animatorsresource

Azureus Rising

2012-01-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

I know this has been out for a bit but I just recently watched it again and couldn't get over the amazing Body Mechanics in this short. Great job to the team at Black Sun Entertainment. They have a great site up that shows some of the Making Of, so head on over and check it out. Otherwise enjoy the film.

AZUREUS RISING from David Weinstein on Vimeo.

Enjoy!
JP

New Ken Fountain Video Lecture

2012-01-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

Ken Fountain just released another Video Lecture or at the jrawebinar STORE.

Ken Fountain: "Attitudes and Acting Beats" (teaser) from Ken Fountain on Vimeo.

For those of you who purchased the last Video Tutorial by Ken, then you already know this is pretty much a no-brainer. This one isn't quite as long so the price is only $10.99!
So head on over and check it out!

Enjoy...I know I will!
JP

Ianimate Shows Off it's Characters in Music Video to Taio Cruzs' Dynamite

2012-01-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

Student Animated Music Video.

"This was made as exercises in animated Body Mechanics and Lip Sync to music. Thanks a million to Taio Cruz for making such an awesome song, and well done to all the students who worked on the animation.
Hope you enjoy......J"

Enjoy!
JP

Top 10 Acting Tips: Mark Westbrook

2012-01-09T14:17:00.000-08:00

Mark Westbrook a Senior Acting Coach in Scotland has put together a great and little entertaining video on his Top 10 Acting Tips. Check out his blog as well The Acting Blog.

Great Ref!
Enjoy!
JP

Singing Christmas Hedgehogs

2012-01-06T10:51:00.000-08:00

Great little use of simple animation

Enjoy!
JP

Tippett Studios Short Film: Mutant Land

2011-12-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

I saw a post over on Animopus about Tippett Studio's new animated short Mutant Land. They found it over on Ain't It Cool.com where Tippett gave them exclusive access to the initial release of Mutant Land. It is really original and has an amazing feel to the creativity that is all over the short.

Head on over and check it out...it's a fun watch!
Enjoy!
JP

AnimScool Webinar: Tom Bancroft

2011-12-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

Head on over to the AnimSchool site and check out the Webinar by Tom Bancroft. He is a Disney animator with tons of experience. Tom's reel click here.

From the site:
"Tom Bancroft has over 25 years of experience in the animation industry, most of which was for Walt Disney Feature animation where he was an animator for 11 years. He has been nominated for Annie and Rueben awards.

At Disney, Bancroft had the opportunity to animate on 10 animated feature films, 5 animated shorts, and numerous commercials. Some of the films include, “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin”, and “Mulan”. Bancroft was also a character designer and director for Big Idea Productions. His popular character design book, "Creating Characters with Personality" is used by art schools all over the world. Additionally, Bancroft has illustrated over 50 children's books."

There is only 5 days left for the public to view it so go over and get the link!
Enjoy!
JP

Thanks for the link Dave Gallagher

Walk Cycle Video Tutorial: Kyle Balda

2011-12-13T14:28:00.000-08:00

A nice walk cycle tutorial by Kyle Balda. It's a look into his 3D Animation Master Classes that you can find online here.

Kyle's description:

"A real time demo of how to approach animating a basic 3D walk cycle using Maya. This is primarily intended to suggest a methodology for getting all the channels of movement worked out before doing the final polish and mix."

Enjoy!
JP

found via Spungella

Weight and Balance in a Walk

2011-12-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Great little nugget of info from AnimSchool Instructor and DreamsWorks animator JP Sans. JP goes through the process of weight and balance in a walk.

Great little vids all over the AnimSchool Blog

Check it out!
Enjoy!
JP

Animation Tools Update: Graph Editor Redux 1.7.5

2011-11-29T07:05:00.000-08:00

This is an update to a previous post on the Graph Editor Redux tool. The owner has released an update plugin for both Maya 2011 and 2012. Have a look over on Creative Crash. It is a great tool and now available for current versions!

He has also released a new version of Digital Pose Test and you can get it there as well and a tutorial at the bottom.

DPT Tutorial 1 from cgjedi on Vimeo.

Have a look
Enjoy!
JP

iAnimate.net 2011 show reel

2011-11-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

The new show reel for Ianimate.net is out. Have a look and have a look at the school.

iAnimate.net 2011 show reel from iAnimate on Vimeo.

Enjoy!
JP

Free Rig: Malcolm Rig

2011-10-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Some might know already and some have not yet heard but the Malcolm Rig is now FREE and available both in SoftImage and Maya. I've been messing around with it and MAN...I haven't even had time to get into all the goodies of this rig. He is super appealing and I believe that's what Dave Gallagher wanted. I've heard him say that it has been his passion and dream to release a free rig like this that has all of this AMAZING capabilities. So head on over to the AnimSchool site and you see the Malcolm Image or just click here. He has also put up a forums page where you can give feedback and receive tips on the rig and it's already up and running. Also check out the "How To" video for Malcolm. It should explain most stuff. It's in the forum section or over on YouTube.

Don't forget to go to the Download Agreement and then you'll be all set.
Enjoy! I certainly am!
JP

Squash and Stretch (Part 1)

2011-10-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a great little post on squash and stretch. Head on over to Temple of the Seven Golden Camels and check it out. There are tons of great posts that you can spend countless hours on...this is just one.

Enjoy!
JP

Animation Workflow: Tom Jech

2011-09-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

I was reading a post over @ Speaking of Animation about Animation Comparison Reels....which is a good read so check it out. I linked to Tom Jech's page about a shot he did using one of the free Robot rigs out there. He documented his process which I see as a great insight to some animators thought process and posted it on his site.

Enjoy!
JP

Jeff Gabor Animation Workflow Webinar

2011-09-14T15:37:00.000-07:00

I would highly recommend if you haven't seen or signed up for the Jeff Gabor workflow webinar that AnimSchool just released head on over to the site and register. They will send you a link and I don't have to tell you but Jeff is great! He breaks his process down and there are plenty of good nuggets to get from this webinar.

Enjoy!
JP

Acting Reference Sites

2011-09-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody

There are a couple of great sites I've been meaning to post about that have some great Acting Reference for those of us that can't get enough. One by Kyle Kenworthy and the other is created by Andrew Root. They are both on Vimeo and Andrews is a group where I believe you can upload your own acting ref that you may have stored.

Kyles Videos

Acting Reference Videos on Vimeo

Have a look around and enjoy!
JP

Soundboard

2011-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Check it out...very large library of sound clips and well organized. Seems you might be able to record your own as well.

Enjoy!
JP

found via Spungella

New Blog: Anim School

2011-08-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

AnimSchool has a new blog for the site and a recently uploaded a video with samples from some of the Animation Principles Lectures.

Seems like its going to keep everybody updated with what the school is up to.
Check it out
Enjoy!
JP

Frame by Frame

2011-08-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

Great little site called Frame by Frame a co-worker passed along. Lots of small clips that layout frames and then put them together in a gif. Lots of fun! Good little reference for timing.

Enjoy!
JP

The Josh Blog: Acting and Animation

2011-08-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

Found this great post over at The Josh Blog about Animation and Acting. He talks about internalizing with the characters that he is animating and has a review about some acting DVD's. He really goes into what bringing a lifeless character to life is all about. At first, as we are learning, we try to find the best poses to convey the acting and then try to layer in the little nuances that characters have in real life to give them that feeling that they are real. Josh talks about thinking further than just your poses.

http://www.squeezestudio.com/

Every body know about Jeff Gabor's comparison reels from Horton and Ice Age. He shows a good look at trying to get into the character head.

Head on over to Josh's Blog and check out the post on Acting and Animation...some great food for thought.
Enjoy!
JP

some more links for this topic

Animation Arena
Acting Reference via The Time Sheet
Jason Martinson comparison reel

more to follow soon

Animated Short Film: Ormie

2011-07-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

This short was going around at work called Ormie and thought I should post it cause it was super entertaining. I then in turn Googled where I could find it and it brought me to a little site called Short of the Week. Sweet site with lots of short films not just animated. BUT Ormie was created by Starz Media.

Ormie

Great little film!
Enjoy!
JP

Animation Workflow: Peter Nagy

2011-07-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Saw a great post over on Spungella, that shows good insight to Peter Nagy's animation workflow. I think that it is always super important to see other animators workflows. You might not always get a ton out of it but if you just take one thing and try it or add it to your current workflow you might find that it adds to what you are already doing in a positive way. My workflow professionally has really changed over the past 2.5yrs working in the industry and I am still constantly tweaking it.


Animation Workflow

Have a look around and check it out over on to his blog and where he has most of his process.
Enjoy
JP

Amazing New Animation Tutorials

2011-07-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

Ok...I've been holding off on this post till the both of them were released and today is the day! Both Ken Fountain and Jamaal Bradley released Video Tutorials found over in the STORE section of the jrawebinar site.
They are both Ianimate.net instructors and I had Ken for my first block of classes for Ianimate and it was a great experience. He is super insightful when it comes to acting and dialogue...he is an extremely talented animator and multi-talented in the arts. His lectures always made me think about my acting choices and pushed them to be the best. It doesn't hurt that he has some improv acting in his background, so I have no doubt that these video tutorials are going to be great! I have also recently bought Jamaal's tutorial and well worth the time and money. I never had him as an instructor but within Ianimate I was able to watch his lectures and critiques all the time. He definitely stood out to me right away with his passion for animation. He really pushed the animators to get the best possible work and was always super thorough and clear in his feedback. Watching his process of breaking down an acting shot, I found super detailed and informative and picked up some new tips of how to improve my own workflow. He is an industry vet that has always prided himself on doing great animation work and it shows!

"...from Planning to Polish..." Promo Trailer from Jamaal Bradley on Vimeo.
"...from Planning to Polish..." is a 3 hour, 3 part video that takes a shot from planning to final presentation. Using 8 steps, the videos demonstrates one of the workflows I use when I am working.

So head on over and check them out!
Really Enjoy!
JP

Smears, Multiples and Other Animation Gimmicks

2011-06-25T23:15:00.000-07:00

What a great little addition to the Blog Roll...found this blog that post smear frames from every type of animation out there. Blog was created by Michael J. Ruocco.

Animation Smears

Enjoy
JP

found via cartoon brew

AnimSchool Promotional Video is UP

2011-06-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

David Gallagher..creator of AnimSchool has just released a new promotional video about the school. It seems better and better the more I see of it! You can also see a snip-it of the rig demo over at the 3D Appeal Blog, that shows off a bit of the rig....it looks AMAZING!! You can visit the AnimSchool site as well and check out everything you need to know about the school: pricing, class schedule and the instructors.

So head on over and check it out...looks like another great school!
Enjoy
JP

Fun with Color and Maya

2011-06-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

A quick post to send you all over to get some color in your timeline tics for maya. Head on over to my bud Phillip Hall's blog. He wrote a quick post about how to change your keys to different colors in maya, complete with a Mel Script.

Phillip Hall

Check out the rest of his blog...great stuff all around.

Enjoy!

Bodies in Motion : Animation Reference

2011-06-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

I ran into this site a while back but just getting around to posting on this great reference. Scott Eaton shows off his Artistic Anatomy, Digital Sculpture and VFX. There is a category over on the side under Courses & Reference titled: Bodies in Motion Image Library. He has a ton of images of single frames of motion all put next to each other to show you the break-down of the motion.

Bodies in Motion

So have a look around and check out some cool ref.

Enjoy!

The Slow Mo Guys on Youtube

2011-05-06T15:17:00.000-07:00

So there is a Youbtube channel called The Slow Mo Guys and lots of vids of them slowing down everything...in the front and backflip ones you really get a sense of the motion and how the sense of balance comes into play with doing a weight exercise. Maybe next time you use reference video a good idea might be to play it at half speed or even a quarter of the speed.

Enjoy!
JP

found via animationaac.blogspot.com

How To Animate Quadrupeds: Jason Ryan

2011-04-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Jason Ryan has just released a new 6 part series of downloadable webinars titled The Four Legged Series.

The Four Legged Series

Jason Ryan:

"What I wanted to do in this series is cover how I approach animating four legged actions from concept to completion. Just like my Tutorials at jasonryananimation.com, I start from scratch and animate each action in 2D for every single frame. So whether you are doing your shots in 2D, CG or Stop-Motion you will be able to follow along from the Blocking stage all the way through to adding overlap on tails and ears. I want to keep the price really low so that everyone can afford them. On Jasonryananimation each tutorial ranges from $40 to $100 each. For this series I am giving you all six tutorials together in one download for just $39.99."

I haven't had a chance to look at these yet but I've seen how Jason approaches quadrupeds from a few earlier jrawebinars and it is truly an easy to grasp workflow.

Have a look! Great Price!
Enjoy

JP

Another Great Post on Posing

2011-04-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

Here comes another great post on Staging and Silhouette. It's a very lengthy post on the Flooby Nooby blog.

Line of Action

Enjoy!
JP

found via chrisboyoko.blogspot

Posing and Body Language by Samy Fecih

2011-04-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Just saw this post on Posing and Body language. Samy really breaks this down from anatomy to appeal, composition and the different types of action that result in the poses we get.

Posing and Body Language

It's a three part read

Tutorial: Posing and Body Language – Part 1

Tutorial: Posing and Body Language – Part 2

Tutorial: Posing and Body Language – Part 3

Samy Fecih's reel

Have a look great tutorial

enjoy!

JP

found via chrisboyoko.blogspot

iAnimate.net Promotional video

2011-04-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

iAnimate.net just put out it's first promotional video. Check it or head on over to iAnimate.net to learn more.

iAnimate.net Promotional video from iAnimate on Vimeo.
What is iAnimate.net about? The iAnimate.net Promotional video shows a little bit about the ins and outs of the program with a little taste of some of the members work.

enjoy
JP

Blog Highlight: Dailymotion

2011-03-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

Just wanted to point you in the direction of a great blog I visit time to time call Dailymotion by Yoni Goodman. He makes quick 2D animation tests almost on a daily basis. It seems a great amount of work. They are not only entertaining but also inspiring in many ways.

Dailymotion

Hope you enjoy

Short Film : (notes on) biology

2011-03-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

There is a great little short film that is going around that I thought I should share by Ornana Films. It really shows what you can accomplish with animation. So many different ways that our craft can be displayed.

(notes on) biology from ornana films on Vimeo.

Enjoy!
JP

Distinguishing New Content

2011-03-11T17:15:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody

So as I was adding a new site I was wondering how to share with everyone that it was a new site added to the list. I came up with this. The new addition with be all CAPS and have ** in front and in back** like this

**NEW CONTENT**

It should also bring it to the top of each list so I plan on leaving it there for around 2 weeks or so, then add it the the rest of the list and it should fall back into line.
Thanks
JP

Mike Stern: Animation Checklist

2011-03-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

For anyone that has not seen this post over at Animation Tips & Tricks, head on over and "check" out a great insight to Mike Stern's animation process. He lays out his Animation Checklist with really in depth post on what he thinks about as he animates.

Animation Checklist

Great stuff to look over.
Enjoy!
JP

Animation Physics

2011-03-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

Just found this great little site called Animation Physics by Alejandro Garcia, a Professor at San Jose State. It seems as though the site is based on the Physics of many different aspects of animation, a very important aspect of animation. Lots of goodies on both of this one and the sister site Physics of Animation Wik.

Animation Physics

Great little post in PDF format on Balance and Weight Shift

Have a look around and enjoy!

JP

found via Online School CGTarian thread

Great Little Bouncing Ball Tutorial

2011-02-27T15:45:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

Stumbled upon this great bouncing ball tutorial again by Francis Jasmin. Like his other tutorial on walk cycles he has put together a great list on examples and breakdowns of a way on how to approach a bouncing ball test.

Bouncing Ball

So check it out..enjoy!
JP

found via Dave Martinez Blog

Timing in Animation: FLIP

2011-02-17T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody

Saw this great post on FLIP about drawing out your timing. Pretty amazing and simplified process. I wont be able to explain it better so here ya go.

Drawing your Timing

Check it out! Amazing insight!
JP

Short Film: The Saga of Biorn

2011-02-17T09:14:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody

Stumbled upon this short over at the ARC Blog page

The Saga Of Biorn from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.
Bachelor film project 2011 from The Animation Workshop.

It is a film done over at The Animation Workshop

So check em out
Fun piece! Enoy!
JP

Animators Resource Interview with Jason Ryan

2011-02-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

So here you guys go! Here is the interview in its entirety! Hope you enjoy!

Animators Resource Interview with Jason Ryan from JP on Vimeo.

Special thank to Jason Ryan and to Larry Vasquez for helping with some audio stuff.

JP

Jason Ryan Interview Coming Soon!

2011-02-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Dreamworks Animation Supervisor and Creator of the new online character animation school Ianimate.net, Jason Ryan. We covered new and upcoming things with Ianimate and asked a bit of how things are going. Of course I had to ask a bit about what keeps him going! So stay tuned it will be posted in video form here shortly. Until then have a look around his sites.

Ianimate.net

jasonryananimation.com

jrawebinar.com

Enjoy
JP

Animation Breakdown: The Making Of 'Niggles & Narks'

2011-01-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a great little piece that was passed on at work. It shows the break down of the TV spot done by The Mill, a Visual Effects Studio with locations in the UK, NY and LA. They do a great job breaking down their process and gives everyone a good look at what goes into a project like this.

O2: The Making Of 'Niggles & Narks' - The Mill Visual Effects Studio from The Mill Visual Effects Studio on Vimeo.

Enjoy!
JP

Satarii: Reference Video Made Simpler

2011-01-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody

A buddie just sent this link to me about a great invention that just might help us animators with our reference video. It looks like it is still in the testing phase and I don't think it has been fully completed yet.

Satarii IndieGoGo Campaign from Satarii on Vimeo.

Check it out though it would be amazing and it looks like you can help support if you want to right over here

Enjoy
JP

Blog Highlight: Living Lines Library

2011-01-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

Many of you may have already seen this site floating around the web but I just wanted to post about it if you haven't. A blog by Péter Nagy called Living Lines Library. He has compiled a vast library of Animated Tests, Model Sheets, Books etc...

Collection of Animated Lines

Have a look around...plenty of great material. Great Site!

Enjoy!

via Pencil Test Depot and VNOG Blog

Norman Rig Database

2011-01-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

Well not sure how many of you knew about this but...I just found this for the first time and was pretty excited!
Romain Digonnet has seemed to create a great database of lots of Norman mods.

norman_database

So have a look around and check it out!
Enjoy!
JP

Even More on Walk Cycles

2010-12-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

So a friend of mine pointed me to another Walk Cycle Tutorial! This one is brought to you by April Peter

Walk Cycle Tutorial

She does a nice job breaking different areas of a walk down. Have a look around.
Enjoy
JP

Morpheus v1.0 Released

2010-12-21T08:53:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

Just wanted to let you know that Josh Burton has officially released his first version of his Morpheus Rig!

Morpheus Rig

He has been testing for quite sometime and has fixed plenty of things on it to make it a great new rig to have int he arsenal. He has also posted some links to peeps already having used it.

Enjoy
JP

More on Walk Cycles

2010-12-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

Just found a great post on Francis Jasmin's blog about breaking down a walk cycle.

walk_cycle

He has lots more goodies on there about breaking of joints and different approaches to animating.

Great suff! Enjoy!

Reminder: AnimSchool Launch

2010-12-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

Just a quick heads up that AnimSchool has just launched their site

AnimSchool

So have a look around the site and check it out.
Enjoy

JP

Walk Cycle Depot

2010-11-29T16:38:00.000-08:00

"Walked" across a great new blog out there called the Walk Cycle Depot. Seems to be a great idea to collect some cycles all in one spot...hopefully David Nethery keeps posting.

walk-cycle-depot.blogspot.com

Good thing too is he is trying to get them all in there as quicktimes.

Found the link via The Arc Blog.

Enjoy

Mike Walling: Body Mechanics

2010-11-23T14:59:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, this was just sent out in the latest Jason Ryan newsletter.This is what Jason had to say.

"New Awesome Walk Through Video

When I first started in Disney Animation Studios back in Dec 1995, I was really inspired to see legendary animators such as James Baxter, Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, and Eric Goldberg host a series of demos called Chalk Talks. We would all cram into a theatre and the directing Animators would talk about how they approached animation. This very event was the spark that lead me to record my own Tutorials back in '07, Webinars in '08,'09,'10 and now create the ianimate.netOne of my Instructors for ianimate.net has recorded an awesome Body Mechanics Quicktime Video that is now available for purchase and download from http://jrawebinar.com workshops. When ever I start to show my work flow, I tell animators that my workflow is just one approach of many, it is so important to see and learn from as many professional animators as you can so that you can develop your own approach.

Mike Walling Body Mechanics

Mike is amazing at communicating very clearly how he approaches animation. In his first Video he shows how he uses live action reference as inspiration for his planning and blocking stage. In his second video he runs through how he polishes his shots into full feature level animation. We are making these quicktime videos super affordable and downloadable so that anyone who is learning animation can avail of this resource. Mike really enjoyed the process of making this video so much that he has already planned out his next video"

So check em out and enjoy! You can also check out Mike's site
JP

Rigging Reel: E Sousa Vincent

2010-11-23T10:07:00.000-08:00

A co-worker sent this rigging reel on over from E Sousa Vincent and it is pretty great! You might have seen these characters in Meet Buck or Salesman Pete. Some great stuff there. This really shows you what can be done with rigs and how many tools us animators have to get the best possible performance out of the characters.

E Sousa Vincent - Rigging Showreel 2010 from Vinzou3d on Vimeo.

Enjoy!
JP

Breaking Down Lip Sync

2010-11-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

Ran across a great post about some lip sync stuff today over at the Animation with a Moustache Blog. Oliver Ladeuix takes a quick shot from the Toy Story 3 trailer and breaks down some of the shapes and movement in the mouth.

lip_sync

Great post! More to come on Lip Sync resources.

Enjoy!

New Animation School: AnimSchool

2010-10-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

So if you haven't heard about this yet here goes. There is a new online animation school set to debut in November called AnimSchool. The school will be run by the creator of 3D Appeal Blog and 3D Appeal Blog Now, David Gallagher. David has been over at BlueSky for quite some time doing Character Development, including rigging and animating. He is very well rounded in all of the different specialties of the animation process. You can check out some of his crits on the 3DAppealBlogNow. The school seems to have two set paths for training: 3D Character program that teaches modeling and rigging and 3D Animation that teaches animation. As I was writing this post I had many questions so I went directly to the source and David was kind enough to answer some great questions about the school. A main difference between this school and others is this will be teaching other aspects other than just animation. The mentors he speaks of will be from a multitude of great companies including BlueSky and Pixar.

animschool.com

1. Will each student have the same teacher (say they took the 3D Animation course) the whole 21 months or do they have the opportunity to experience multiple teachers with each term?

David: Each term, the student chooses which teacher to learn from. The students will probably be learning from a different teacher each term.

2. I have heard that you are multi-talented as a Rigger and an Animator. Has this allowed you to be able to produce rigs that you know will help the animators achieve great shapes with and will you be teaching "Animator Friendly Rigging."

David: I'm most definitely trying to teach "animator-friendly rigging". I think any rigger or modeler who learns some animation will then become better at their craft, understanding the process of actually using the characters.

3. Will Alumni still have access to the site/school and or Rigs, demos and lectures once they have completed the course? How does that work? How does that work for students just taking one course?

David: Graduates from an AnimSchool will have continued access to existing and future character rigs, as well as video lectures.

For the students taking a single class, they are able to use the rigs for six months after the class.

4. Is there some type of reel review for professionals that want to take a single course so you know what level they are at?

David: People wanting to take a particular course apply for it at the website, sending a link to their reel. That teacher determines whether they are ready for their class.

5. Besides this amazing new venture with AnimSchool, what have you been most proud of while working in the industry?

David: After working in this industry so long, you wouldn't think it, but I still feel like I'm getting started. I'm madly passionate about animating and modeling and making cool facial expressions. I'm just thrilled to be able to have done some of the shots I animated. Then some facial expression modeling for pre-production development. I'm really inspired and excited about appealing expressions.

6. What inspired you to start up AnimSchool?

David: I wanted to teach the skills that I know well: animating, modeling, and rigging. And there wasn't a place online where I could do that, so I decided to make AnimSchool, with the help of so many of my former colleagues.

7. Will you be attending CTN this year?

David: We are so busy working on AnimSchool that I won't be there! But I will plan for next year.

8. How many rigs will there be for AnimSchool or will the one rig be customizable?

David: Right now there are two: the cute skeleton guy and the human guy you can see on 3DAppealBlog or on the AnimSchool splash page. We have plans for a female character as well. I love making characters, so there will probably be others.

There's only so much you can do with those editable uber-rigs. I personally get more excited about really fine-tuned custom deformations that work well with the character's natural shape.

and finally...

9. Will the rigs limits be more on an industry level or a student level?

David: The rigs are industry level. Certainly in terms of deformation and facials, since that was my specialty at Blue Sky for so long.

It sounds like an amazing opportunity and there are more answers to your questions found on his FAQ page here. Thanks again to David Gallagher for taking the time to answer some questions. Take a look around and check it out...check back in for updates.
Enjoy
JP

Story Board Webinars

2010-10-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

Just a quick link here. You might know Jason Ryan's site for his webinars and now for Ianimate, but he also offers some Story Board webinars by Robb Pratt. He is a story board artist over at Disney Toon Studios and has been in the industry for quite some time. It is set up like Jason's and seems to make for a great time.

Story Board Webinars

So head on over if it interests you. I believe he offers a free rampup so you can get an idea of it.

Enjoy

Blog Highlight: Brendan Body

2010-10-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone

Quick post about this blog. I first ran into a post on Spungella about wings on birds. Then I also ran into the blog again on Carlos Baena's site. So I thought I would share because Brendan Body has a serious amount of great post on here. One I found on breathing I read twice!

BrendanBody

So have a look around..really worth a look. Thanks for the posts guys!

Enjoy this great resource!

Website Highlight: Jason Martinsen

2010-09-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody

Haven't done a highlight in a bit so wanted to point you to Jason Martinsen's site. He's worked at quite a few studios and has done some great work on films @ BlueSky, ILM, Double Negative and even Naughty Dog the great game studio that brought you Uncharted. Under his animation tab he has generously put together a Reference Comparison showing his refVid and the shots he used them on...Great Breakdown!!

jmartinsen.com

All of his work you can frame through too they are in QuickTime...enjoy.

11second Club Resources

2010-08-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

Just wanted to point out the Resources section on the 11second Club page. I ran into a post on Martin K's animation blog about this page and all of the great stuff up there. I especially like the Helpful Hints and Winner Interview pages. There is quite a good list of hints going and also the interviews show great insight to how the winners approach their shots.

11secong Club Resorces

So if you haven't already...check it out!!

Enjoy

Tracking Arcs in Animation

2010-08-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

Quick link to a great blog called Flip. One of the workflows down in the Concepts of The Day list on the side here has a link to this blog as well. Anyways he has a great post about Tracking Arcs....not just any arcs either. He compares how arcs are really choppy in lots of real life situations. Plenty of examples too.

fliponline

The post is titled: Perfect Imperfection
Lots of other great posts so look around and enjoy
JP

Bobby Beck: State of The Industry Update

2010-08-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share a post Bobby "Boom" Beck wrote on his blog about the state of the animation industry. It's a post about how some companies seem to be taking advantage of new talent coming out of school.

Bobby Beck

Check it out....it's a good read.

Enjoy!

New Online Animation School: ianimate.net

2010-08-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard by now...Jason Ryan has team up with Digicel and many of his co-workers at Dreamworks to create a new online school called ianimate.net - The Character Animation School. I have done multiple rounds of his webinars and they have been some of the best training tools I have used. He just had a free webinars that should answer most questions you have about the school and how it works. I think it's going to be a great school for animators. Check out the webinar here.

ianimate.net

The guys over at Speaking of Animation Blog are mentors as well.

So have a look around the site and enjoy!

Josh Burton: Morpheus Rig

2010-08-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

If you haven't had a chance to visit Josh Burton's blog in a while then you haven't seen all of the work he is doing in developing a new rig he calls Morpheus. He is in the process of making a new rig that will be for public use. He had been documenting his progress and has some clips up on his site to show off all of the techniques that he has been experimenting with. If you haven't heard of him before he brought you the Squirrely Rig.

Morpheus Rig

Check out his blog and follow the progress...looks like it's gonna be a good one.

Enjoy!

Animation Feedback on Spungella

2010-08-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to highlight a sweet page real quick. Jean-Denis has an Animation Feedback page linked from his blog Spungella, dedicated for showing his critiques to other workshopers. He lays out some of the feedback that he gives to the students in his workshops and it's a great resource to check out and look around.

spungellaworkshop

So head on over...check it out and maybe even sign up for a workshop.

Enjoy!

Hand Poses in Animation

2010-07-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

I recently ran into this post on Spungella on Hand Reference. This brings up and great point about hand poses in animation. Lots of us don't spend as much time on the hand poses as we should while we animate. I know as a student, there really was no emphasis on hand posing. So we would tend to leave them in pretty generic poses and of course deadlines looming had no real time at the end to add polish to them. Now working in feature films there is a real emphasis on hand posing and polishing your hands. It makes a real difference to take the time up front and while in blocking to really find good and appealing poses for your hands. You could even begin to think about what the hands are doing in your thumbnails. This will really save you time at the back end as well and help speed up things while polishing.

So I just wanted to post some links that I found and point you to the post on Spungella.
.

Rad How To Blog

Drawn in Black

Sequentialism

Nick Bruno's Blog

Ramblings Blog

Melmade

There u go check out some hands and enjoy!
JP

Storyboards and Thumbnails

2010-07-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

A co-worker just showed me this blog by Christian Tria. He has his old demo reel up there, which is all of his work from school but you can see that he is very talented in 2D. I don't think that he updates it anymore but you can see his thumbnails and storyboards for his short film here. They really convey strong poses and emotions that are sure to ring well in animation.

Really great stuff. Check it out and enjoy!
JP

Acting Analysis: Jacob Gardner

2010-07-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

Found this post on Jacob Gardners blog about an Acting Analysis that he did. He took a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross and broke down the clip he also has in the post. He does a great job of showing his perspective on and gives us some insight. It has some huge cast of great actors in Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, and Ed Harris so always good acting skills there. It does haves a bit of swearing (adult language) in the clip...just a a forewarning.

Acting Analysis

So check it out and enjoy!
JP

How Stop Motion Works

2010-07-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Wow....found this on Spungella (Jean-Denis Hass). Shows a look into how stop motion was done on Coraline. Pretty sweet!!

Enjoy
JP

Slow Motion Dog Run

2010-07-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

For all of you out there looking for quadraped ref, here is a dog running in slow motion. Found it on AniRef but you can also find it on Vimeo.

Dodger Slow Motion Running from D__E on Vimeo.

So Check it out and enjoy.
JP

Animation Reference Video on Vimeo: Ani Ref

2010-06-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

Found this gem on the net the other day. Can't believe I have never seen it before but it seems to be created by Daniel Asher Harman. There is a ton of reference compiled on here and it looks like there is a good group of subscribers that contribute. Titled properly AniRef.

Ani Ref

So check it out some ref, contribute some ref and enjoy!

More Helpful Mel Scripts

2010-06-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

I found this site a little while ago and have been keeping up with it for a few months now. There are some good scripts on here to help animators out and Jay Grenier is also an animator that does lots of rigging. One that might help is: A script that zeros out all keyable attributes. This may come in handy while in blocking and going from one pose to the next since it is a technique of some to zero out all keys when moving onto the next pose (in blocking) to help keep your curves clean and it can help with things like gimbal. Lots of studios have this script built in to their software and I know it comes in handy.

script swell

So check in from time to time because he updates regularly. There are some scripts for animators to help and some more advanced for others that like scripting. So look around and enjoy.

Toy Story 3:Behind the Scenes

2010-05-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine pointed this article out to me from this months Wired Magazine online. It's an quick read on some of the behind the scenes work that goes into a Pixar's film over the life of three years. It has some good examples and breakdowns. Head on over and check it out here.

Toy Story 3

Enjoy

CG Coach: The Feature Animation Process

2010-05-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

I recently found this post over on CG Coach's Blog. It breaks down the feature animation process with definitions and plenty of examples. All the way down the line from: Story, Layout, Modeling, Texturing, Rigging, Animation, Surface Shading, Lighting and Rendering, FX and Compositing. It has breakdowns for just about all of these and seems really helpful. Check it out here: The Feature Animation Process.

Check out the site as well CG Coach, seems like a great resource. Look around and enjoy.
JP

Animation Mentor Webinar: Timing and Spacing

2010-05-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

If you haven't heard by now, go over and check out the Free Animation Mentor Webinar on Timing and Spacing with a couple of great Pixar Animators. Victor Navone and Aaron Hartline are two industry pros that do a great job of explaining their process of timing and spacing. They also lend some good tips and tricks that you can use to make your animation more authentic.

Timing and Spacing

You can check out a couple of other posts by them:

Animation Referance: Aaron Hartline

Animating a facial "TAKE"

So check it out and enjoy!
JP

More Animation Tools

2010-04-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys

I've been meaning to post this one for a little bit but..I've been testing it out and have really enjoyed using it. This tool is a modification to the graph editor within Maya. It's called the Graph Editor Redux version 1.2.0 plugin for maya. It looks to have been developed by Ron Bublitz and he posted it on Creative Crash formerly Highend 3D. The plugin puts together alot of the animation tools that are out there all in one into the graph editor. It seems pretty handy and I do enjoy it. There is a tweener and autoTanget among others. It comes with a PDF explaining each button which is pretty handy. There are a few bugs on it that you can see in the reviews section and you can post comments and reviews on Creative Crash. One suggestion is to make it for 2009 and 2010 because for now it is only for 8.5 and 2008. So I look forward to the update.

graph-editor-redux

So check it out, mess around and enjoy.
JP

Animation Referance: Aaron Hartline

2010-04-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

As many of you may know of Aaron Hartline. He does some pretty amazing work "Up" at Pixar. You can see lots of his shots on his blog. He used to be at Blue Sky where he was the character lead for Vlad the Vulture in Horton Hears A Who. In the link I have here, Aaron shows us his reference video that he captured and then the shots of Vlad. Great stuff to look at and get a feel of what goes into reference sometimes.

Vlad the Vulture

Have a look around and enjoy some of the great stuff on there.
JP

Animation Workflow: Action Analysis for Animation

2010-04-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

Stumbled upon this great little worflow piece by Chris Woods on Animation Action Analysis. He talks about his workflow as it relates to him doing lots of animation for TV. He says that in TV, time constraints limit the amount of polish and planning that can go into your animation. So he has been determined to get a workflow that will allow him a fast way to breakdown his animation and hit his deadlines with quality work. He lists his clear ways that he breaks it down using thumbnails and he has plenty of Quicktimes to frame through.

action analysis

Check it out and enjoy.

New Blog Alert: Animation Progression Blogspot

2010-04-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

I just found this little Gem of a blog that I thought I would share. Animation Progression. Not sure why this was never thought of before but kudos to Andrew Root for putting it together. Seems like he just started it...not sure though...but if you have any contributions please send them his way. I haven't come across a site like this yet and I don't know of one but let me know if it already exists.

animationprogression.blogspot.

Take a look around and enjoy! Lots of Fun!
JP

Principles of Animation

2010-03-31T11:46:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone

I found this interesting post on the Principles of Animation broken down from Toy Story. The link seems to come from The Department of Visualization at Texas AM. It seems like an older post but a good break down of the Principles as they relate to Toy Story and it even comes with visuals a-la, Quicktimes and Images.

Buzz

So check it out here and enjoy!
JP

Workflow Highlights: Matt Williames

2010-03-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone

I have seen this blog before and some of you I'm sure have seen his work on Youtube and Vimeo. Matt Williames has some great 2D animation throughout the web. You can also see lots on Pencil Test Depot.

Most recently I have been looking at his blog the Hand Drawn Nomad, where there are lots of posts dedicated to animation techniques and tricks. I found a few post on workflow from his site. Great stuff all around and I just thought I would share it.

Step 1: Planning Your Shot

Step 1 and a half: Before you rough out your shot (Tips and Tricks)

Post 2: ROUGH IT OUT

Post 2 and a half: Breaking it down

So check them out and enjoy
JP

Blog Highlight: Mike Nguyen

2010-03-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

So I guess my first thought when surfing this blog was WOW! My next thought...Why haven't I seen this blog yet?

So with those thoughts let me guide you guys over there. Mike Nguyen has a blog called Rainplace.
There are so many great post on here that I will not begin to tell you too look at just one, but rather take some time and look at lots of great posts about animation.

I will however let you know about a couple. One post on Phrasing, Mike talks about force in animation and breaks it down like:

"‘Feel’ by transferring this very abstract sense of force to an equivalent in sound, or by the use of hand or body movement to mimic, reading scene’s rhythm, spotting its ebbs and flows in pause places, speeding up, constant, slow down; and then divide them into short phrases (like a melody line or ways of spoken words)."

Phrasing

He has two more follow up post on Phrasing as well and a great post on Squash and Stretch.
He also is making a feature film called My Little World. You can also take some classes if your so inclined as he teaches up at CalArts.

Squash and Stretch

So take a look around and enjoy!

Timing in Animation: Animation Mentor Newsletter

2010-03-10T14:18:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

I ran across this quick article on Timing from the Animation Mentor Newsletter. It's written by an animator named Kenny Roy and you can check out his blog here. He does a great job in describing his thoughts on working through timing in a workflow and especially early on when you are still trying to figure out what timing is. He mentions an "inner monologue," which is a great way to do your non-dialogue pieces. So take a look and get some tips to one of the most important principles of animation. Timing!

Enjoy
JP

Animation Demo Reels on Vimeo

2010-03-09T10:09:00.000-08:00

A buddie started a vimeo channel some time ago for his collection of animation demo reels that inspired, impressed, amused. He has collected over 50 of them and that thought others might enjoy the collection as well.

Check out his blog here for his original post.

Enjoy

JP

Website Highlight: Mark C. Harris

2010-03-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

I am not sure who has hit this site before and while making your way down my long list of animator's websites but, I have been visiting and re-visiting his site for years now.

This is the 2nd website highlight that I have done and another well deserved. Mark C. Harris is another great animator brought to us by Pixar. He was at Blue Sky for 3 years and then went over to Pixar. Under his animation tab he has some goodies there. His stuff from Horton and Ice Age are there but what I find myself going back to are his tests that he did with the old Hogan Rig that have stood the test of time. Even though these tests especially his acting are years old I still look at them and am just as impressed as the 1st time I saw them. Maybe even more now?

So head on over and check his site out and oh yeah you can frame through them since they are nicely in Quicktime.

Enjoy
JP

Super Slow Motion Dog Reference

2010-03-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

A co-worker sent this to me today. It's pretty good super slow motion video reference of some dog motion. There is actually lots of this out on different varieties of character, be it humans or animals.

Saw this one on Today's Big Thing, they always have cool stuff on this site.

See more funny videos and Cute Animals Videos at Today's Big Thing.

I also found a good collection of them on Break.com. Anything from slow motion slaps to sneezes.

Enjoy
JP

New Blog Alert!

2010-02-26T15:01:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

There are so many blogs out there when it comes to animation and art in general. All the posts that I do here I really try to concentrate on just things specifically just for animators. You always here that life drawing is so very important to us animators and especially early on in our careers and in school. Very few of us realize what life drawing will do to help us as animators because we are learning the tools, principles and programs....usually all at the same time. But as I mentioned early about posing....this is really where all of it stems from. LIFE DRAWING.

I have looked at many art blogs and you can find a ton out there. This is why I have included some in the Blog roll because I feel that some exposure to them is great for animators. I mentioned in the last post about Rad Secrhist's blog. He has gotten together with other artists like those over at Character Design Blog, and started a new site called The Art Center.

"The Art Center is a brand new place where Artists will share Ideas, Tips, and Tutorials. It will quickly grow both in content and artists from all the different art mediums. The Art Center will be a sister site to the Character Design blog..."

This site is a great resource to really study what goes into a pose and how these great artists study and breakdown the human form. When we as animators understand how poses are designed then it will only shine in our own work when we start to thumbnail our poses and then translate that into 3D.

There is so much good stuff on their individual sites that I can't imagine this site being any different. So take a look and enjoy.

JP

Follow up on Posing for Animation

2010-02-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

Soooo... just a quick follow up on the post that I did a while back on Posing for animation (click here ). I saw this post on Rad Sechrists' "Rad How To " blog. Rad is a storyboard artist at Dreamworks
Animation. He just posted on Shape Design which goes hand n hand with my points on Curve vs
Straight.

Check out the rest of his Blog for other great posing and staging examples. He also has his blog, Rad's Blog, where you can find examples of his work.

Enjoy
JP

How to Modify Norman Rig: Modification Tutorials

2010-01-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

A good friend of mine pointed me to this blog coming to us from the Academy of Art University. It seems to be started as an Animation Forum for them. I know by now most us us have used or at least seen the Norman Rig (click for previous post on Norman Rig) that they released last year. It's amazing and there is so many different variations of it. Did you ever wonder how??? Well there is some posts on the site that explain just that...how to modify the Norman Rig.

There is three parts:

Part 1 of the Norman Modification Workshop

Part 2 of the Norman Modification Workshop

Part 3 of the Norman Modification Workshop

These are some quick and easy ways to spice him up and doesn't seem to be all that complicated for a great and different end result. Also check out the rest of the AAU Animation Forum for some good animation content.

Also Animation Buffet has a link to download Norman and shows some great ways to modify him.
Check it out here.

Enjoy

Quick Poll

2010-01-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

I am taking a quick poll to see how the readers feel about one of the categories on this blog. The blog roll is a bit large and as you know not everyone gets updated all the time...actually some of them haven't been updated in a year or two. Usually as I find some new and interesting ones I add them to the blog roll in hopes of trying to give all of us animators out there the most resources as I can...BUT...I looked the other day and see that the list is becoming long. Sooo I am wondering from you whether or not I should take some off that are clearly not being updated or because of some of the great content on them should I leave them up for a resource. What to do? I would love your feedback. Thanks again.

Workflow Highlights: Jean-Denis Haas

2010-01-19T17:17:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody

I saw this little piece by Jean-Denis Haas on his blog Spungella. He shows multiple stages of his animation and gives us a real incite to some of his thoughts on workflow. He uses multiple rigs and combines them in a great way.

This is a quick peak into an animators thought process. So check it out here and
Enjoy.

Tips on Body Mechanics

2010-01-13T16:38:00.000-08:00

The Animation Mentor Newsletter came today and it had some small tips on body mechanics from Wayne Gilbert. An animator that I feel is one of the best at explaining and breaking down simple planning for working through your body mechanics exercises. Lots of what he says can be found in his book on his site www.anamie.com. You can sign up for the newsletters here. They are always a good resource and great updates on the industry.

So check it out. More on body mechanics to follow. An older post with some more on Wayne Gilbert here.
Enjoy

Jason Schleifer and Rigging for Animators

2010-01-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

He is a great animator that also has extensive knowledge in rigging. Specifically rigging for animators! I know doesn't that sound great! He has recently posted on his site shhhLIFE, about a new Automated version of the rigs that he developed here. He explains why he supports this and I think it is a very selfless act on his part. He has a great DVD bundle found on his site under the STOR E tab. You can also get the Animator Friendly Rigging Part 1 on the Autodesk site here. I have talked with many of my rigging friends and they all have said it is a great system. I myself have done some rigging and am planning on checking these out.

So cruise his site and enjoy what he has to offer in skill and knowledge of the process we all enjoy.
The drawing come courtesy of the Squeeze Studio site.

Enjoy

A Note from Carlos Baena on Acting

2010-01-04T21:42:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I think it's great to revisit blogs or sites that I remember and read over old posts. With all of the information out there now it's super hard to keep up with it. That is what I am here for! I read this post over a year or so ago and although I was still in school at the time it was a great post about "Timing and Acting" by Carlos Baena. I read it again and it has a whole new meaning. Carlos takes a clip from "Seinfeld" in which he breaks down his thought process as an animator as he watches the clip. Now it's hard to put our own thought process into words so
when you have an animator of this caliber doing it so clearly, it can be a great learning tool. He also has another example from "Seinfeld" using Elaine and facial "Expressions" to help with acting. Carlos also breaks it down and gives us his insight.

There are many of these gems through his site so revisit if you haven't been to his site already.

Enjoy

More Animation Tools

2009-12-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

There are so many tools out there to help us animators that it sometimes it's hard to shift through the good and reliable ones. As I have done before I would like to highlight some now that will help us animators along our journey to becoming masters of this craft. SO this time around I'd like to highlight some sketch tools that can help when it comes to tracking your arcs and also giving some feedback. I've come across a few that are free and some that are a price but very inexpensive.

The first one is called ZoomIt. Now this one is free and made by Microsoft, so it has some credibility..respectively. They display it as a good for presentations program but you can totally use it for a sketch tool. This is the pitch from the publisher.

"From Microsoft :ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image. I wrote ZoomIt to fit my specific needs and use it in all my presentations.ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs."

The next would be Sketch It. Looks like it's made by Wilz Modz. This one is also FREE! This is the pitch from the publisher.

"Have you ever had trouble explaining your idea on a computer to someone? Have you ever simply wanted to mark on your screen for illustrative purposes? Have you ever wanted to sketch an equation or figure to the side of your notes? Well now you can. With Sketch It! you can draw on top of any program on your computer including your desktop. Sketch It! will allow you to turn your ordinary computer into a virtual drawing surface. With a variety of features from changing the appearance of the line your drawing including size and color to placing the screen's image into the clipboard or saving it to a file it's all there. One of the best features about Sketch It! is that you'll hardly notice it until you want to use it since it stays on the task bar waiting for you. Sketch It! is a perfect tool for a variety of individuals and professions."

And then there is Annotate Pro. Which there is a free 30day Trial version and then you can pay $19.99 and get the latest version in all its glory. You might have heard about it or seen it on Keith Lango's tutorials. He speaks of it well and uses it all the time.

As you can see Keith sketches away in Maya. So hopefully you can find one that suits you and will only help you become a more efficient animator.

Enjoy.

Did You Miss Prep And Landing?? Replay!!

2009-12-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

Sooo if your like me you missed Disney's Prep And Landing last night. :( BUT...good news! They are replaying it on the ABC website with limited commercials. So check it out and have fun. Fun story and great characters. A little Christmas spirit coming your way.

Enjoy!

In Honor of Veterans Day

2009-11-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

So in honor of Veterans Day, I thought that I would post some shorts just having any military connection. All of them are not what we would usually honor the military for but they are all military related and all animated! So I think that just watching some shorts about the service on VDay is good.

The First... I first saw linked on Mar k Mayerson's Blog. It's called Germans in The Woods done by the Rauch Brothers. If you check out the page, it actually tells alot about the story behind the short and is a great switch to just watching and forming your own storyline.

The next is one I watched a long time ago and has great characters and good camera work. It's called Hold The Line. "It's an animation about four soldiers marching through the remains of a ruined world. Discipline keeps them together. When they are ambushed by an invisible foe, the men come up with the ultimate tactic to take him out." That's from the site. Check out the site...it seems to have won various awards and was first put together in 2005. It's a fun one!

The next one has also been out a while. It's called Fifty Percent Grey by Ruairi Robinson. I will let this one speak for itself but it's really well done. It shows you how you can make a good short film with virtually nothing but a good story.

And the last has also been around a while and has quite the following. It is a great film and really well done. It's called Fallen Art done by Platige Studios. You can download lots of freebies on this site but the one thing that you can't do is watch the film?? So you have to go to the companies site to check it out here. There is a small intro to the short here. So check it out.

Happy VDAY and hope you enjoyed. You can also check these films out under the Short Films category on the right along with some great others.

Free Animation Mentor Webinar with Eric Goldberg

2009-11-10T13:57:00.000-08:00

The time has come for another Animation Mentor free webinar!! This time CEO/Founder Bobby Beck will interview the brilliant veteran animator Eric Goldberg about his new book. Along the way I'm sure that he will add some great animation tips and it should be a great webinar. Also if you haven't picked up his book, Character Animation Crash Course...I highly recommend it. It is probably one of my favorite educational tools. If you have not hit up Animation Podcast either Eric did a podcast there a while back that was great! You can check that out here.

Enjoy!

Website Highlight

2009-11-07T18:05:00.000-08:00

I thought I would try something new here once in a while. I know under the Animator's Website section, there is a ton of sites and it's hard to explore them all. Soo I figured that I would highlight one every couple of weeks or once a month. I think that some of these sites are great references for us animators out there. Really to see some great work and possibly always something to strive for and appreciate good animation.

The first site I chose to highlight comes to us from Ron Zorman. It seems from his recent updates that he still and has been at Pixar for a while. He has a ton of his shots listed on there in Quick Time format which I enjoy greatly because you can actually frame-by-frame things. I really do prefer that to the alternates of YouTube and Vimeo just for the simple fact that you can't frame-by-frame and really appreciate the animation.

It seems that he is still in the process of uploading his stuff from Ren & Stimpy and his personal work but the stuff from his Pixar films is def a good ref. So take a look, frame-by-frame and enjoy some good bits of animation.

Workflow Highlights

2009-11-03T09:50:00.001-08:00

So you probably have seen these posts by David Anthony Gibson about his workflow and process on some of the shots he worked on for Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs BUT....I thought it was worth highlighting here just in case you missed them. So check out the links below.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Eyeballs

Cloudy Animation…now with more Meatballs

Enjoy!

Quick Lighting Tutorial

2009-11-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone

I ran across this quick and easy lighting tutorial and thought I would share it. Lots of times I know that I am not the best lighter and if I do go to light and render my shots out it takes me a bit longer than I would've like because of the fact that I am an animator :) So this quick tutorial by Stephen Melagrano goes step by step on how he lit and rendered one of his shots. It seems like a simple process and real easy to change depending on your scene. So check it out and see if it fits.

Enjoy!