I just wanted to draw my favorite snake.
I classify snakes in the same group as birds, scorpions, and spiders: organisms that have beaks, pinchers, or unpredictable attack patterns that leave me constantly anxious of their possible attack. What makes snakes even more terrifying is how calm they always appear to be. They’re just resting there, all coiled up in a heap, like a docile gardening hose. Except they may or may not be poisonous. And they may or may not bite you if you get too close. It’s the kind of non-fun gambling even Las Vegas would not allow.
Kaa’s last appearance, in Disney’s 2016 CGI-soaked remake, held none of the hypnotic power of the 1967 version. In a misguided attempt at hyperreality, Jon Favreau and his team put Kaa in muddy green shadows, making any distinctive features possible to locate. To me, it’s a very similar comparison in looking at the original 1986 Transformers animated film, with its simple, understandable silhouettes and shapes and any of five(??) CGI-laden Transformers movies, in which Michael Bay often bragged about the 20,000-some moving parts the ILM animators kept track of, never recognizing how his quick shooting style made it impossible to appreciate or even understand any of all that detail. You still hear people talk about the traumatic death of Optimus Prime in the original animated film. I have not heard of one recent Transformers memorialized in anything but a GIF.
Perhaps that should be the lesson: if you want to make an impact, keep it simple. Give people distinguishing figures they can empathize with and be drawn into. Before the emotion of it all unexpectedly attacks them.
