'Long Story Short' is a family's trip down memory lane

The glass partition wall in Lisa Hanawalt’s office is lined with reference sheets dedicated to the members of the central family in “Long Story Short.” Each page lists a character's name, birth month and year — along with their zodiac sign — and a dated timeline of full body images that tracks how they look at different ages. Depending on the character, this includes their designs as children, teens and middle-aged adults.

- Tracy Brown, Tribune News Service

During a mid-August morning at Shadow-Machine studio, Lisa Hanawalt sits at her desk, pulling up different looks of earlier incarnations of the characters that she did before their final designs were set along with newer works in progress. Raphael Bob-Waksberg sits just behind her as they point out little details that they're fond of and bounce their thoughts back and forth on whether certain characters might drastically change their appearance one year, as people tend to do. “It's a fun thing you don't get to do on a lot of animated shows,” says Bob-Waksberg, the creator and showrunner of “Long Story Short.” “To evolve with our characters and dress them up and have so many different looks for them.”