdu: اسمرف (ismarf) Welsh: Y Smyrffs (Singular: Smyrff) Trivia Contrary to popular belief, the phrase that is often used to describe the height of most Smurfs ("three apples high," the direct translation of the French idiom "haut comme trois pommes") was never a precise scientific measurement. It means that something is really small, and an English equivalent would be "knee-high to a grasshopper". The Smurfs are actually based on a fictional elf race that appeared in a short film, whcih was called "La Cadeau à la fée" ("The gift to the fairy"), made by a company called "La Compagnie Belg D'Actualités", whom Peyo used to work for as a young man.

See Also Paxety Pages | Papa Smurf Laden And The Two Towers Papa Smurf Laden And The Two Towers Thursday, October 13, 2005 By: Mahone Dunbar A film by UNICEF A Film By UNICEF PPI-Mahone Dunbar Recently, an adults-only cartoon featuring the famous blue Smurfs surfaced in Belgium. In the short feature the Smurf village is shown bombed and annihilated by warplanes. The graphic feature, a product of UNICEF, the United Nations Childrenâs Fund, is set to be broadcast on national television as part of a campaign against war and, presumably, against blowing up cute little blue children. Sure, we've all wanted to see particular cartoon characters blown up at one time or another (the creepy, preachy characters on Captain Planet would be my first choice, [ed- I'd go for Scooby Doo]); however, the Smurfs seemed harmless enough so why pick on them? A spokesman for UNICEF Belgium, Philippe Henon, admitted that the film was intended to be shocking, and said that they had decided to use the cute little blue cartoon characters because no one cared about traditional images of suffering in the Third World anymore.

I decided this was a matter that needed further investigation and promptly got on a plane to New York. After my plane set down at La Guardia, I immediately rented a car and proceeded to the UN. At the UNâs information booth I was directed to the secretary who handled appointments (a cousin of Kofi Annon). After a two hour wait, she informed me that since I didn't have an appointment it would take two weeks before I could meet with someone from UNICEF. Fortunately, I found it ridiculously easy to bride a member of Secretary General Kofi Annonâs staff (two gift certificates to Outbackâs Steak House) and I was quickly directed to the office of Sapho Argulia, UNICEF liaison for Media Promotion of the UN. Before I left, the secretary also sold me a UN diplomatic ID for my car (you hang if from your mirror), which would allow me to park anywhere, anytime, and allow me to violate all traffic laws with impunity. I couldn't resist. On the way up to Ms.

Arguliaâs office I stopped by the UN Gift shop and picked up a T-shirt that read: I went to the UN and all I got was a lousy food-for-oil deal. If the Smurfs were the perfect medium (since, according to UNICEF, people apparently care more about fictional blue children than real brown ones) to depict topical and controversial subjects like the bombing of innocent children, couldn't they also be used as a teaching medium in other controversial and topical subjects related to war and horror, such as Islamic terrorism? Exactly so, she admitted. There was a Smurf feature on terrorism already in the bag. And this was definitely the trend of the future. In fact, UNICEF had a host of other films featuring cartoon spokespersons for social themes.

Other features in the works included "Daffy Duck On The Joy Of Anarchism," (Daffy is jailed as a political prisoner and tortured) "Porky Pig On Western Over Indulgence And Famine," (Porky develops diabetes and heart problems and dies in agony) "Yosemite Sam On Gun Control," (Sam accidentally shoots his two-year-old niece in the head while fooling around with his guns) "Pepe Le Pew On The Prevention Of STDs," (We get to watch the Don Juan of skunks lose his body hair and then wither away from AIDS) and "Wile E. Coyote On The Joys Of Veganism" (Can you imagine and even more emaciated Wile?) But what about the film about Smurfs and terrorism, I asked. Any chance I could see it? A quick bribe later, I had a bag of popcorn and was watching "Papa-Smurf-Laden And The Two Towers." In a nutshell, the plot is as follows: Papa Smurf finds an antiquated religious tome in his library, reads it, and becomes a Smurflamist, which is a follower Smurfalah.

To carry out his duty to Smurfalah, Papa Smurf is required to do two things: put on an even stranger headdress than the one he already has, and kill all those who do not want to become followers of Smurfalah - in particular, the Smurficans who live in a village to the west and don't seem to worship a god at all, and the Smurfish people who live in a nearby village and worship an even older god than Smurfalah. Using his powers of persuasion, Papa Smurf soon has Smurf village filled with Smurflamists eager to carry out the will of Smurfalah. In order to expedite the annihilation of Smurfalahâs enemies, Papa Smurf (who now calls himself Papa-Smurf-Laden) has Brainy Smurf devise a weapon to attack and kill even more of the Smurfish and Smurficans. Brainy Smurf comes up with the perfect solution: a smurfpack, worn on the back and filled with dynamite. Next, Papa-Smurf-Laden has to find someone willing to sacrifice themselves to the righteous will of Smurfalah.

Since he is indispensable as leader of the village, and since Brainy Smurf is his right-hand man, he sends for Gullible Smurf. Enticed by promises of easy sex with numerous, nubile Smurfettes once he gets to heaven, Gullible Smurf agrees to wear Brainy Smurf's dynamite-laden smurfpack onto a bus that runs to the Smurfish school. The bus blows up, predictably, and a realistic shower of blood and blue body parts, accompanied by smoke, flames, wailing and screaming, fills the screen. When the screening was over, I was confused, and asked Ms. Argulia what the point was - pro-terrorism? Or anti-terrorism? With Papa-Smurf-Laden praising the slaughter, the other Smurflamists dancing and singing around the bodies, and shots of Gullible Smurf frolicking in heaven with Smurfettes, its condemnation of violence seemed a little ambiguous to me.

"Although in general we condemn violence, when it comes to religion," she replied, "the UN does not take sides." I thanked her for her time and was about to leave when she mentioned that for an additional small bribe I could have some cels (individual shots from a moving film) from the movie. After this final transaction I was nearly broke, so decided to forgo any sight-seeing in the Big Apple and return home. Alas, on the way to the airport I decided I wanted some flavor of New York and stopped at a local bar for a quick drink. I parked my car, stuck the UN Diplomat parking sticker in the window, and went into a tavern to have a quick one. When I got outside and reached the curb where I'd left my rent-a-car double-parked, I found that it had been towed away. The lesson here is obvious: don't do business with the UN. Anyway, for those with an interest in what UNICEF is doing, here are a few cels from Papa-Smurf-Laden And The Two Towers.

| Empath: The Luckiest Smurf (series) | Smurfs Fanon Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Empath: The Luckiest Smurf (series) Empath: The Luckiest Smurf (series) 6,545pages on Share The Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story series is Vic George's series of Smurfs fanfiction stories featuring his main character Empath. Like the novel which is part of the story series, most of these stories take place sometime after Season 5 of the Smurfs cartoon show , but are set in an alternate universe which includes characters and elements from the original comic books , the animated version of The Smurfs And The Magic Flute , Sony Pictures Animation's The Smurfs film series , and the Smurfs PVC toy line. Contents The music would be a modified version of the Smurfs cartoon show theme song Empath narrates the intro, as it begins in similar fashion to the Season 1 intro sequence, with Empath appearing in it. "Salutations.

I am Empath Smurf, and this is the world that this smurf lives in." There is a zoom-in through the forest similar to the Season 7 intro sequence until we see the Smurf Village, and the Smurfs doing their various activities. "These are my people, the Smurfs. They live peaceful joyful lives in a village hidden in the forest. They are my friends and family." Then there is an establishing shot of Psychelia, and scenes of how the Psyches live their lives, with one of Empath being punished by the Psyche Master. "This was my life before I knew who I was. How often I wish that I never lived it." Then there are shots of various villains and threats in the Smurf Forest, which include Hogatha, Lord Balthazar, and Chlorhydris. "But here among the Smurfs, I deal with much greater problems." Then it returns to Empath standing somewhere in the Smurf Forest, before we see the EMPATH: THE LUCKIEST SMURF title appearing.

"There isn't a situation that the Smurfs can't handle together, but when it comes to the really tough problems, that's where I come in...Empath." Smurfed Behind Intro Sequence: The music played would be a variation of the Season 9 intro sequence music, only sounding a bit darker. As Empath narrates the intro, we see parts of what took place in "Smurfed Behind: The Departure". The montage of scenes end with Empath and Polaris standing out near the edge of the forest with the EMPATH: THE LUCKIEST SMURF IN SMURFED BEHIND title appearing. "Salutations. I am Empath Smurf, and a terrible thing has happened. Around my birthday, my fellow Smurfs have found a baby dinosaur, and Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf used the Key of Chronos to bring the dinosaur back home to his own time. The problem is, the key caused all of my fellow Smurfs to be sent back in time as well. Father Time isn't able to bring them all back, so me and Polaris Psyche have set out into the world to find a way to return them safely home.

And by the Great Ancestors, that's what I intend to accomplish...or my name isn't Empath." Post-Lost Year Intro Sequence: Narrator provides the voice-over for the entire sequence. It begins with what seems to be inside a rainbow-colored tunnel that ends with the appearance of the Smurf Village. A hundred Smurfs all come out of what appears to be a vortex into the center of the village, all looking happy to be home, until they noticed Polaris Psyche kneeling next to a fallen Empath. Narrator: And so, after a year of traveling through time, the Smurfs finally made it back home, where everything is nice and smurfy again...or so it seemed. As the camera zooms into Empath, it transitions into him sleeping on a bed and waking up to meeting his fellow Smurfs again. Smurfette greets him with a kiss, while Jokey greets him with a present, which Brainy takes away and opens, causing it to explode in his face while Jokey laughs. Wild Smurf leaps into the room and somersaults his way onto the foot of the bed.

The Smurflings all gather around Empath's bed and he gives them a nice big group hug, smiling with joy. Then it cuts to the appearances of Balthazar, Hogatha, Chlorhydris, and various other villains that would be introduced in the coming years. Empath then gets out of bed, gets dressed up in his star-pattern suit, his blue shirt, and a red cape before he heads out the door. The Smurfs watch as Empath launches himself into the sky and flies off into the forest. Wild Smurf leaps out into the forest and grabs a vine to swing his way through the trees. The sequence ends with Empath flying straight into the camera, which then transitions into the EMPATH: THE LUCKIEST SMURF title logo appearing on the screen. Narrator: Fortunately, when evil smurfs its appearance in our forest, there's still one Smurf who will smurf out for us...and his name is Empath, the luckiest Smurf.

Marriage And Beyond Intro Sequence: A book opens and we see it zoom into a picture of Empath as he first returns to the Smurf Village upon his 150th birthday, first meeting Smurfette and receiving his first star-patterned suit for his birthday. Then the pages turn and we see various events happening in Empath's life, with Empath and Smurfette being together through the events, including when Empath and Smurfette are separated from each other during The Lost Year. Finally the page turns to Empath and Smurfette kissing each other at the wedding, and the two flying off together on a stork to their honeymoon, with JUST MARRIED appearing on the bird's tail. (Later seasons will show Empath meeting the Smurfettes and Empath and Smurfette having their first child as the final pages.) The picture book closes, with EMPATH: THE LUCKIEST SMURF appearing on its cover. Summaries " Vanity's Double " A flashback story told to Empath about how Vanity's "twin brother" Century integrated as part of the village following his arrival into the world in the cartoon show episode "The Hundredth Smurf".

This leads into the events that took place in "The Adventures Of Robin Smurf". " Smurfing In Paradise " A Smurfs fanfiction adaptation of the comic book story "Bathing Smurfs". A few years before Empath's final return, Handy gets away from the Smurf Village to a beautiful lake in the mountains, and ends up building a private beach resort that becomes so popular that all the Smurfs want to go to it. " Papa's Big Crush " This story is created as an unofficial follow-up to "Romeo And Smurfette". Papa Smurf is starting to have affectionate feelings for Smurfette that ultimately manifest themselves in a grotesque way when the village leader is accidentally changed into a muscular love-crazed version of himself who is after Smurfette. " Empath And The Red-Nosed Reindeer " Empath and the Smurflings discover a reindeer lost in the forest with a red shiny nose on Christmas Eve. They bring him to the village in the hopes that they would give him a good home when Chlorhydris the witch covers the forest with a thick fog, hoping it would stop the flight of Nicholas the toymaker and his delivery of toys.

" Virtual Smurfality " On a cold snowy day in the dead of winter, Papa Smurf comes up with his own version of Homnibus' Imaginarium room where the Smurfs can actually interact with whatever they can imagine. A problem occurs when most of the Smurfs go off into their own fantasies, and only Empath, Smurfette, and the Smurflings can rescue them before the Imaginarium crystals are totally destroyed. " The Innocence Of A Smurf " It is a special observance day where the Smurfs examine their own personal faults, to confess them, and to be cleansed by swimming across the Pool of Souls, when Empath is confronted by a fault he committed that may cost him his life. " Somewhere Over The Rainbow " The Smurflings are transported to the magical world of Odds by a tornado -- and the three boys are turned into characters from the story! Sassette must find them along the path that leads to the Emerald Village and seek help from the Wizard of Odds so that her friends can be restored to normal and that they can return home.

" The No Hug Zone " It is Hug-A-Smurf Day, which is Grouchy's least favorite day of the year, and Empath and Tapper have designated the tavern as a "No Hug Zone" for Grouchy to feel safe in. How long can they keep Grouchy safe from the hug-muggers? " The Exile From Psychelia " It is a year after Empath's final return from Psychelia, and Polaris Psyche has fled from there in search of Empath. With Polaris' arrival in the Smurf Forest he brings trouble along, and Empath and the Smurfs must deal with the Psyches as they come to retrieve Polaris. " Polaris' Fantasy " Empath's friend Polaris Psyche is finally a member of the Smurf Village, and he has trouble interacting with the other Smurfs until a female being called Elatia appears in the Imaginarium beach setting where the Smurfs have their Summer Solstice celebration. However, Empath and Polaris discover that Elatia is more than just a mere creation from Polaris' imagination when she tries to take over Smurfette's body.

" Empath The Bandit Smurf " A Smurfs fanfiction adaptation of the comic book story "The Jewel Smurfer". Empath during a training session with Century loses his memory and is taken by a couple of entertainers to perform for people, then is later used by a criminal mastermind to steal valuables from the townsfolk. Papa Smurf and four other Smurfs follow after Empath to find him and restore his memory. " Monkey On Your Smurf " Handy brings Clockwork Smurf back to life by giving him a new mechanical body with some new features such as a hat that squirts liquid from it (similar to his counterpart in the original Smurf comic books), while Empath and the other Smurfs deal with various types of mutations and strange behaviors such as Papa Smurf's restlessness and flaring temper. " Where No Smurf Has Gone Before " This story is created as an unofficial follow-up to "The Astro Smurf" and "Dreamy's Pen Pals". Empath finds Dreamy desiring to travel the stars again when an alien spaceship lands in the Smurf forest, complete with a computer that seems to be alive.

Empath, Dreamy, and Handy borrow the spaceship to help fulfill Dreamy's wish to travel the stars, but they end up running into another alien race called the Schliphargons who are intending to capture them and use them as their slaves. " Days Of Auld Lang Smurf " It is around New Year's Eve, and most of the Smurfs are thinking about their loved ones who have passed away years ago, which Chlorhydris the evil witch takes advantage of by casting a spell on them that makes them think their loved ones have returned back from the dead. But can Smurfette and Polaris Psyche convince them that what they think they're seeing is not real? " Snaggers Keepers " Empath deals with his fellow Smurf Nabby, who just can't seem to keep his hands off other Smurfs' personal things, when he takes and accidentally loses Polaris Psyche's meditational stone. While searching for the missing stone, Nabby takes a gnome's magical amulet as a substitute, not knowing the trouble he brings to the village.

" My Unsmurfy Valentine " While Clumsy comes to terms with what he feels for his friend Brainy on Valentine's Day, the rogue cherub Eros attacks the Smurfs by inflaming their hearts with his lust arrows, bringing him into conflict with Cupid and his daughter Charity. " The Grouchiest Friendship " This story takes place during Empath's first visit to the Smurf Village, where he is learning about how he is a Smurf and how Smurfs live their lives. It is during this visit that he tries to be friends with one Smurf nobody would thought any Smurf could be friends with -- Grouchy. " The Fear Of Smurfitude " This story takes place during Empath's third visit to the Smurf Village, when he is given his own Smurf house to live in and take care of. However, he finds it difficult to sleep alone in his new house, especially when somebody is in his dreams trying to draw him to be used for an evil purpose.

" Handy's Flying Lessons " This story is divided into two parts: the first part takes place during one of Empath's visits, where Empath's demonstration of his then-recent ability to fly inspires Handy to come up with his own way to fly, most of them usually ending up in failure; the second part takes place during Empath's final absence from the village, where Handy unveils his smurfplane invention and uses it to rescue Smurfette from the clutches of Gargamel. " Smurfed Behind: The Departure " A "story board web comic" story that takes place around the time of the Season 9 episode "The Smurfs That Time Forgot", this is about how Empath and Polaris were the only ones left behind while every other Smurf is trapped in time by the use of the Key Of Chronos to bring an unfrozen baby dinosaur back home. " Empath's Wedding " This takes place at the epilogue of the original novel and is an expansion of the epilogue, as Empath and Smurfette realize after ten years of living together that it's time for them to be married. However, one Smurf who still loves Smurfette is totally against the union taking place.

An adaptation of the cartoon show special "Smurfily Ever After", told during the time of Miracle and Psycheliana's wedding. Notable Differences Some notable differences that exist between the Smurfs of this story series and those of the cartoon show series on which it is partially based include: Most of the young adult Smurfs that Papa Smurf calls "his little Smurfs" are all physically born of Papa Smurf's own fellow Smurfs, some of which are even related to each other (such as Handy and Hefty being twin brothers). Baby Smurf and the Smurflings are mentioned as coming from Smurfling Island, with Sassette being a real female Smurf who was trapped in a suspended animation crystal instead of being another artificially-created female Smurf like Smurfette. Smurfs are physically born instead of coming by stork from an unknown location in both the comic books and the cartoon series. Smurfberries have been known to exist in the Smurf Village, whereas in the cartoon show they were a rather recent introduction as per the episode "Smurfs At Sea".

Like the cartoon show, smurfberries are depicted as red, except for when a blue moon is about to appear, which at that occasion they will appear blue. There's a notable mix of characters from both the cartoon show and the comic books, with some additional characters imported from the 2011 Smurfs movie. An element carried over from the comic books is that the Smurfs in this story series tend to drink alcoholic beverages, such as sarsaparilla ale . The Swoofs as they appear in "The Astro Smurf", "Dreamy's Pen Pals", and "Where No Smurf Has Gone Before" are orange-skinned as in the comic books instead of green-skinned as in the cartoon show, with Grandpa Swoof having both orange skin and white hair. Continuity With The Cartoon Show Most if not all episodes from the Smurfs cartoon show from Season 1 to Season 5 are considered canonical to the EMPATH story series. However, some elements in the original stories may be completely different. With Nat Smurfling no longer originally being an adult Smurf, stories that featured the adult Nat would feature either Tracker or Tapper as a substitute character.

Gargamel's first meeting with the Smurfs would take place in an adaptation of the comic book story "The Smurfnapper", thus negating "Gargamel's Time Trip". The Smurfs' first meeting with Johan and Peewit would take place in an adaptation of the comic book story "The Smurfs And The Magic Flute", which is considered non-canonical to the cartoon show. The Season 9 episodes would be different in that there are now a larger cast of Smurf characters appearing in the stories as they also are time-traveling. This would take place in what is called The Lost Year . Continuity With The Novel It should be noted that the stories themselves share loosely the same continuity as the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf novel itself, since it was originally written as a standalone story in of itself and the stories in the series merely acknowledge that the events of the novel took place in the same universe, but the details may differ between the stories and the novel.

Desired Animated Style The desired animated style of the series would be a cross between the CGI style Smurfs used in Sony Pictures' live-action The Smurfs series and the CGI style Smurfs used in the upcoming Smurfs: The Lost Village film, with elements of Disney/Pixar's Brave used for depicting scenery. Humans and various creatures would appear as close to their original cartoon depictions as possible. The overall aim of the art style is to make the Smurfs look real enough to make Empath and Polaris' experiences with them to be believable and relatable to people. Desired Series Soundtrack The desired instrumental soundtrack for most of the series would be similar to that of the music composed by Heitor Pereira for Sony Pictures' 2011 The Smurfs movie. Ideally, the soundtrack shouldn't overpower the dialogue as it did for the 1980s Smurfs cartoon show, but should show the proper dynamic as the situation in the stories change and remain muted whenever there is dialogue going on between characters, much like how the later Star Trek series used their soundtracks in each episode.

Smurfs Merchandise - T-Shirts, Backpacks, Apparel, Pajamas, Toys, Figures, Games, etc. Smurfs Peace Now Baby Doll Tee by JUNK FOOD $26.00 Smurfs Peace Baby Tee The Smurfs are all about peace, love, and happiness and you too can spread that peace with this great Smurf t-shirt. Decorated on a form fitted purple tee, the Smurfs enjoy peeking through the decorative words of "Peace Now". Even Smurfette makes her appearance through while sniffing some flowers. You'll feel beautiful and loved like Smurfette herself when you are dressed in this beautiful purple shirt. Available in junior sizes, this is a perfect baby doll fit. Smurfs Have a Smurfy Christmas Baby Doll Tee by JUNK FOOD $26.00 Smurfs Christmas Baby Tee Not sure what to wear at your next Smurfy Christmas party? Then why not slip on this fun Christmas t-shirt with Smurfette decorating a Christmas tree! What is the Christmas Season with out some Smurfy cheer to go around and Smurfette is the best one for it.

This cute baby doll t-shirt has our Smurfette trimming the Christmas tree with "Have a Smurfy Christmas" printed around her. It's a colorful t-shirt that is perfect for the Christmas season. Available in Junior sizes, the form fitted tee is a great style that is perfect for your next holiday party! Smurfs Headphones Shades T-Shirt $19.88 Smurfs Shades T Shirt Keep cool and chill as a Smurf with this rocking t-shirt! This Smurf isn't afraid to show he's chilling in the big city with his shades and "S" headphones. The blue cotton t-shirt shows off your Smurf color as well as how stylish a Smurf can be! Smurfs Character Heads Clear Four Pint Glass Set $34.99 Smurfs Heads Pint Glass Set Four characters from the enchanted forest of the Smurfs inhabit this Smurfs glass set. The Smurfs Heads Pint Glass Set is a set of four clear glasses, featuring the heads of Gargamel, Smurfette, Brainy Smurf and Papa Smurf. Bring out these glasses for special occasions that call for some lighthearted fun!

Smurfs Brainy Nerd T-Shirt Sheer by JUNK FOOD $28.00 Smurfs Brainy Nerd T-Shirt Sheer Nowadays it's cool to be a Nerd, and Brainy Smurf is no exception. The Smurf with the glasses, as he has sometimes been known, looks classic against this blue t-shirt, with his traditional big round glasses. With the word "Nerd" printed below Brainy's image, you can wear this t-shirt with pride, just as Brainy does when telling all the other Smurfs how smart he is. Smurfs Group Lined Up Juvenile T-Shirt $14.99 Smurfs Group Lined Up Juvenile T Shirt The wise Papa Smurf stands at the front of a group of grumpy and tired Smurfs as Gargamel the evil wizard lurks in the background on this Smurfs t shirt. This light blue, distressed print t shirt is available in children's sizes. The Smurfs Group Lined Up Juvenile T Shirt also features the words "The Smurfs" in large white letters outlined in blue.

Smooth Criminal Smurfs Junk Food Shirts $28.00 Smurfs Junk Food Shirts When sneaking out in the night, be sure to suit up with a Smurf t-shirt. The play on the Smurfs and "Smooth Criminal" from the hit song from Micheal Jackson will get you moving! The black t-shirt shows off our little blue criminal smurf creeping in the nights with a red cape to hide his identity. With "Smooth Criminal" written on the side, this t-shirt will get you all the Smurfy compliments! Smurfs Senior Ditch Day Class of 84 T-Shirt Sheer by JUNK FOOD $28.00 Smurfs Ditch Day T-Shirt Sheer Who didn't love their Senior Skip day in High School, and the Smurfs loved it too! This great t-shirt will bring you back to the retro 80's of 1984, when the Smurf cartoons were at their best and you were graduating High School (or maybe not). Decorated with Lazy Smurf, who we can assume skipped every Senior Skip day is seen here laying on the beach listening to some rock n roll.

Whether you are ready to just lounge around or just want to be dressed in a stylin Smurf t-shirt, this one will definitely not disappoint! Get the Smurf Out of Here! | fxguide Get the Smurf Out of Here! By Ian Failes Share5 Raja Gosnell's The Smurfs breathes real life into the famous miniature blue cartoon characters, who find themselves chased from peaceful village to scary New York by the evil wizard Gargamel. We talk to Sony Pictures Imageworks about the creation of the Smurfs and their world, and to Tippett Studio who realized shots of Gargamel's sidekick cat Azrael. 'Three apples high' - Imageworks builds the Smurfs One of the initial considerations for tiny Smurfs was just how to make seven-inch tall - officially 'three apples high' - blue-skinned characters read in a live-action film, and one that would also be stereo-converted. "The attitude towards the design process was to be true to the original as much as possible," says Imageworks visual effects supervisor Richard Hoover. "For the blue skin, we used a lot of humanistic reference with pores and peach fuzz and wrinkles around their eyes and various levels of translucency.

We built their anatomy and their facial controls based on what we expected from a human performance, albeit with an view towards the unique things about Smurfs - large eyes and ears and a larger head." /wp-content/uploads/2011/08/smurfs_character1.mp4 Watch an Imageworks Smurfs character breakdown. The script also called for the Smurfs to do a lot of running around and exploring in the human world, and to be chased by humans, including Gargamel who makes his way into the New York world. "We played a lot with how to do that and pull that off," notes Hoover. "We ended up with a pretty springy run cycle in order for them to reach stride to carry and outrun a human." "It was a balancing act," adds Imageworks digital effects supervisor Daniel Kramer. "Initially we started by directly copying the Smurf from the cartoon, but it just didn't match up to something that could interact with a human. We found that using the original eyes, which had a lot of sclera, the white part of the eyes, wasn't very expressive when put into a 3D character.

But if we put too much detail into them they didn't look like a Smurf anymore, so the right balance of skin texture and proportions was important." The digital characters were modeled and animated relatively traditionally in Maya, using Sony's proprietary character set-up. Effects were completed in Houdini. However, The Smurfs represented a major foray by Imageworks into its physically-based lighting approach, something it had also carried out to a significant degree for The Green Lantern. In particular, the studio used a Spheron camera on set to take 360 degree 26-stop HDRIs. "We had the ability to do the same scan twice at an exact distance apart of 30 inches," explains Hoover. "That allowed us to triangulate distances to surfaces and lights and calculate things like the wattage and color of the lights in reproducing our lighting model." In addition, a Trimble laser scanner was utilized on locations to gather point cloud geometry of the set and help with scene reconstruction. Along with the Spheron images, this all fed neatly into Imageworks' lighting pipeline, which includes the Arnold ray-trace renderer and the studio's own proprietary Katana set-up (now sold by The Foundry UK).

"In Katana," says Kramer, "we can bring all these things together - the HDRI, the stereo pair image which captures scene lighting and scene geometry information. We take all that and build a crude version of the set. Using the HDRI image, we apply the amount of energy that's coming off each surface on that set. So if it's a white counter top that's got a lot of bounce light coming off of it, a CG Smurf walking by will receive the correct amount of light. All of that information is loaded into Katana, where artists are free to manipulate that further - adding lights or subtracting lights, for example." Animation of the Smurfs began with previs, R&D and on-set reference. "Our animation director, Troy Saliba, worked out how fast they could run and whether they could climb over human-type things like couches and chairs and tables," says Hoover. "On set I had these ropes I could lay down in the scene and say, 'This represents one second of time to get from A to B'.

Because of course the ropes are flexible you could lay them over a curved couch or table." "Then we made macquettes," continues Hoover, "both hard and soft versions of the key characters that we could put into the scene so the actors could see and interact with something. We would also use those as blocking devices to puppeteer their actions. Everyone got involved in that. Raja the director was on his hands and knees a lot moving these and posing them and talking to the actors at the same time about the scene." Two full-time voice actors were also on hand during shooting, and assisted with the puppeteering and reading characters in a number of voices against the live-action performers. "In addition to all that, we would also use old-school techniques," notes Hoover. "We'd put little tiny emery dots on the floor for markers so the actors knew their eyelines. And I used baling wire to make circular parts that would stand up straight to the height of the Smurfs' eyes, and I'd position those around on the set. They were so thin and black they were easy to paint out later." The Smurfs' village was realized entirely in CG by Imageworks in one of the studio's largest ever digital environments.

"The idea behind it," says Hoover, "was that if you were a human and got down on your hands and knees and crawled around on your belly you would feel like you were there. It was all made out of natural materials, with the mushroom houses constructed of twigs and mud and straw. We didn't want anything unreal or surreal about it, even though it's in a magical world." To create the enormous environment - which featured trees with thousands of leaves and millions of blades of glass, not to mention scores of Smurf characters - Imageworks relied on deferring the geometry build until render time. "We have these amazing computers that are eight or 16 cores with four to eight gigs of memory devoted to each core," says Kramer, "but the scenes were taking 20 to 30 gigabytes of memory just to load. So we would load as little as we can into the lighter's scene, and once we felt satisfied we would turn back on the bells and whistles and let the renderfarm at it." The Smurfs enter our world through a magical portal. For the Central Park side of the gateway, Imageworks augmented a real waterfall environment with several water simulations.

"That was an interesting physical exercise to make it both believable in the physics, but also supernatural in that it's a time portal device," comments Hoover. "I started with the idea that if there was a cylinder in there, in a waterfall, what would the water do? I also looked for a lot of reference of natural whirlpools - things that occur in the ocean naturally, how it behaved." Hoover gave the director a few illustrations of his ideas for the portal, which would ultimately be achieved by compositing two separate sims with differing energies together. "We also ended up adding a lot of water to the waterfall for the Central Park side of the portal," says Kramer. "There was an actual waterfall there in the plate photography but we had to augment it quite a bit and add a whole CG layer of water there even when it wasn't being a portal, which gave us our own curtain that we could part when the portal existed. Again, we used a Trimble scan of the area and our Spheron set-up to make sure it was based in reality." /wp-content/uploads/2011/08/smurfs_portal1.mp4 Imageworks breaks down the portal layers.

Having and in fact, starting, with something real in just about all of the shots was a significant part of the film's visual effects, as observed by Imageworks CG supervisor Dan Lobl: "I think the interesting part of the project that made it distinct from what we had done before, technologically, was definitely the process we used for capturing the set and using it to directly light the CG. We can see things that are very accurate very quickly, and that freed up the artists to spend more time doing artistic work rather than technical work." "It also felt more like we were part of the filmmaking process," adds Lobl, "in that we were using the same technology and techniques as they would on set - say incorporating bounce cards for fill. We can do that now virtually. And with a renderer like Arnold and having all the HDRI information - it felt very analogous to working on set." ___________________________________ Tippett Studio and the Smurfs' feline foe Visual effects supervisor Scott Liedtka runs through Tippett Studio's 100 plus shots for Azrael, Gargamel's ginger cat sidekick.

fxg: Your main work was Azrael - how was that character approached in terms of both live action and digital work? Liedtka: That was probably the hardest thing - striking that balance between a photorealistic cat and one that has to act. On set, there were four trained cats, so if it was just walking from A to B, they would just use the live-action cat. When the cat had to do something dangerous or somehow emote, we did either a face replacement or an all-CG cat. fxg: How did you capture the reference for Azrael? Liedtka: Well, it's funny because the four cats didn't actually look the same on close inspection, although you won't notice this in the movie. But when it came time to build them we had to pick just one, and it was actually a hybrid. It was the head from one cat and the body from another. Right after the shoot wrapped, we set up a reference photography session in Los Angeles where we took a lot of very carefully planned out photos with a multi-camera rig and we also took measurements and close-ups. Then we would model the cat and pose it to match the photos and check the angles.

fxg: How did production decide when to use a real cat and when to go digital? Liedtka: At first, they were cutting with a live cat so we needed to keep him on the realistic side. There were lots of shots where we did very straight, realistic cat behavior. We have done cats before so we looked at our reference we already had and of course the real cat plates. When it came to pushing the limit, which we had to do, William Groebe, our animation supervisor, would try out a few things or pitch a couple of ideas. There were meetings where we were down on the floor and pulling stunts. It got everybody going and laughing, and really got the director's trust. There were clearly some shots they knew they could never get a live action cat to do. And for those shots the cat didn't even show up for work that day! They had a whole sequence where Smurfette and Azrael are in an extended chase sequence. First she hits him with a shovel and then gets him to step on tacks and jumps on his back - there's just no way they could get a real cat to pantomime a character that's not even in a scene.

There were other shots where they were hoping to use the real cat - they'd try a few takes with the real cat and keep going or decide to do it with our CG cat. We'd sometimes just replace the face, do an eye roll or a puzzled look or make a mean, menacing look. fxg: What were the tools Tippett was using to model and render Azrael? Could you leverage your current animal and fur tools? Liedtka: Well, we had come off Cats & Dogs 2 and Kitty Galore had been a huge project for us. On that we had to do ton of work on the wrinkles and have it working with the fur system, and she also talked a lot. In this case of Smurfs, we had a cat that wasn't going to deliver any lines, although we did do a face rig that enabled expressions and eye controls. We used Maya and Mudbox for modeling, and some internal tools to do the color and fur painting, along with Photoshop. Then for anim we used Maya with our proprietary tools. We comp'd with Nuke on this show. There were some fluids effects in Houdini, and rendering in RenderMan.

We actually took one of our cleanest cat models from Cats & Dogs 2 and re-worked it a little, but still used Furator, which is out node-based fur tool. We had to push the fur around to match the cat actor. Orange fur, because of the color and saturation, is a little trickier. fxg: You mentioned having to do shots with Smurfette on Azrael's back. How did you share assets with Imageworks for shots like that? Liedtka: Overall what we would do is basically pretend we were doing the whole shot. We needed a stand-in for whoever Azrael was acting with, say for the scene of Smurfette riding on his back and pulling his ears. Those two characters needed to be animated together as 3D objects, not just as renders. So we planned it out with Sony. In shots where Azrael was the key player, we would block that whole shot and then add blocking for the Smurfs that were going to be in the shot with him. On the flip side, where the Smurfs were the major thing, they would block Azrael for us.

Both Sony and Tippett approach animation in a similar way with roughing out the layout and getting approval on that, and then moving to the next step which we call blocking, and then to a final. We generally do three or four different reviews of animation, and only the last review has fur on it. In the early stages we would trade models and rigs and block each other's characters. In order to finish the shot they obviously needed to be lit and composited consistently. We were using image-based lighting and Sony has pretty much moved over to a physically-based system with the Spheron camera, which we could use for our lighting too. Images © 2011 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Thanks so much for reading our article. We've been a free service since 1999 and now rely on the generous contributions of readers like you. If you'd like to help support our work, please join the hundreds of others and become an fxinsider member .

Question: What colour/color traditionally are the Smurf cartoon characters?
Answer: Blue