Hand Drawn Nomad

Adam and Dog

2012-01-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

It is my great great pleasure to share the trailer of a short film I am so proud to have been apart of: Adam and Dog. The film was directed and concieved by the extremely talented Minkyu Lee. It is up for an Annie Nomination for best short film. This film, to me, is what I got into the film industry to do and quite honestly I haven't worked on anything anywhere near this good. In the future I plan to post more about it but consider this a teaser post for now :) Enjoy, and vote for Adam and Dog!

Secrets of the Masters : The Wu Sisters

2011-12-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

So I can finally show some animation I did at on this short! This short was a real pleasure to work on, partly due to the generosity of Mr. Ken Duncan giving me a lot of control over these characters. I wasn't a lead but I kinda felt like one in terms of having ownership and a definite opinion about the characters. It was good casting for me. Plus I only focused on the Wu sisters, which was fine by me because before we started I wanted to do those characters anyway! Unfortunately in terms of the story the characters aren't terrible textured or dimensional. But that left it up to us to try and add as much as we could with what we had to work with.

My general idea about them was to base them on ballet dancers. I had other acting ideas about them but there was really no where to put the ideas in the context of this story. The director wanted something slightly sexy as well, and being cats I could see how that would fit. But mostly I saw them as really graceful beings. But I wanted a flip side and stark contrast in that when they fought all of the sofistication and poise you once saw was gone and they became more primal. They're eyes changed to cat slit eyes and they're general graphic shape changed as well.

These aren't all of the shots I did but it is most of them. Quite a few of these got cut from the film unfortunately. I was slated to do a lot more acting but I got so front loaded with the action stuff that there was no way for me to get it all done in time. Fortunately the talented Mr. Jared Beckstrand did a lot of the acting shots as well as Mr. Ken Duncan.

Hope you enjoy these. It was a real pleasure to work on!

WOLVERINE

2011-10-02T00:11:00.001-07:00

I've been lovin' me some Wolverine! Not much, just a reason to post something on the blog. When all you do is work on things you can't show it can be tough to keep a blog alive. Been having fun with this though, no great ambitions with it. Just having fun, trying to get better at drawing. These drawings are only a few days old, so if the disappear suddenly it's because they turned to crap overnight. Which tends to happen ;) I hope all 3 of you enjoy!

Dr Doom for Marvel/Stussy

2011-04-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Something I animated for a Marvel/Stussy advertisement, enjoi!

meaning in art

2011-04-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

This drawing is my absolute most favorite drawing I have ever done. Hands down... this drawing means more to me then anything else I've ever created. This is my oldest daughter at age 1 1/2, and drew in on a scrap piece of paper from out of the garbage on the floor next to her. The thing I take pride in most is that it feels like her, my precious daughter.

Have been drawing a lot of dogs lately for a short film I am working on with some of the most talented people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Our lives are too precious and too short to not be working on things with true personal meaning to us.

MetLife Peanuts

2011-03-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

In honor of the new Peanuts Special coming out on DVD next Tuesday I thought I'd post some MetLife animation I did a year or so ago! Animating this stuff needs to be approached so differently than animating in the more "traditional" feature style way. Too much animation on these characters looks weird, so it's an exercise in simplicity. But simplicity without being boring... these were done for MetLife and I believe are being used on MegaTron screens at sporting events.

A blast from the past

2011-01-29T22:58:00.000-08:00

The Indescribable Nth from Steve Moore on Vimeo.

A long time ago when I was 14 and lived in Chicago I worked at an animation studio called Character Builders. Mostly just doing bit's and ends type work for films like Space Jam, Anastasia, Quest for Camelot. Sometimes I swept the floors, made coffee, and punched paper. Other times I animated my own tests, and on some occasions I would get a chance to do some actual production work. One of my very first production work experiences was on the short film called "The Indescribable Nth". I was given some rough inbetweens to do on some very short shots. I will never forget that time, I worked in the basement of an old house in downtown Wheaton IL. It was winter and FA- REEZING in that basement, but I didn't care, I was working with honest to goodness REAL animators. I am positive I was more of a nusance than a help to those guys but I am still very thankful to them to this day. Not many people would let a punk 14 year old kid screw up their shots for them :) So check out the link to the film above, it was a fun bit of nostalgia for me.

Sketchbook_002

2010-12-01T09:43:00.001-08:00

One of my great joys is to keep my sketchbooks alive. I used to keep up with it a lot more when I was much younger, or even before I had a family. Sometimes it's easy to get overwhelmed with getting your footage done for the week, or getting everything done for the day so you can spend time with the family, whatever, but I have really been relearning old lessons recently of how important it is (to me at least) to keep a sketchbook alive. It keeps me watching and observing... and not just drawing, but really SEEING. Something I want to have in my animation is observed moments. Meaning, I want things to be observed and not just made up out of my head. Observed, then caricatured. How can I do that unless I am studying and observing? I think we all tend to get comfortable at times and develop bad habits of drawing things a certain way without considering other options. Or even something as simple as looking at what happens to the shape of the back when someone sits indian style as opposed to in a chair. There is something truthful about finding that uniqueness to every moment in life. Something that makes us go, "oh yeah, I've seen that!". It breaks down the barrier with our audience and helps to convince them that these are REAL characters. Because they are...

How to Train Your Dragon: The Legend of the Boneknapper

2010-10-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

Back in April I worked at Ken Duncan's studio on the Lengend of the Boneknapper for the How to Train Your Dragon DVD. It was a very intense and fast project, but fun too! Got to work with a lot of old friends, and make some new ones as well. The short's, at least the 2D parts, were really fast paced and didn't allow for a lot of longer acting shots so most of what you'll see here are pretty quick shots (plus it's not every single shot I did). Ken and Sandro (our awesome animation supervisor) were really cool to give me what is probably the longest shot in the short (the shot directly below). I have to say too I was very impressed with the clean-up crew on this project! I have worked on films where, for whatever reason, you have no contact with clean-up folk and sometimes the results are less than desireable. On this project they sought the animators out to run stuff by us which I was found amazing, and I truly feel like my work actually ended up on screen. It's the way it should be but hardly ever is anymore.

We are all about to go back to start animating a 21 minute short film (ALL 2D) for the Kung Fu Panda 2 DVD. I am really looking forward to this one!

Blaisedell Layout Pencil

2010-09-08T22:49:00.001-07:00

This, for those who are not aware of it's legendary nature, is the Blaisedell Layout Pencil. Made famous by both John Lounsbury and Glen Keane. I can remember seeing pictures of Glen draw with this when I was a kid and searching high and low for these pencils. Unfortunately, there weren't many great art stores in the sub-burbs of Chicago growing up and these were nowhere to be found. Plus, I think they stopped producing them in 1990 due to the fact that the pencil contains actual lead and not graphite. Ya know, the cancer causing type!

But recently a colleague and friend of mine, the awesome Rick Farmiloe, super generously and graciously gave this pencil to me because he knew how much it meant to me. I know, it's just a stupid pencil but it kinda encapsulates so much of why I wanted to get into animation that it is priceless to be able to have one in my possession. Thanks Rick!!

Getting on with life

2010-06-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

So let's get on with the fun! Something about blogs that has always bothered (and that I have admittedly fallen into) is this sort of egocentrism of posting stuff for the entirely wrong reasons. Mainly, to get compliments and praise.

Praise is a natural desire, but I don't feel it should be the focal point of any artist. Now switch gears real quick with me... how many of you are afraid of your sketchbook like me? I often put such unnecessary pressure on myself to make every page "perfect". Well, the more I do this stuff the more I realize that art is not about perfection, but about honesty. Honesty can seem like such a vague word, but in short it's about communicating your raw unadulterated feeling on whatever you are seeing, reading, absorbing from life around you and reinterpreting it in the way you feel/see it. Could I draw these better if I put another sheet on top and reworked them? Will there be folks who sees these and aren't impressed? Of course, but that's not the point! The point is motive, and the motive is honesty and sincerity.

I certainly won't argue that basic drawing isn't important to the communication of your feelings, but sometimes we get too concerned with the mastery of the visual presentation. Sometimes there is a raw feeling communicated in the most crude of drawings that I hardly if ever see in extremely refined drawings. So don't be afraid to make mistakes and show'em to people. Remember, they ain't perfect either... what matters is you communicating your feelings, even if that left arm is a little too long.

Untitled Film

2010-01-26T11:29:00.000-08:00

About 2 years ago I did some design work for an untitled feature for Laika. I don't think it's getting made so I thought I'd post'em here...

And the winner is...

2009-10-03T22:40:00.000-07:00

HOW TO TURN STUFF!

This was definitely the winner by vast majority, so turning stuff it is! Please be patient with me, I just started a new job and am getting comfortable. This tutorial will probably come in a few installments. Thanks for voting everyone, it's so helpful to know what information is lacking out there! Until the tutorial!

Ruff Stuff

2009-09-21T18:34:00.001-07:00

Please continue to you cast your votes in the post below! I will end the vote as of THIS Friday (the 25th), so if you have an opinion on the matter be sure to vote in time! Until then enjoy this ruff bit of experimental animation I did for my short film. Often when I have a design getting "close" to what I want it to FEEL like, I take it for a "test drive" which always reveals a lot of it's successes and flaws. In this particular case I animated this to ultimately be used for an eventual color test as well. I animated this in about a day, and in a fairly more ruff way than I typically do. Obviously the end is just posed out, however I do intend to finish it. Also, the beard and floppy bits of hair will be animated in After Effects once the ruff animation is complete. So, no, it won't look like a bit moppy beard in the final product. So enjoy this ruff rascal--

Let's have a VOTE

2009-09-18T12:49:00.001-07:00

So from time to time I get e-mails and comments asking about continuing tutorials on this blog. While I would love to be able to continue to do the same volume of tutorials that i once did, I have to be realistic with myself. When I started this blog my time was much more free and open, now, not so much as I am sure all of you have noticed.

But, the initial purpose of this blog was to spread information that I have learned from either people I respect, or just figuring the stuff out so that others could have the same access to, specifically, 2D knowledge. I would love to strike a compromise, so here's the plan. Right now I am on some downtime, waiting for my next job to start and I'd love to do a simple tutorial. So I am going inquire for your vote as to what that tutorial will be about. here are some options:

- Arcs

- Overlap/Follow Through

- Spacing

- How to Turn stuff

- Timing

- Posing and interesting Breakdowns

Just a few to suggest-- but do me a favor and place your vote in the comments section, I'll tally the votes and consider how much time I have to devote to the tutorial and then go from there. Sound good?

Cortez

2009-09-12T10:08:00.001-07:00

Have been scanning a whole bunch of drawings lately to catelog them on my computer. Came across these and thought I'd post'em. I think I was reading something about Cortez when I drew these. Enjoy!

doodle_003

2009-09-11T13:49:00.001-07:00

Was at the Burger King on Victory Blvd. yesterday meeting someone for work. Did you know that that is the same Burger King in the first Back To The Future when Marty realizes he's late for school and hitches a ride on a truck? I dunno, I love that stuff. Anyway, while I was waiting I was noticing how distinct some of the people there were. This gal had a sorta confident business type look but was totally dressed down. Kinda a muscular build too, like a swimmer. Anyway, it gave me an idea for a quick design so I scribbled it down when I got home on my Cintiq. Kept trying to tie this down but I just kept losing the energy and charm, so enjoy this fairly lose doodle!

PENCIL TEST DEPOT blog by Jamaal Bradley

2009-09-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

PENCIL TEST DEPOT

I have to plug this new, GREAT blog by Jamaal Bradley (animator on "Surf's Up") called Pencil Test Depot. The idea of the blog is to gather an assortment of ONLY rough pencil tests from a variety of hand drawn animators. It's the only blog of it's kind to my knowledge that is devoted to cataloging pencil tests! So cool! Jamaal honored me with an invitation to put add some of my work, but the real reason you should go there is to see all the other incredible work from the likes of Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Glen Keane, Sergio Pablos, James Baxter and Pablo Navarro! I am sure as time goes on the catalog will grow and the amount of amazing reference will become staggering! So check out this wonderful new resource for animators of ALL types!

John Musker caricature

2009-09-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun little drawing! Every years at Disney they have the caricature show. Which is basically the "John Musker" show since he's the best and most active caricature artist in the studio (with Erik Fountain being a very close second)! I've been told I am hard to caricature, so I don't often see any caricatures of me. I thought this one was pretty cool though, I just didn't realize I looked so angry! hah--

Doodle_002

2009-09-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

I went to the Skeet Range with my brother while he was in town this past week. Say some pretty hilarious people while I was there. This is Ling Ling-- from the moment she walked out onto the range she had this humongous smile on her face. It only melted off when she decided to kick some Skeet Shooting Butt! This girl hit everything man, EVERYTHING! And that's saying something for someone who's gun is bigger than they are! All in all, a pretty entertaining thing to behold...

doodle_001

2009-09-04T15:25:00.001-07:00

Because I have nothing to post--

Sandro Cleuzo

2009-08-29T11:12:00.001-07:00

Ok Ok, so I am a bit late on this one but I thought I'd plug my friend Sandro Cleuzo. I worked with him at Disney on "Frog". He's an amazing talent, who consistently blew everyone away! I learned a lot from him indirectly... he's also one of the nicest people I've met in this industry. Check out his blog for sure and expect to see great things from his new Brazilian Studio! www.inspectorcleuzo.blogspot.com

All Cleaned Up (Revised)

2009-08-28T15:04:00.000-07:00

I was asked to remove the boy riding the horse cycle as the project it was for is not released yet-- sorry for the idiocy.

6-25-09

2009-06-25T12:14:00.001-07:00

Goin' through stuff and found this--

It's baaaaaaaaack!

2009-06-23T11:44:00.002-07:00

http://www.awntv.com/videos/the-princess-and-the-frog-featurette

Go ahead, start getting excited!

puttin' the ol' reel together!

2009-06-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

Just finished up on "Frog" and am having to put the ol' reel together and sort of rediscovered some old animation I never used on my previous reels. enjoy!

Shot from Curious George from handdrawn on Vimeo.

Curious George from handdrawn on Vimeo.

curious george from handdrawn on Vimeo.

Untitled from handdrawn on Vimeo.

OFFICIAL TRAILER!

2009-05-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

CHECK WHAT WE'VE BEEN WORKING SO HARD ON!

Princess and the Frog

2009-05-05T10:38:00.000-07:00

check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbCT0pG5iw4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eslashfilm%2Ecom%2F2009%2F05%2F04%2Fnew%2Dfootage%2Dfrom%2Ddisneys%2Dthe%2Dprincess%2Dand%2Dthe%2Dfrog%2F&feature=player_embedded

CORALINE ANIMATION TESTS

2009-02-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

Here are two animation tests I did for Coraline. Usually the way it would start out is me doing some expressions that were extremes for the character. Like how wide or how far something could go, and then animate within that boundary. How course considering character, and shape language as well...

CORALINE

2009-02-11T13:12:00.001-08:00

I know I'm a bit late on the "Coraline post", but thought it would be a good excuse to post again! A couple years ago I got a call from this new studio called "Laika". They were doing a new Henry Selick film called Coraline and needed someone to design and animate the facial expressions (including design mouth shapes for dialogue) for all the characters in the film. And they wanted it ALL to be 2D upfront (it would later be modeling in the computer then molds would be made from that). It was a sweet gig-- I lived in Portland for 6 weeks, all expenses paid and was scared to death every day of failing miserably. I was surrounded by people who were infinitely more talented than I was and I learned a ton from it/them. It was my first venture in design, and I was therefor terrified. It was kinda like designing with training wheels on. I was already working with solid stuff, I just had to make it emote.

I used to love walking around the warehouse where all the sets were being built-- it really felt like we were all making something special and new; something all of us artists talk about but never get a chance to ACTUALLY work on. And here I found myself working on something that I had always talked about working on. (I'll post pictures of the warehouse later).

I didn't end up doing all the characters but I did end up designing for the Cat, Forcible, and the Ghost Children. I did some REALLY rough passes on Spink and Bobinski but I don't think they got used.

So GO SEE THIS SPECIAL FILM! And I'll post more stuff from the film as time allows.

11-4-08

2008-11-02T10:41:00.001-08:00

I did these character designs for a friend a little while back. Had a lot of fun doing it! I miss doing character design these days-- I find when I am bored animating I whip out a clean sheet of paper and start doodling a design or a thumbnail for a future design to keep my mind active. But to be fair, when I was doing character design I missed animating. I know as an animator studying design is imperative to doing good animation. For some reason people seem to segregate design and drawing as separate things. They are not, drawing IS design-- whether it's well designed or not, it IS a design. Maybe this segregation of thinking is why hand drawn animation tends to look so, well, bland. Too many people buy off on the lie that audiences to not relate to graphic character designs. They relate to who they are, not what they look like. Hopefully we'll get an opportunity to blow that old idea out of the water one of these days!

what the?

2008-11-01T10:53:00.001-07:00

Am I posting this because it's beautiful? Am I posting this because I'd like to inspire the world? I believe if you look at this painting long enough you could answer these questions yourself... the real reason I am posting this is because it's random and I have nothing else to post while the man cub and wifey are down for a nap. If you are wondering this took about 5 minutes, took 0% thought, and was my first attempt at painting on a Cintiq. It's par for the course for me :)

Frog photo shoot

2008-10-26T10:33:00.001-07:00

Guess what we were drawing at work the other week?

Here we have nature lover and powerful animator extrodinaire, Minkyu Lee, playing with a frog named PacMan. The frogs kept jumping out of their enclosures. I was too much of a wuss to pick'em up.

Hey! There's Mark Henn checking out a tree frog!

Randy Cartwright ladies and gentleman with the frog. Forgot that frog's name though-- and the gentleman in the red i the amazing Sandro Cleuzo. I've learned so much from that guy indirectly. Amazing talent!

Mark looked at the tree frog for a very long time-- believe it or not there is 2 hours between this photo and the last one :) We also have Adam Dykstra, Jen Hager, Dale Baer, and Randy haycock in this photo.

2008-08-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Some more Curious George randomness! The fun thing about designing characters that are only seen once is that they don't always fit into a context. Like these characters are basically cutaways. So, I could basically do whatever I wanted as long as they looked like a dog and a moose.

Went to Siggraph today-- Disney set us animators up there. Was fun accept they wouldn't let me into the Frank and Ollie talk, dangit! Was talking to a few people about traditional animation while I was at the Disney booth. One dude swore to me that Lilo and Stitch was CG. I politely tried to inform him that it was a hand drawn movie. I could see the confusion on his face and it was later confirmed with his comment "but then that would mean you'd have to draw every frame!!". Yup-- just like in 1939. Other favorite qoutes that I either heard or heard of:

"Why don't you guys just use tracing paper?"

(a man walks up with a suit on and a briefcase and says) "I need to talk to John Lasseter".

"Are you sure you want to be drawing in red?"

"how many "animations" do you do in a day?"

Ahhhh man, too funny.

Walk Cycle

2008-07-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

walk cycle from handdrawn on Vimeo.

Man, it would seem this blog has become a plug for Curious George 2! Well, that or I just don't have a ton to show that isn't really old or that I'd get my butt fired for showing!

I didn't design this guy, but I did get the opportunity to do the walk cycle for the over seas group. These had to be done FAAAAAST... like, one every two days. They said a walk on 2's would be fine, but come on, ya gotta go the whole way right! So on 1's it was!! My mantra is "no one remembers how fast it was done, only how well it was done".

enjoi!

7-12-08

2008-07-12T12:27:00.001-07:00

Do I need to say that I have been busy? 63 hour work weeks... sheesh! Here's a miscellaneous character I designed from Curious George 2. Even though this was a direct to video I had a lot of fun working on it. The crew was a lot of fun to be around, and frankly the director showed me a lot of trust. Which always makes an artist feel like he's free to contribute...

6-15-08

2008-06-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

Abe Animation from handdrawn on Vimeo.

I have a folder in my computer called "The Fridge". It's a folder I put pieces of animation in that I might come back to in the future because I am either tired of it, couldn't get it where I wanted it, or had to stop on it for whatever reason. This piece of animation is something I had to stop on before I really wanted to. I animated this in about a day-- it's an old character design of a short story I've been working on for a while. I was just test driving the design, so it's nothing spectacular. Just something rough and dirty, because I can't show anything I've been doing the last months or so!

In other news Disney has been a blast so far! As usual I can't say much except that I think everyone is going to be pleasantly surprised by the next few films from Disney! Things are definitely heading in the right direction!

commercials

2008-05-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Commercial Animation from handdrawn on Vimeo.

I did this about a year and a half ago... I think. It was done in such a whirlwind of freelance that I am not quite sure-- commercials are an interesting world. It fun in a way because you get to do lotsa styles. On the other hand it's usually a breakneck pace and hard to really finesse your work to a quality of polish you'd like. I think most of us prefer features though!

Walt Disney Animation Studios

2008-05-08T13:55:00.001-07:00

It has been a LOOOONG haul. It has been a lot of years, a lot of wondering, waiting, and perseverance but the day has finally come that I can announce that I will finally be starting at Disney Animation as a hand drawn animator.

It's a looooong story as well, which perhaps in time I will tell on this blog, but for now, I celebrate! See you at the Producers Show!

GOONIES!

2008-03-22T17:20:00.001-07:00

Last year when I was working on "Coraline" in Portland I took one Saturday to make a little day trip. It was fairly lonely for me up there (6 weeks is such a short time to make friends), so this seemed like a good way to spend my day. Anyone in their 20's probably at least remembers the movie "The Goonies", if not fondly remembers it. I am one of those who's kinda a nerd for the film. So, I plotted a course to go an visit Astoria, Oregon. The drive there alone was a amazing enough. I didn't have any directions to get to the landmarks in the town, so I just bummed around and looked for the most likely spots where they would have filmed. The first thing I found was the museum where the "dad" worked.

Ok, here's the real thing!

I didn't have to look too far for the next movie location! Right across the street was the jail! Completely old, blue for some reason, and obviously hadn't been in use for a long time. I wonder why they keep it? For nerds like me?

OK, so then all I really cared about was finding the "goonies"house, and "data's" house. This part took forever, and ummmm, the houses were in less than safe looking areas. I basically was going through trial and error in finding the house. I started looking for a neighborhood that felt right. But once I found that, the streets were so stinking twisty that it was near impossible to remember my way out let alone find 1 famous house. I was about to give up, the sun was setting and I couldn't find these house for the life of me until I see a sign that says "all Goonies vistors are welcome... Please park at bottom of hill". Low and behold the house had been right above me on a private road, ahh, success!!

So remember this incredible view in the film?

My lighting is not anywhere near as cool, but the view was so iconic it was hard to miss!

So, I wasn't expecting to find a house that looked even remotely like the one from the film.

Holy crap! It's practically unchanged!

And what about "data's" house?

Besides a mild paint job (or years of the sun bleaching that electric blue away), practically also untouched!! So cool!

So anyway, no art this time. Just movie nerd stuff-- hope ya'll enjoy!

3-14-08

2008-03-14T01:05:00.001-07:00

Do these 2 look familiar? What can I say, it was one of those weeks on Curious George 2. I was the only artist in house that day so I guess I was feeling kinda sneaky. I was sure they were going to make me change these, but low and behold they are totally in the model sheet pack. But only as Police Officer 1 and 2. Well, they were fun to do anyway!

a break from your regularly scheduled blog post...

2008-03-05T11:56:00.000-08:00

I hate to do this but I am afraid the tutorial that I just started is going to have to take a back seat for a while. Sorry!! I thought I was going to have more time to finish it, but somethings have come up recently (good things :) ) that are going to prohibit me from finishing it just yet. I am starting about 3 weeks of design/animation work on "The Wall and the Wing" for Laika next week, and then after that will most likely be starting something very exciting! But will wait to share that with you all until it's official. So, until then I may post little pieces of animation, designs, or little thoughts on animation from time to time. Again, I apollogize for not being able to finish the tutorial as promised, but if at all possible I intend to continue when I can. Thanks for your patience everyone.

P.S This is just a little piece I did for fun-- I am still getting used to the whole painting thing :)

Starting your Shot: THINKING, FEELING, AND PLANNING

2008-02-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

As I have done this type of series of tutorial post's before some might be wondering why I am doing the same thing again. Well, the answers kinda several fold I suppose. First, the original intent of this blog was for hand drawn animation information.

We live in an animation world where chances are if your an animator

you're doing CG and if you still draw for a living you're doing design or boarding. I know not everyone falls into these catagories, but it seems to be the overwhelming majority. I've seen such a sparse amount of hand drawn animation info out there, that I felt for those who genuinely still love this art form and don't want to see it die.

Secondly, and I say this with respect for the art form of computer animation (and those in it), but I was pretty tired of hearing and or reading of CG guys saying things like "CG is cheaper than 2D", or "we don't need models that squash and stretch because motion blur is the CG equivilant", or the worst one is "CG is more subtle than 2D". I could bark about these sadly misguided opinions all day, but that wouldn't be my point. My point is that those opinions are formed from people whom have either no 2D experience or who do not understand it at all. The people that do have experience with the art form ( Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony, Disney guys) probably wouldn't say such things. As the SplineDoctors have said on their

site, I find it alarming when my students have heard more about people with famous blogs than they have about the nine old men. As convoluted as this is getting, here is the second point: I wanted to put accurate information out there that would inspire, inform and correct minds on the topic of hand drawn animation. I also feel that the legacy of the Nine Old Men is precious... nuff said.

Thirdly, and lastly, I wanted to get back to doing tutorials because of how much I've changed and grown as an artist in the last year or so. I have been doing A LOT more than animating. As I have said before, the more you know about the whole process the more

you can give to the specifics of it. My true life example is going from animation to design, and now back to animation. You see things differently once you've designed a few hundred characters in different styles. Certainly ones dratsmenships improves, but the way you think about things like staging, clarity, posing , all change. So as I work my way through a shot I hope to bring new light to the process as I talk (or write) out loud about it.

FOR GOODNESS SAKE, THINK BEFORE YOU ACT

MATT!

That's a little refrain I've heard innumerable times in my life. For those who know me I can be, uh, a slight bit absent minded. When I was a little kid, I got into a few pickles because of it. But never from malicious intent, it was always innocent at it's core. I just wasn't thinking about things before I did them-- and thus I heard this refrain over and over in my life until I finally started to see why it was important.

This refrain can so easily be adapted to animation as well! I think the number one thing I don't see in a lot of student work (and sometimes pro work) is thought. If you d

on't think before you act, you're gonna end up in a world of trouble. If someone asks you WHY you chose the pose you did and you cannot answer that question you probably haven't thought out your shot well enough. As always you have to temper this kind of advice with "... and everyone works differently...", but the point isn't HOW you do this it's THAT you do this.

Ironically this is the most important part of the process and yet it's the part we spend the least amount of time on. Now obviously if you sat around for 4 days thinking about a shot that you only have 5 days to do that's no good, but I know from personal experience sometimes I'm just way to excited to draw! Even if you have the shot crystal clear in your head, at least think it through and make sure your instincts match up with what is being asked of the shot.

WHY?

Randy Haycock was kind enough to come and do a lecture for my CalArts class. Sometimes people with more experience than you are able to put thoughts into words that you have felt before but not known how to describe verbally. He said something his kids ask him all the time is "why"... it's endless, and irritating at times but should we not be as curious about our own shots? Here's a series of questions to always ask yourself BEFORE you start your shot:

WHY:

Is this shot in the movie?

Does the character feel this way?

WHAT:

Is the context of this shot in the whole of the story?

Is the entertainment value of this shot?

Is the subtext?

WHO:

Is this shot about?

Now that's certainly not a comprehensive list but it will definately get you into the right place

mentally before you start your shot.

FEELING YOUR SHOT

This is a topic that's a bit more on the cryptic side. Something you can't tell someone how to do, they just have to have the ability to do so. It can all be summed up into this

thought: Are you able to feel and empathize with the character you are performing? You have to have some sort of emotional connection there. This doesn't necessarily mean you love your character in the sense that you'd be best friends if they were real. It more means you can relate to them. What makes a character relatable? Well, I think a primary one is flaw. A flawed character is one we can all identify with because we are all flawed. We see, sometimes, the same struggles in our own lives (wanting to be loved, fear of something, etc.) and can therefor put ourselves into their emotional journey. This is why the token villain that just wants to be rich or rule the world are not compelling in the least. We don't identify emotionally with those motives-- yes, we even have to identify to a degree with the "villain". What if he's the kind of villain who was just like you or me at one point and took a wrong turn? What if he's looking for love in all the wrong places, that adds sympathy which adds empathy and helps

to make you care about them. The animator AND the audience!

PLANNING

So now, assuming you've got the first 2 under your belt you can start planning your shot which means, yes, DRAWING!

THUMBNAILING

Everyone knows this step-- but so few of us really take advantage of it. Planning is everything, whether you do it on paper or in your head it's essential to the clarity of your performance. This step is like everything else in that you will make it your own eventually.

Duncan Marjoribanks and Milt Kahl basically animate their shots twice. One in small size, and then for real. I mean, litterally every little arc, blink, everything was planned before hand. Others just thumbnail out their main story-telling poses and let the shot, as they animate, tell them where it wants to go. And a few don't thumbnail much or at all and plan it all out in their heads. The point is that all the great PLAN in some fashion. I tend to favor the second option highly. The reason is that I have to have the structure of my story telling poses to guide me, but want permission for spontinaity. So here are my thumbnails for this recent piece of animation:

As you can plainly see my objective was not to make masterful drawings. I was completely focused on gestures and poses that could sell the main ideas for my shot. Essentially, what

these will end up being are my foundational drawings for my shot (storytelling poses). My shot will revolve around them. That's why it is so important to experiment at this point, because the further down the road you get the harder it will be to reinvent your shot if need be.

In the next post will start to go into roughing in a shot... there is a lot to talk about in terms

of how to think about things but also just the practicality of "how do you do that"? A lot of it involves layering you thinking. So, as always, please please please ask questions for things that are unclear! Hope everyone gets something out of this! Cheers!

What!? Actual animation!?

2008-02-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

1st pass from handdrawn on Vimeo.

It's been a while since any of this has been on the blog huh? I have the tutorial about half way written, so until I get it complete check out this first rough pass that the tutorial will revolve around. Enjoi!

For Shiyoon

2008-01-23T12:41:00.003-08:00

This one's for you Shiyoon! Hey, speaking of Shiyoon everyone should go to his blog and harrass him with compliments ( www.shiyoon.blogspot.com )! He's a super talented guy who doing so great work at Disney, check out his stuff!

I have been wanting to get back to doing tutorials. I've covered a lot of animation type stuff and have been thinking about what to cover. I don't feel qualified to talk about design being so new to it-- so i think I am going to animate a shot from start to finish again. I always learned the most from watching other people do things THEIR way, and then was able to adapt their ideas to how I naturally work. So I think I am gonna animate a little shot, sound good?

This is another design from Curious George 2. This was done pretty early in the process for me, so I was still finding the balance between graphic shape and form. I think I went a wee bit too graphic, but ah well. I had fun drawing it!

1-21-08

2008-01-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

On the occassion of my first day off from Curious George 2 I thought I'd post a little design I did for the film. I didn't get to do any of the lead characters as they were all done before I got on the film. This guy is one sort of a secondary type, not quite an extra or anything.

The film was a good experience for me. I've only ever really animated, some of what I did at Laika involved design but not to this extent. This film was kinda like designing with training wheels on. I've never been impressed with my own drawing ability, so this was a little scary but it's not like I had to invent the shape language or anything. Like I said, I just had to follow what Shane and Shannon so eloquently set up. I guess it was really more of a matter of living up to what they did, and also somehow getting everything past our creative executive. Not an easy challenge... can someone tell me why people with business degree's insist they know how to make films? I don't get it--

So what's next? Who knows, hopefully something involving animation for a change!

P.S If anyone care's I've finally started updating my portfolio and reel blog. Click HERE to check it out, it's still being updated but it'll give you a little taste of things!

The Princess and the Frog

2008-01-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Just in case you hadn't seen this yet, a little sneak peak at the "Princess and the Frog"-- I remember when I was a kid, my parents owned stock in the Disney Company and every year I'd beat my dad to the mail box for the "annual report" magazine they printed. It would typically sit in my lap, opened, during history as I pretended to look down and "read" the assignment. Ahhh memories!

I've only seen bit's here and there from the film-- I know they are going for a very classical Disney look ala "Lady and the Tramp". I know very little about the story-- it just has to be great, no if, ands, or buts... too much is riding on this film for it to be "so so".

The funny thing is a lot of people outside of animation, I have observed, have been making a lot of comments like "why don't they do another "Beauty and the Beast" type film?" or, "when is Disney going to do another fairytale?" Now, I'd be the first to say I'd LOVE to see animation, especially at Disney breaks down some content walls, but fantasy films are a major part of their heritage and I'd love to think this film will be a straight forward homage to that heritage. Time will tell I suppose... here's hopin'!

Lil' creative ramblings

2008-01-05T21:34:00.001-08:00

Just some creative ramblings, truly rough and raw-- sometimes it's just fun to let your pencil wander ya know? Especially when no one is expecting anything from you or has given you specific direction. Lately our "creative" executive at work has just been taking an oozie to all our good ideas. Sorta kill's your enthusiasm for a film or at least for giving 130% (if your not careful that is), although the crew has been a lot of fun to work with. I'm gonna miss those people come 2 weeks, but hopefully will be moving on more animating!

Speaking of animating I've always wanted to animate a little opening and closing bit for my reel, and I think I have a fun little (simple) idea with these characters. Maybe it'll give me a good excuse to animate again! Mannn, I HATE not animating-- woah, emotional outburst. Anyway, if life allows perhaps you'll be seeing some more animation on this blog fairly soon! Cheers!

For mother

2007-12-29T20:19:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!

This is a painting I did for my mom as a Christmas present. Shhhhh, don't tell her, she won't get it till' tomorrow :) This is actually the very first piece I've done on my brand spankin' new Cintiq. Now, I can definitively say Cintiq's are GREAT for: Boarding, Viz Dev, Design work. But TERRIBLE for Animation. Thank you Disney for choosing to go with paper! You just don't have the control necessary for animating. Well, I should be careful to say I don't like them for animating, but that's just my opinion.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some stuff I've been doing lately. It's always frustrating when you're doing ton's of work but are in-able to show any of it. Thanks for stopping by everyone!

Coraline

2007-12-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

I am sure everyone has seen this clip by now, but if you haven't go here to check it out: http://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/Video/Coraline/sneak.mov

I was privilaged to have worked on this film. I still can't say exactly what I did on the film (they are pretty tight lipped) but I can say it involved hand drawn animation and design. Looking at this clip is exhilerating! I didn't get to see any production footage while I was on the film (as it hadn't started yet), so this is a treat for me. There are so many films where the conceptual work is just incredible, but it never makes it to the screen. Well, this is NOT the case for this film. I can't comment on the story, but I CAN say that I believe this film will be one of the best LOOKING films of 2009. Laika has so much potential, it's insane! I can remember just talking afternoon breaks, putting my jacket on and walking through the warehouse at Laika where all the sets were and being in awe of what they were doing. Man, I wanna say so much but can't! Well, this oughta wet your whistle for now.

I'm not dead!

2007-11-18T16:44:00.001-08:00

I'm not dead, I just seem like I am! The typical "non-blogging"excuse is busy-ness. Mine is no exception, except, I can't ever remember being this busy in my entire life! Every minute of my day is filled from the time I wake, to the time I sleep. So, I've been drawing like crazy, just nothing I am able to show. Have been helping to design on "Curious George 2"... has been fun, the shape language of the film was superbly established by Shannon Tindle and Shane Prigmore. So it's just trying to make things look like they fit into their world ya know? Have been doing some story boarding on it, and will start animating a few things for the show as weel next week. Cool beans!
For the first time in, I dunno HOW long I got free time today to just draw whatever my heart desired! Have been mulling over my short film in my head am starting to hone in on some ideas. Looked at some old designs, and realized how little I truley pushed them. So, decided to take the cork off of the creative bottle this afternoon. I have more pages of wilder stuff, but these are closer to what I think the character should feel like. They are just real loose ideas, not refined... just wanted to get through a lot before I started refining anything. Later!

RRRRRRRRAHHHHHH-RRRRRRR!!!

2007-09-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

Dudes, face it... monsters are COOOOOOL! Starting teaching back at CalArts, am stoked for this year! For any of my students reading this, you guys rule! Your all gonna rock the house-- nothing else to say, just wanted to scare you guys with a drawing! Did it work?

NEW TUTORIAL! : solidity/turning trick

2007-09-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hey man IT'S A NEW TUTORIAL! Had a lil' extra time so thought I'd throw this up. So, ever wonder how to get your animation rock solid? Oh, BTW, this is pretty much a tutorial meant and applicable for 2D guys! Sorry CG peeps, I'll do another one that applies to both! Anyway, beyond actually knowing how to draw... which brings me to a side note. These tricks WILL NOT make your animation better, they will only enhance to natural gifting you already possess to make your animation work flow easier and quicker. I had a student once that tried a trick once. He taped his model sheet to the back of his lightbox to control his sizes and proportions, as I suggested. He came back a week later and said "it didn't work, look! My character gets huge." Now, obviously he didn't really pay attention to his model sheet while he was animating because the model sheet doesn't lie, but that's not the point. These tricks are not magic tools that will make you a great animator, the are only extra tools to help your already existing talent. In a day an age where the computer is so much a supplimental part of life and a program exists to help assist you with everything I wonder if there is a bit of preconditioned mentality for us in animation. Anyway, just wanted to make that all clear.
So, ever been animating something that is moving a great distance. Not necessarily fast, just across the entire screen? Or, even harder, across the entire screen SLOWLY? Had difficulty getting those inbetween poses that are freakin' far apart to be solid? Me too... here's a trick. One day I was visiting a friend at James Baxter's studio. He was introducing me to James and I saw James sitting in his seat just tearing bit's of tape off and sticking the ends on his desk like the below photo.

Like so.... anyway, I wasn't real sure what he was doing I just figured he was taping something up or whatever. Well, then I ran into a shot later where the character had to move across the screen very slowly. I was having a bit of a time keeping it solid. I remembered what James was doing and I wondered if this was what it was meant for. So here's what I did. It is easier to inbetween something that is not moving much. So I of course nailed my Key's down like the below picture (BTW the way, these drawings are merely for drawing examples, not meant to be show pieces).

Then I very loosely and lightly nailed down where the inbetween would go. Like this:

Then I lifted the 2nd key off of the pegs and taped it directly over the 1st key drawing so the head shapes matched up.

BTW, you can still do separate charting. I wanted the heads horizontal movement to be even, and the head rotation to favor the first Key. So, chart and inbetween accordingly. Nothing has changed, it just got easier to do.

OK, now you take that inbetween pose and place it directly over the other 2 keys so that the head shape matches up with the two keys. It should look like the characters head is just rotating in place.

The corners of the paper your using should reflect your charts. If the horizontal path is even, the corners will be evenly spaced. I also added a bit of an arc so the paper dips ever so slightly.

Now, just inbetween as you desire!! It's pretty simple really. And trust me, it's WAY faster and more accurate than doing it the other way. Now note: THIS IS NOT TRACE AND PLACE! It's sorta related, but not quite the same. Trace and place will for the most part give you the paper cut out feeling of animation. Shapes won't change and it'll be solid, but unturnable (yes, made that word up :) ) and dead to look at. I hate that kind of animation-- sure it's fast, but, ummmmm, that's all it is. I do recommend ruffing out your shots without doing this. You should not be completely obsessed at the first part of the process with technical perfection, you can clean that up in tie down, which is what this trick is meant for! Anyhow this is the final result!

Hope you guys find this useful! ANIMATE WELL!

Some more OLD Animation

2007-08-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

Looney Tunes Animation from handdrawn and Vimeo.

Here's another shot I did on Looney Tunes: BIA that never made it into the film. Not sure why, the sequence got used, and I even remember watching the great Tracy Lee clean up my stuff. In fact I even think I remember seeing it in color... hmmm, weird. I was always bugging those clean-up guys about drawing tips and stuff. Clean Up is one of those artforms that has pretty much become lost to the new generations. It makes me sick to think about it-- as an animator you KNOW how important it is to get a really stellar clean up artist to keep the original intention of your shot!
So this was a fun, simple shot. I remember this was towards the end of the film, being the new guy I hadn't gotten very many "sweet shots". Now I know, there are no small shots just small animators right? I agree, but you gotta admit you're never gonna grow unless you get some shots that have more meat to them. So I mentioned to Tony DeRosa that if at all possible I'd love to get something a little more substantial. Kindly enough he gave me this shot. He was looking forward to doing this himself, so it was a bit of a sacrifice for him to let me do it.
I did the shot in 3 days. I can remember trying make it last longer cuz I was having so much fun on it!
So anyhow, more coming so stay tuned!!

New... er, old animation!

2007-08-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

Looney Tunes Animation from handdrawn and Vimeo.

So here's some more animation as promised! It's pretty old stuff (so please no uninvited critiques :), but still fun! I was 20 when I was working on this film (Looney Tunes: Back in Action) and it was quite the learning experience! Frankly, I was scared stiff the first half of my experience on the film. Coming straight from art school into having to meet footage qouta's, learning how to take direction and not take it personally, and relaxing enough to make great animation was fairly difficult for me to balance at first. Ya know, getting your animation looked at by nobody but you and your peers and then all of the sudden trying to please Eric Goldberg was, ummmm, daunting!! He was very gracious and patient with me though-- and I am greatful for that! I learned a lot.

To be honest I never really was all that interested in THIS type of animation. I wasn't a Looney Tunes nut growing up, I was too busy watching Pinnochio and studying Glen Keane and James Baxter. But I sure loosened up on this stuff! You really gotta know how to push shapes, and still keep things solid with this stuff. But it's really about comedy, and timing is the key. Comedy and Drama are 2 seperate artforms, but equally as challenging.

Anyhow have fun watching, this was my last shot on the film and you won't see it in the finished film because it the entire sequence got cut. That actually seemed to happen quite a bit to me on that film, bummer! Cheers!

Introducing!!

2007-08-27T08:31:00.001-07:00

Intoducing a brand new character! Granted this design is not final per se, but it has the feeling I wanted. I have gabbed about doing short films on this blog for a while now, and have never been able to settle on anything, but I think I finally have. I must say too, the other major motivator has been the possibility of not being able to animate during the day. I have been shifting a little bit more into design (out of necessity) and have not been able to animate as much recently. Having a short film to work on will give me something (important) to animate until I can continue to animate full time again. I'm excited about it, it's a kind a a small, simple, character focused story that should be a lot of fun and maybe even pull on your heart strings a little. So stay tuned for bits an pieces from the short!

Also, I've been getting an e-mail or two about continuing tutorials. I can honestly say the intention is there for sure, but time recently has not allowed for much more that simple postings. So I guess the general answers is yes there will be more but you may need to be excedingly patient in the mean time. Thanks to all who visit the blog and leave comments, and we'll see ya on the next post!

Arty Guys

2007-08-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

I thought maybe it was time to get going on some arty types in male form! It's easier to post when your just doing drawings, and not animation for other people that your not suppost to show.
However, sometime in the near future there will probably be more animation on the blog... some new stuff that I'm pretty excited about, so stay tuned!!!

getting closer to the finish line!

2007-08-10T18:00:00.001-07:00

(Click on it to see it better)

Painting is fun! Especially when you stink at it like me and can make a bagillion mistakes on the computer while you do it! This design portfolio is getting closer to being done all the time! Have a great weekend everybody!

All done

2007-08-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

All done.... for now :) You're never done, you just run out of time!

In the Wilderness of Character Design, and roughing it!

2007-08-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am totally on this artsy fartsy kick with all these artist types I've been posting! I've always loved studying dance. I can remember being sick and home from school studying "Riverdance" when I was 11. That's where I really started learning about weight in locomotion I think. Dance is perfect for study because they accentuate the natural things we do and present them to you in a much more beautiful manner. Ya know, like their arcs are always perfect and such, their timing, the list goes on. I guess the danger is that I personally feel sometimes animated performances can feel "too perfect". I love mistakes in animation, a little stumble here, reaching to grab something and missing, all that kind of stuff every single one of us does. There's this great shot in "Jaws" where Brody reaches for a telephone in the morning at his house. There are 2 on top of eachother. He grabs the one on top and says "Hello". Frows, hangs it up and picks the other on up. I dunno, that shots has always felt real too me because of the imperfection in it. Man, all this performance talk is making me me miss animating!!

I decided to post these ruffs I did today. I don't usually post my ruffs... but I liked these, so I hope you do to! Later!

More of the Hillsy Billsy

2007-08-03T17:01:00.001-07:00

Not enough hill billy lovin' for ya? A few more band members-- there's more, but I gotta leave more to post for another day right!? Design is freakin' fun, but you wanna know what I keep thinking as I am drawing this stuff? "Man, I wanna animate!"

Hill Billy Fun!

2007-08-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

I love the country! Ya know, real country, like Southern Oregon! We just came back from a visit. It's such a simpler place, were yes means yes and no means, well, no! I'm not a real fancy guy, for better or worse, but i love that life is much simpler there. Too bad you can't be an animator there! Maybe I should open a tatoo parlor there, and then work at 7/11 at nights! Hmmmmm, I do love slurpee's!

I'm doing a whole hill billy band for the portfolio. Here's a chick who has about as much fashion sense as I do! Cheers!

Artsy Fartsy Girl

2007-07-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

Yep, I've been busy. Yep, I've been lazy with posting, and yeah I need to do better. Have been busy getting several portfolio's ready... here's a piece from the design portfolio. I always kick myself when I do design because I realize how much fun I'm missing out on man! PLus, it'll totally make you a better animator, or, well, artist in general!

Just got my contract to teach at CalArts again and was thinking about all the interesting art school students that made an impression on me. I guess this was one of them! Cheers!

Fin

2007-06-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

from handdrawn and Vimeo.

Welp, here it is! Every time I watch it I either cringe, or feel some sense of accomplishment. Something I was aiming for very deliberately with this moment was a little bit more of a staccato style of acting. A slight bit more jumpy, quicker timing which is not normal for me. I love the more "graceful" look. I was trying some new stuff, trying to push myself into a little more unknown territory acting-wise. And I'm proud of that much, but because this could only get an hour here or there inbetween work, life and other things I feel it lacks in consistancy (mainly of model).
So, it's done and now lets move onto the next one! I've got a lot of ideas, it's just finding time inbetween animating all these commercials!! ugghhhh man, too much! Hope everyone digs it!

A bit better

2007-06-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

This version definately reads a bit better. Man, me and color just don't mix! Anyway, thought I'd post the "useable" version of this drawing. Some more animation is coming, just as soon as I have time to post it. Later!

Designing in 100 degrees

2007-06-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd post what I've been busy with today. Have been getting my portfolio reassembled for something. I really want some good design work in there-- These are 2 I am considering. The color on the ape got a little blow out, plus I need to smooth it out a bit more. Anyway, just for fun! Cheers!!

POST 100

2007-06-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

POST 100 WOOOOOOO-WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Man, 2 blog posts in a row from me? What's next, world peace? Yeah, anyway 2 days in a row of quick sketching! I really am wanting to get back into the habit. I did the bear habit from the documentary called "Grizzly Man"... Holy Moly, that dude was CRAZ-EE! I'm sorry, I love creation and all that's in it but what that guy was doing was nuts.

Lotsa just random doodles in here too. Just for fun... you know what I can't get enough of? 101 Dalmations! That is the stinking poop man! The design, character animation--awww man, there are few things I can study relentlessly without getting sick of it and that's one of them (check out the Rojer scenes at the end by Mlt of Rojer adding up all th puppies, amazing frenetic use of eyes).

Wow, weird post... random.... Hmmmm, K bye!

A little birdy told me

2007-06-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

Was doing some quick sketching today... Man, I am rust- EE! Starting out with birds was fun though, nice, clear, simple shapes. There's an endless variety and they are SO easy to caricature. FUN! I think I am gonna take a few of these further into the design realm. Enjoy!

I'm lazy

2007-05-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

Reaction
Uploaded by dreaminater

note: unfortunately the player converted this to 30fps, so it's not playing correctly. Youtube looses sync, metacafe deletes my files, vimeo turns the image pink... :( I'm working on getting this fixed!

I wasn't gonna post this till' it was done, but what the heck! Unfortunately it seems that the audio got knocked out of sync somewhere in the uploading process. I've been doing this at nights/weekends/lunch breaks... it's tough not animating for more than an hour. Either you wanna keep going, or it's really hard to turn your brain on all of the sudden on something different. I'm proud of it so far, but there are about 20 billion fixes I have in mind for it! I left the widescreen as see through so I could play with the eventual composition (there'll be a BG eventually). Hope you likey!

Eyes: Construction and Pitfalls

2007-03-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

In preparing this post I kept thinking, "ahhhh man I could be preparing this post for a year before i feel like I have something that does justice to the topic." So, I feel like what would be best is if I just break this topic down into post's and sessions. This first post will be about construction (how the eye is put together) and the general errors I see a lot in drawing eyes. The first thing for anyone to do who wants to really understand what they are drawing is to study the object thoroughly right!? You might be able to draw something from memory well, but unless you've got that reference and real life study in your brain it'll probably lack authenticity. Eyes are definately MY favorite part of animating close ups or medium shots. They give the term "working within the pose" a lot more meaning to me and open a lot of acting doors. The goal isn't to match life but to caricature it-- just like always in animation. There an authenticity to eyes that can be found though, one that seems to trigger something subconscious in us where our brains say " hey, I've seen that before." It can only help cross that barrier in the mind of "I know this is just a pile of drawing in some wear house to, man I am really understanding what that character is feeling".
In studying animated eyes I've found something really interesting-- I can't find one shot where any of the 9 old men did any eye darts. I am certainly not saying that their work was less because of it, but I think it's interesting that it's used more today and not really at all back then. If anyone can think of any examples I am missing from the 9 old men era that i am forgetting please let me know. Anyway, that's sidetracking. So, eye construction... I think it's important to know how the eye ball works within the socket, how far back it is in your head, how the muscles work. What I think is less important is all the inner workings (blood vessels, etc...) though not without value.

I think the first thing to note from the picture above is that the eye ball is NOT a perfect circle. Why? Because of the lense in front of your pupil. Check out the drawing below.

I don't necessarily always draw the lense, but I do draw the affects of it. Meaning, because your eye is not a perfect sphere there is friction on your eye lids. Your bottom and top lid with deform and bend slightly to the curve of your lense.

Below here in this pic see how the curve of the lid's follows the direction of the pupil. Not only is it what is physically accurate, but it also creates interest in the shape of the eye. A very basic drawing/design rule is uneven shapes. It's a very simple way to create dynamics, tension, a feeling of movement and life.

Speaking of pupil direction, check out this page below. In extreme up or down shots (imagine the eye is in a general looking straight position) how you draw the eye is important. Remember that the pupil and cornea are not on the surface of the lens. It's beneath the lens. If you flip your eye from the right to left rows you'll see the difference between a pupil that is "painted" on a flat surface verses the pupil that is set beneath the lens. You'll notice on the profile I didn't draw the literal lens sticking out from the eye. It's a matter of taste/and style sometimes.

As I said before a basic design and drawing rule is to keep your shapes a-symmetrical . This creates interest in your shape. In this case below make sure your shapes are not straight and boring, but also that the pupil direction is reflected in the overall shape of the eye.

This pic below is just to show you where and how the muscles connect to the eye. This is more important to inform how you animate your eyes than it is how you draw them. Notice how short those muscles are? Short muscles mean quick contraction which translates into eye darts. That's why your eyes move so fast. The eyes can move slowly, but it's not as often. Like everything, it's a matter of taste in the moment of choice.

Lastly, the thing to know about eyes is that their shape is created by the lids surrounding the eye ball. Not the eye ball itself... check out these pics of different people and note what kind of impression they give you as a viewer based on their shape.

I cannot communicate how important eyes are. Yeah yeah, we all know that you say, but really man! If they are the first thing we look at they must say some something pretty important to us as people. A lot of what I covered today was more on the technical "how to" end of things, but you gotta know this stuff to get to the artful parts of it all. Next post I'll post some screen shots from live action and animated performances that I feel uses eyes to their potential. Until then, thanks for hanging in there and reading all of this!

Eye, Eye Cap'N!

2007-03-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

Massive post on drawing and animating eyes coming soon to a blog near you! I promise, have just been doing drawings, gathering reference material to make this one worthwhile for everybody. I haven't forgotten blogland!

Check it! YO!

2007-03-12T01:26:00.000-07:00

(A young John Lasseter... haha, no joke!)

Check out this link:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/VirtualPlayerFST.zhtml?c=129198&EventId=1486224&WebCastId=623469&StreamId=859281&id=&IndexId=&EID_TIK=&RGT=&RGS=&CTID=
Click on the section that says "Animation Overview"... it's worth it.

Pretty neat stuff man... Actually, more like a dream come true! I just don't sleep anymore man! Here I am writting this at 2 in the morning when I should be sleeping! But I can't, the dream is back...

just for fun

2007-03-06T16:43:00.000-08:00

hand drawn animation on Vimeo

No thoughts this time round' or anything good to say. Just a very short shot I did from Curious George. This one took like, 3 days-- was fun cuz of the camera move. Always enjoy a good camera move shot!
I try to get a good mix of physical shots and acting shots in a film, even though physical shots invovle acting and acting shots involve physicality. Ooops, more depth than i said i was gonna have for this post... Enjoy!

are you an Actor, or a Technician?

2007-02-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

(I add this pic because it's guys like this that have inspired
the thought to this post)

This is something I feel that within the last year I've really had to come to grips with myself as an animator. If you're like me and known you wanted to be an animator since you were 9 you've been hearing for most of your life "animators are actors". You would have heard that if you could focus on one thing it should be performance. You've been hearing that animators are actors with pencils and all the other cliche things to be said. WHY then do so few of us really understand or impliment this? No doubt I include myself in this list.
We all have to come to a point in our artistic lives where we sit down with ourselves and have a very brutally honest heart to heart. We have to ask ourselves "Am I REALLY an actor/artist, or am I just a good technician?"
It's painful... growth, however necessary can be extremely painful at times. Growth shows us where we were/are weak, and sometimes it's embarrasing that we didn't see how weak we really were/are at the time. I bring this up because i feel like being vulnerable is a key elemant to personal growth but also the growth of others around you. We have to be honest with ourselves: are we really good actors, or can we just convincingly move stuff around. Understanding good weight, spacing, drawing things well or even convincingly ISN'T ENOUGH. It's something i feel like exists a lot today unfortunately (animation that is merely technically pleasing)... I wish i could say i have not contributed to it. There are so many animators out there (and I am talking specifically hand drawn although this does not solely apply to the hand drawn animation) that are very technically sound animators who blow you away with there tech. prowess. They understand drawing, and spacing, control their volumes well, blah blah blah. But they don't tell you jack squat about the characters they are performing. They don't THINK about their characters, instead they overindulge in squash and stretch, through in fancy smear drawings, flaunt their beautiful arcs... all at the price of a better pose that could have told you something important.
I think this can be partially attributed to the fact that we as a generation stand on a lot of brilliant work from the past guys to look at and be inspired by. And if you're like me you could sit around all day staring at Milt or Frank drawings/animation. It's our blessing and our curse-- we subconciously revert to what we know will work, we play it safe. That's how acting patterns begin, and cold sterile art is born. Ironically the old guys had NOTHING to look at (animation wise) and found their inspiration from life or other areas of art.
This is a tough thing to do (not copy the past)-- I am not just talking to students, I am talking to every animator: Pro, amateur, retired vet, whoever... no once escapes this question. But here's the GOOD news, no one has to create only technically pleasing art. You absolutely can create a moving performance. YOU have something special to say in a way that only YOU can say it. That is what will set you apart... the challenge is can you call a spade a spade and realize that maybe you've just been a good technician all these years/months/whatever! I know I had too and still daily ask myself why i am doing what i am doing.

The real turning point or inspiration for me was actually being rejected. I applied and was rejected from Pixar. No pity party here man, it's what woke me up! It hurt my pride a little, but that isn't necessarily bad. More importantly it showed me that I wasn't focusing on what really makes animation work, I was a technician who was fascinated with charts, solid drawing, interesting design, fun timing... so what man. So what... if none of that has something personal behind it, it's just mechanical. It set me straight--
I share all these thoughts not to discourage and get down on anyone, but to encourage everyone that they can be amazing! The trick is are you willing to look at yourself in the harsh light of day and really ask yourself this horribly honest question? I know if i want to do something special with my art, I have to every single day. NOW GO KICK SOME BUTT!

Refining away!

2007-02-08T21:14:00.000-08:00

Just trying to refine this... am having some friends who are actually GOOD at design look at this stuff and help me out. It's just been one of those "why do i have to suck so bad" weeks. Things'll get better though :)

Eye Darts and the Social Triangle

2007-02-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

Eye darts are one of those things that you don't see a ton of in Traditional animation. Why, I'm not sure. I certainly don't believe that it's too subtle for hand drawn-- lotsa people have proved that wrong, but i would say it is much MUCH more difficult to pull off in hand drawn.
More than how you pull it off though is WHY you pull it off. I've never had a director tell me this but i have had friends that have told me some directors will just tell them as they are finishing their shots, "looks great, now throw some eye darts in there and it's done!" OK, but ummmm, why? The funny thing is that when i do it in hand drawn most directors ask me to take them out. Weird--
There are many different feelings about eye darts-- Some people say they weaken the character, some people say without them the character looks dead. You can always go too far in either direction so I lie somewhere in the middle. It's always about the story your telling-- as an animator you tell stories in Micro form, shot by shot. There may be a time when a character is tense and very serious about something. That could be a time to hold those eyes still, like laser focused! Remember ever being yelled at by someone who was dead serious and they lock eyes with you so you know they are not kidding? That's what I'm talking about--
Sometimes though your character might need to be pondering something or reading someones expression. This is where the social triangle comes in. I thought a great way to teach this would be by looking at someone with the body of a greek god, and the face of an angel. It was an easy choice--

OK, soooo-- Social Triangle. It's exemplified below as the the first things we look at on other people to read how they are feeling about us, about themselves, what they are thinking... just reading them in general.
Generally when i do eye darts, especially in conversation bits, I dart them back and forth from left to right. If the character is right handed I start on the other characters right eye and work to the left and back again. If the character is left handed I will do the exact opposite--
The last thing we read on the face is the mouth. So at times i will alternate down slightly in between the left to right motion.
The thing about this stuff is knowing when to use them-- I love qoutes and I'm gonna butcher this one but it's a really neat one my friend Tony DeRosa told me. He said Mark Twain said this about writting, "The difference between finding a good word and the exact word to explain something is like the difference between a firefly and a lightening bolt!" What's that have to do with eye darts? well, eye darts aid in acting, and (an animation as a whole) is about distilling life to it's essence. When you see a good caricature of someone, it might take you a minute to get it then you forget it. But when you see an Al Hirschfield caricature it's like that lightening bolt man! It hits you because he's captured the essence of the person. Acting should capture the essence of the feelings of the moment. Eye Darts are one of the many tools to help you do that. This little post was more just to explain why and how to use them-- hope it helps!

S'more

2007-01-29T13:35:00.000-08:00

A couple more expressions and full body stuff-- Just playing around still, no definate on the design yet. I"m just trying to keep it simple, direct and clear. Later!

My latest Victim

2007-01-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

Oh man oh man, a MONTH without posting!! I must have been out of town or something-- wait, i was! Ummm yeah, so there! Welp, all you working types know how it is: your drawing a lot but you can't show or talk anything you are drawing which forces you to do your own stuff if you want anyone to see something. Not a bad thing actually! Since I've been heavily into the design realm lately I thought i'd share some of my more recent attempts at designing stuff. It's starting to make sense i think-- The biggest thing is being a good editor of your work... what don't you need-- what will make the drawing look good now, and what will make the drawing look good 10 years from now. In a lot of ways it's just like animating and boiling things down to the most simple way of saying something. What's the simplest shapes I can use to make something read, but then there's always that familiar "feeling" that you want in your work too, so that others can relate to it.

This here's Anaa-- She's kinda quirky, young, got a lot of energy, definately excentric and tends to make jokes that no one else laughs at except her (she has thought the back story to her jokes through so well it makes sense to her. She tends to be oblivious the akwardness it breeds). In some ways she quite a bit like me, slightly akward socially at times but once comfortable can fit in. I have a 50 foot piece of dialogue I am dying to animate. If i start now, maybe I can get it done by 2010!! K, Gotta go, see you guys in 2010!

Designing and animating!

2006-12-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! Well, probably by now the only person who's reading the blog is my mom. Can always count on ya mom!
It is COLD up here in Portland man! Seriously, snow and everything, and then rain, and then snow, and then ummm, rain. It was crazy this morning coming out of the hotel, there was a thick thick fog out but the sun was shinning through it intensely. It was blinding and beautful--
It really has been a great experience up here so far. Tough, but good. There is a ton of talent working on this film (Coraline). I kinda feel like eventually someones gonna find out I've been faking it this whole time. I'm really out of my comfort zone, which has been so healthy for me. I have been animating yes, but really focusing on design. Like, way more than I've ever been given the opportunaty to. Oh yeah, before you ask the drawing at the top is just one of my own, not from Coraline. So I feel as though design is beginning to click with me in a way that it never has before. Animation has always seemed natural to my thought process, and drawing has always been fun, but design is definately a learned discipline for me. The more i animate though the more i realize that you have been at least understand everything, if not be great at everything. Some might think that's dumb, i know i used too, but my favorite guys are very well rounded artists. Art/Animation is cyclical, everything influences and informs everything else. The better you know design, the better your poses will be. The better you understand locomotion the more you'll understand what your design needs to be able to do. The better you understand story the better character related questions you'll be able to ask before you start a shot. So i am really enjoying it and like i said learning tons!
The film looks gorgeous! It's a stop motion film but it feels very graphic and flat. They really are going through a lot to maintain that graphic feeling of a drawing. It's very beautiful. They are going to be doing some stuff that you will have never ever seen before in stop motion. I can't talk about them, but you will be stunned when you see it. The story has a lot of potential too, still very much in the works though.
Have an awesome Christmas and rad New Year everyone, thanks for stopping by... Mom.

Matt's Excellent Portland Adventure

2006-11-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

Welp, It's that time of the year. A time when we all need to reflect on why we should be thankful. Me, I have absolutlely nothing to not be thankful for. Yes, I could go on and on about my wonderful wife, the fact that i am still doing hand drawn animation for a living, and that we have so much more than 90 percent of the world. But honestly, what i am driven to confess is my thankfulness is for a God who loved me enough to die for me so that i may live. All else is rubbish compared to knowing Jesus as Lord of my life-- I am thankful indeed!
As for other news, I am affraid that posts are going to slow down dramatically for a while. I have taken a job up at Laika in Portland! It's not permenant, and i will mostly be working freelance from home though i will need to be spending a good long chunk of time up there in house. I'll be on "Coraline" doing hand drawn animation-- there is no hand drawn in the film, but they are using a lot of it for reference and other things. I've heard the film is looking amazing! Someone up there even told me that from the reels they've seen it's as strong as the "Iron Giant". Now, I'll take that with a grain of salt for now but if it's true this could be pretty freakin cool!
Anyhow, I do not intend on not ever posting, if i do it'll be small for now. No tutorials for a while--thanks for your patience everyone and to my students at CalArts, rock on and finish strong! I'll see you guys next semester! Cheers!

more designs and "drarwins"

2006-11-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

Hey hey, another post of "drarwins"... I just did these for a family member. She needed a lion character for an army pamphlet. I think I am now officially working for the US military-- i'm can't tell you who killed Kennedy though, yet.

Yeah, so this is my sort of generic lion i came up with. It needs some major refining but it's a real quick first pass at designing a character they'll like. We'll see i guess-- does anyone else hate drawing boots? I sure do!

Anyway, thought you'd enjoy seeing these! take it easy!

Sketchbook

2006-11-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

YO, YO! Check it! Pen and painted with Coffee. Oh yeah, caffinated coffee. Try it sometime!

fin

2006-11-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

Tied Down Final on Vimeo

So here it is! BIG THANKS to Kaveh for helping my compress this and adding a frame counter at the bottom of the screen. very cool, thanks man! So this was started in June doing the animation at nights and on weekends and here we are! Honestly, it's still not 100 percent done. My version of digicel is only 300 frames long and the actually scene length is 308. So, we're gonna miss the last 8 frames. The last thing to truly do is a beauty pass!
The animation at this point is pretty close-- I'm happy with it, but i think there is some stuff that needs tweaking, mostly nit picky stuff like overlap, blinks, spacing things. This is were your beauty pass comes in. Honestly, i've NEVER had the luxury to be able to take the time to do a beauty pass on my animation. Most studios don't do this, I know Pixar does but i don't think Disney or Dreamworks do. If you guys who work at either of those spots do please let me know so i can correct my info. Anyway, i will get a comprehensive list up of what i think should be tweaked (i.e. the blink on simple) and then do it, and post it :)
So that is near the longest shot i've ever animated! It was FUN! Really got to sink my teeth in and struggle with the acting. Compare the rough pass and the tie down, it's staggeringly different. It's fun to see how organic the creative process is. Like i said, tie down, for me at least, is as creative if not more so than the ruff pass. The problem with doing personal stuff is sometimes you don't have what you might elsewhere like model sheets. So, I think the model changed a tiny bit-- although i was careful to check every Key i did with my first drawing. I think something i discovered, to all of your advantanges is that I tend to be a better refiner than i am just laying down a beautiful rough drawing like some crazy french animators! Why is it that French guys always know how to draw, like , amazingly well! Anyway, besides the point. Like i was saying if any of you work this way you know you're not alone. I think not having an official modelsheet makes a difference too-- that is, in what your ruffs look like. But this just goes to show that everyone works differently and can come to good results in the end. However, i will say it is a consistant goal of mine to be learning how to make more beautiful ruffs all the time. I typically use my ruffs as land marks really, just abstract ugly drawings that i KNOW i am going to refine. But sometimes that's not fair to your director who needs to NOT BE SURPRISED when you show him your tie down.
So i guess the next step is this-- I will begin the tutorials again on tying down-- being more thurough about it, finish the beauty pass on the animation and post it. THEN i want to do something scary! well, for me at least :) I am gonna ask a hand full of animators i know and respect look at the animation and critique it. I will post their critique's on the blog so you all can learn from their wisdom! That's really where animation is at anyway, mentorship. The great thing about this artform is that it feels like there is a lineage being passed down from generation to generation! To be a character animator is a high artform, and no easy task! It's like once you are apart of this great team of people that you now have a sacred responsibility to carry on the artform in the most respectful and integral manner possible. Not to make an idol out of it, but rather, just to respect it and those who've come before you and give it everything you have to make it special.
Thanks for hanging with me through this guys!

2006-10-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

Dancing James Baxter

Some people just make you sick! And i mean that in the most complimentary way possible :) In case you never saw it while it was on his website, i found it here on youtube. It's a fun bit James made for the "open house" party at his studio. Some people got flipbooks, I haven't been able to get my grubby little hands on one yet, and notice the "yet"... So, enjoy this whilst I try going back to bed and actually sleeping for a change. cheers!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOMAD!

2006-10-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

How nerdy is this, I'm celebrating my blogs birthday! Well, what's NOT lame is all you people out there who've made this so much fun to do! The funny thing about this blog is that i started it so flipantly that i never expected or intended to do much with it. I though it'd be a convient way to show potential employers some work i've done. Well, nearly 50,000 hits later it has been a big teaching venue, as well as showing off a little bit of what i've done.
The most enjoyable part has truly been hearing from people like yourself that visit every now and again! I love sharing animation and what i've learned about it, and it's been a blast to hear that some many people enjoy reading about it too! Also, the other great thing about this new blogland we have found ourselves in is all the AMAZING artwork out there! It's scary, but inspiring too! If there's any 2D guys out there with blogs, post more pencil tests man! There are only a couple i know of that do, i think it'd be really fun to see more of that out there!
This next year i'd like to finish that tutorial of course, ya know, on how to approach a scene. I still have to finish all the tie stuff. by the way, that bear shot is nearly complete, about 85 percent done man! but i want to post more on my short film-- maybe some designs, even though i suck at it, maybe some boards, and definately more animation.
So thanks to all the amazing artists out there who have made this such a fun experience and here's to another year at the Hand Drawn Nomad!

From 2's to 1's

2006-10-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this for a while, and it kinda works out that I can post this now cuz I've been teaching this in my class at CalArts. There is a real danger in SOLELY thinking on 2's. Meaning, you assume that if you need to add ones inbetween those drawings all you do is simply add them in evenly spaced. Not so much-- It's a super important tool to understand the difference in spacing on ones and two's and it can be kind tricky. but the important thing here is to understand WHY you space things a certain way, not memorize charts for whenever the occasition pops up.
I thought a very clear way to present this idea would be through a little ball bounce experiment for ya'll to prove my points. I've animated 4 different ball bounces, all different spacing. 1: all 2's, 2: lazy inbetweens, 3: adjusted spacing, 4: fine tuning of spacing. The first test is completely on two's--

Ball Bounce on 2's - video powered by Metacafe

As you can see it works "OK", but it's not great-- what would give it a lot more fluidity and weight, you decide, would be to put it on to 1's. And I would agree with you, plus it's strobing! So, you just think, whelp, just throw in there 1 drawing between every other drawing and we just be set! Yeah, ummmm, THEN your results come back and you get this:

Ball Bounce - video powered by Metacafe

It's not terrible, but it doesn't have the weight you'd hoped for-- in fact, it feels kinda watery and floaty. Why? What happened-- this animator made "lazy or possibly ignorant inbetweens"... Meaning, he wasn't considering the transition of spacing from ones to 2's or he wasn't thinking period. The main parts of the test, you'll notice, is in the slow in's and out's and the contact of the ball. By the way, side note: you always need at least 2 frames of contact for it to actually read as a contact. Anyway, you think, huh, how can I fix this-- you need to respace some of your animation. You locate the problem areas and begin rethinking it. It seems floaty from 17 to 1, so you respace with place 18 as a half, 19 as a half, and 20 as a third (because that last inbetween needs to be a third to continue the slow out).

ball bounce - video powered by Metacafe

Ok, so it's looking pretty close now! That repsacing from 17-1 really helped! But man, it's still a tiny bit sticky on the contact, and it still doesn't have the punch on the impact that you wanted. What else is there to do? You've already respaced it to an extreme favor-- Whelp, just take out the drawing 10 and add one frame into your slow in at the beginning of the chart! Simple as that!

Ball Bounce - video powered by Metacafe

So yeah man, 1's can be tricky, and sometimes it's a trial and error thing to figure out what'll translate but I think the important thing here to remember is to PLAN FOR ONE'S. If you know your going to need to be doing something that requires 1's, plan for it, build it into your existing work that is on 2's. This is why I animate with the lightbox on, so I can see where my spacing is coming and going from. Spacing is one of those very important pieces of the animators tool-kit that so few truly understand. I'd like to do a whole other post on spacing when your animating your Keys on 3's: 1, 4, 7. but i'm affraid i don't have the energy at the moment! Thanks for continuing to visit everyone! I love hearing from you all, and please, feel free to ask any questions you want!

Were have I been man!

2006-10-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

My apologies everyone! Man, has been so psycho... have been helping someone to get ready for pitch and had to animate, like, near 30 feet in 3 weeks! Ughhhh, i hate it when life gets taken over by work--
So, because of my business i am going to continue the tutorials but in short bursts. I just don't have the time to sit down and organize an entire huge entry right now, but i need to keep posting. I dug this up... i showed this in a rougher version a long time ago but i realized i never posted the finished piece! I like the weight in it, but i spent so much time on the beginning that the end, the real acting got sacrificed. meaning, i had to cut it off about half way through cuz of time. So, hope everyone enjoys!

hand drawn animation on Vimeo
So, here's a little question I'd be curious to hear from all you traditional animators on. What would you prefer to work on... cintiq, paperless hand drawn animation or just the regular paper and real pencil animation? I ask cuz I've heard very mixed reactions-- I've tried the cintiq, i hate it personally although I'd do it if i had to. but i would prefer a choice between which method. what do you guys think?

An oldy but a goody

2006-09-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

hand drawn animation on Vimeo
It's hard to believe that this piece of animation is nearly 4 years old now-- thank goodness for growth. Some of those drawings a terrible in there! The fun thing about this shot is it was the first real shot that i had on the film that was of any significance. It ain't perfect, i hate the last 30 frames of it or so, i got very pressured by production towards the end of this shot ( was pretty slow back then). I don't think straight under pressure... it coulda been so much better, but ah well-
Things have been so crazy- working day, night and weekends. I have no time to post anymore... sucks i know-- but i see free time coming my way, and when it does be sure you see a continuation on the "tie down" part of these tutorials!
Until then, cheers!
Matty

another plug: Andrew Shek

2006-09-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

Whilst i grind away on free-lance and preparing future tutorials take a look at this blokes blog! Andrew Shek www.elephantart.blogspot.com . Sometimes there are people that just understand something, in this case, it's design. I've always kinda had bland, sucky designs so when i see someones work like Andrew it always makes me wanna work harder at getting better with design. Take a look!
And heck while your at it take a look at this girls blog too! Robin Hall at http://idlesiren.blogspot.com/. She too very obviously has a gift for design and puts me to shame man!

Tie Down: Refining your acting, drawings, and the technical side

2006-09-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

Phewwwwwwww! Have been SOOOO busy between preparing to teach 2nd year at CalArts, (for which i am VERY excited about!), working on a project that could spawn into something cool if it actually takes off, and a bunch of other life stuff! So, i thought about posting something completely non related to animation but declined after i thought about what people expect from the blog.
So, where to start. Tie down is just like roughing out a shot, it's up to your disgression about how you want to tie down a shot. I think you have to examine who you are before you decide on a method- and it's totally cool to switch methods up. I do to a degree. but i thought for starters i'd show a bunch of different examples of tied down drawings and talk about them a bit.
First up is Glen Keane. Glen is a good place i think to start when talking about tie down-- He's very individual, which is something i admire greatly. He's draws loosely, but everythings there. Actually i think his rep for drawing really rough is a bit over-stated. Some of his drawings are actually rather direct, that thick line can make them look rougher than they really are. But the main point to draw (no pun intended) from someone like Glen is the best type of tie down for you to do is one that you do naturally. This is the way glen draws... so let him draw that way! I've spent waaaaaaay too much time in my artistic life trying to draw like someone else. Be you! That's what makes these guys stand out, is that they are being themselves to the ultimate capacity. what if everyone drew like Milt, that would be soooooo boring! If you follow that path you'll only ever be a medocre copy of another mans genious. Something else i find interesting is that sometimes we do things that mean something to us that others view as "pointless" because no one will ever see it. Glen shades his drawing, no one will ever see that stuff but if that is what he needs to do to make a drawing come alive then he HAS to do it! Obviously the downfall of tying a drawing down this way is that it can be difficult to follow by an assistant. but, if your assistant actually knows how to draw you should be alright.

Next up is Andreas Deja. Everyone knows he's a Milt fanatic, just like most of us although i think he's taken fandom to a new level with his HUGE collection of animation art. I think Andreas is another great example of being yourself but still having an influence. It's really quite obvious that Andreas loves Milt, but it doesn't look exactly like a Milt drawing. There's a flare to his drawings that are completely his own, and that's what makes them so beautiful! Andreas is also no where near as anal as Milt was in terms of tying down a drawing. You will see what is important to an animator by the way he ties down his drawings-- I think Andreas is a bit more technical minded that Glen is but they are both overwhelmingly emotional. Which is not a bad place to be!

Ahh- one last example here of a tie down drawing although there are infinite examples in my opinion. James' drawings are just like his animation, delicate, precise, and clear. You'll note his line quality-- it's a sort of etchy kind of line. The first person i can think of that really used this was Ronald Serle, and Milt loved Searle and used it a little bit, Fucile loved both those guys and implimented it into his drawings and James and Tony (from what i've heard) are good friends and have had an influence i'm sure on each other. Now personally, I prefer this method of tying down. I feel this-- whatever gets up on screen should be 100 percent your doing, whether it's good or bad. This way of working is a bit on the practical side in terms that your animation moves through clean-up WAY faster than a rough scene does (assuming it's on model and everything). But even more than that it offers a reallyu great amount of control to the animator. Sometimes when your lines get mushy and thick it can be tough to do subtler stuff with the eyes because your pencil is too thick and the spacing get's lost. Once i switched to this method my acting got called out on the carpet. I couldn't hide behind loose drawings anymore-- this is not to claim that Andreas and Glen hide, it's actually quite the opposite. what i mean is more the irresponsible type of draftsmenship where you leave WAY too much to clean-up. That's not Glen or Andreas-- what i am getting at is that it's important to me to be in control of what i do. This is the perfect method FOR ME. Maybe not for you--

I guess the key to this particular post is to experiment and be you to your fullest capacity! I feel very strongly that when you are comfortable in being you then your art will really take on a life of it's own. Yes, influences are important to the development of an artist, mine are probably pretty obvious, but staying there is artistically stunting. Be curious, branch out, take risks--

The next post will start to cover the refining process of tie down in hand drawn animation- putting things on model, turning the character, refining spacing, and most importantly refining your performance: adding eye darts, taking eye darts out, meaningful blinks, ect... thanks for your patience everyone. Life doesn't seem to want to stop for my blog!

TEASER

2006-08-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

bear animation on Vimeo

Have been pretty busy between working freelance and trying to get this shot tied down-- i knew it'd be a while until i would get it complete which is the way i wanted to present it, but i thought i owed it to everyone to show where it's at as of right now.
As far as critique, the one change i am going to make is a little bit of lip sync stuff arounf the "get outta here". Fast dialgoue can be tricky- and where i put the blink on the word "simple", i feel takes away from his expression and the sorta of "eureka" feeling i wanted, like, he's think "well isn't it obvious". I feel like taking the blink out, and closing the eyes before the accent on the I of "simple" and the overshooting them will give me a more truthful performance. so anyway, check it out and stay tuned!

IT'S COMING!

2006-08-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

IT'S COMING!!!!!
Hey everybody! The tie down is coming i promise-- this ones gonna take some time though! I'll do my best to post what and when i can but haven't had much to say yet. but believe me i will once i can show ya'll this tie down version! hang in there everybody and we'll see ya on the next post!

What do "Lady in the Water" and Glen Keane have in common?

2006-08-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

Man, all these new posts from me! What not working does for my blog is GREAT! Just have some ramblings i feeli like i wanna pour out on paper.
Saw Lady in the Water. I'm not gonna review it or anything, but in short i liked it quite a bit. There's always something i might have done a little differently but that's always true for any movie! I feel like it was one of the more straight forward films that M. Night has done. He sets it up, explains it, and then resolves it. no huge twist, which was nice for a change. I think we all kinda expect that now with his films. The thing that always amazes me is how misunderstood he is as a filmmaker... he's one of my favorite young guy directors so when people jus ignorantly say, "ahhh, he's that weirdo horror filmmaker right?" Naw man! His films have such emotion, and by the way they are thrillers not horror films. He always delves deep into a characters plight... anyway, i saw the film and was just thinking about how i'd love to see some different types of stories being told in animation. It also really made me miss working on features!
Well, as i walked out of the theater who did i see sitting with his daughter on a resturaunt patio? Yeah,ummmm, Glen Keane. Myfriend who was with me has heard me talk about all these guys so when i mentioned it even he was star struck. It was the weirdest thing-- i've sat next to Steve Martin in a screening room, talked to Mark Hamill, and even PeeWee Herman but no one makes me more nervous then someone like Glen. My knee's got weak, and i stopped being able to think of coherant things to say. I hate geeking out on the blog, but man, i haven't felt that way in a long time. My friend urged me to go interupt his dinner to say hi but i can't imagine how many strangers do that to him so i just kept walking. but it really made me think--
I am thankful that i am still able to do hand-drawn animation and make a living at it. All of my classmates, at least the ones who are animators, are not doing hand drawn but CG. even a lot of my co-workers have turned to it just out of necessity. and i have gotten to continue doing it, how lucky am i! but i have to admit, sometimes the projects i have to do can be a bit taxing to say the least. So walking out of that theater and then seeing a childhood hero just really made me long to really be apart of something i care deeply about. I don't care about fame as i'm sure Glen doesn't, but i do care about being apart of something that matters to me. Naturally my thoughts lead me to think about Disney doing hand drawn animation again. The cat's out of the bag, i mean we all know it's gonna be the Frog Princess, we all know they are building a new building where circle 7 is but who's gonna be apart of it? That's a road i can't go down, i can't worry about it. I have hope that my dream job will exist eventually-- So what DO Lady in the Water and Glen Keane have in common. I think they were reminders to me that so much is possible in animated filmmaking that we haven't even scratched yet, and that i so deeply want to be apart of scratching that new surface.

Random nuggets of joy

2006-08-01T16:39:00.001-07:00

I've had a lot of time to sit around and think about what i might not have covered in the last few posts on animating a shot, so i've come to a boiling point now and i think i'm ready to spew out some thoughts.
Here's a debateable topic: Animate with lightbox on or off? As with MANY things in the process of animating this is what i've learned, EVERYONE DOES IT DIFFERENTLY! James Baxter animates with it on, others like John Pomeroy animate with it off. not all the time i'm sure, but that's at least what i've witnessed these 2 do. and yet, they are both great. answer... it's up to you- it's good to know the pro's and cons for having it on all the time.
PRO'S:
easy to track spacing
helps with keeping volumes
helps keep a good context in your mind of where you are

CONS:
Sometimes your drawings can get kinda flat
you stop flipping
things start to become mechanical

Me, i animate with it on most of the time, but, i always have my lamp angled "just so",so i can focus on the drawing i have on the pegs a little better. Like i said, it's seems to me that everyone does it differently.

Spacing: Here's an interesting subject that i'll cover more once i delve into tie down more, but spacing is something i've discovered few animators understand even though it's the difference between weight and no weight, laugh or no laugh in a scene. It's very technical but once you understand it you can start using it artistically. The bottom line for me and spacing is mostly about "where to put what", meaning, where do i use half's and where do i use thirds. It'snot easily explained, but i'll say this. Anytime you are slowing in and slowing out i typically use a 3rd on the very last inbetween to the key drawings. however if a character is slowing down but not to a complete stop and then progresses to speed up i will just use halfs. confused-- don't worry about it, i'll explain more later.

Ahhhh, here's a frustrating one! KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! Everyone in animation knows this K.I.S.S. things. I think this is the critique i've heard more from animators i respect than any other critique. As animators we kinda wanna impress, ya know? show all our amazing "skills" to qoute Napoleon... but it's really a matter or being confident enough NOT to do something fancy to linger on a pose. I have found that this for me is atough line to draw sometimes. You can go too far in any direction really.... "if i hold it back too much, it'll have no nuance. If i don't simplify enough my poses won't read." Unfortunately there is no answer-- it's case dependsant, but the answer for each scene revolves around what the point of the shot is. and believe me you guys, i'm preaching to myself! If the scene benefits from those eye darts your throwing in there, then great, but if it's distracting then take'em out no matter how well executed they are. Something i heard alot from Tony Derosa was "work within the pose". I used to get confused cuz his stuff would seem so boiled down to me-- and THAT'S the point! He boils things down to their essence and works within the poses. working within the pose can be anything the character does while in the pose (head shakes, blinks, slight breathing). Look at the stuff on Sher Kahn, Milt could drawing anything and move stuff like no one else, yet, that's the most subtle stuff he ever did! What used to impress me was stuff that moved brilliantly (good weight and such), but now what blows me away is subtle acting that makes you feel something. It's kind of scary really-
Okay, just had to get that off of my chest! I am hoping that the next post can be a continuation of the "tutorial series!". I just finished 2 jobs and actually have time to work on my own stuff. yeah!! take it easy all!

Post 2 and a half: Breaking it down

2006-07-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay on this post everyone! Blogger wouldn't let me upload pictures for the longest time, but now it's all figured out!

Now that you've all had a chance to look at the rough piece of animation, i'll go through how exactly i came to that point in the process. I mentioned that a turn-around is ideal to put behind you on your disc to flip from for refrence of model. I did up a quick turn around for anyone who wasn't sure what one was. I also did a quick version of a short hand drawing. This is a very useful device to employ when your roughing something out. It's a very loose version of the final design. It's just to get the expression in and block out the volumes. You can really burn through footage fast when you have a short hand version of your character to draw which brings me to my first point of roughing out a shot: LOOSEN UP!

This is NOT the stage for making pretty drawings yet. Personally i think that roughs are quite beautiful when done well and with honesty. Here are things you should not be overly concerned with at this stage of the process: details like hair, nostrils, nuanced facial animation, eye darts, perfecting the dialogue, every single wrinkle in the clothing and every single inbetween. What you SHOULD be focusing on is: performance, gestural drawing, rhythm, consistant purportions, flow, and, you guessed it, performance!!! oh yeah, did i mention performance? It's important to think about your animation in a certain way. I believe this can some up what we do, animate feelings! Meaning, don't think "ok i gotta pick up the leg, move it here"--- naw naw naw, C'mon! animate feelings man! Yes, mechanics: spacing, arcs, on-model drawing contribute to good performance but they are merely a support FOR the performance. I personally feel this way, without great mechanics you can't communicate your great performance properly and yet if your animation is wonky because you don't understand good technique i think it could potentially pull someone out of the performance. Likewise a beautifully animated character from a technical stand-point only tickles the brain, not touch the heart. So while you need to be mindful to a degree at this stage of the process of techincal things, your main goal is making that funny little character breath and live. This is why most people work pretty rough at this stage-- I will admit that these ruffs of mine are a bit more complete than i usually do, but this time around it felt right. I work loosely because your first pass is like trying to capture the essence of the emotion of the scene. The essence of something is the core, all things shed off-- kinda like a quick sketch. So, step one: Find your story-telling poses. This is always your first step. Finding those poses that will tell the audience what your character is thinking and feeling. You should have done this to a degree already in your thumbnailing process, but everyone works differently and there's no telling how you'll come to that final pose. Sometimes i thumbnail everything out, and then spontinaeously i find something better as i'm roughing it out and then don't even use my thumbnails. Or sometimes I just stick exactly to what i thumbnailed. it's always different. So, i guess the point in all that is to allow for spontinaeous moments but also it's wise to have a pretty clear idea of what your shot is to be eventually. Make sense? How you get there can and will change from shot to shot.
So basically you have your rough poses... and as you can see in the pics they are pretty far apart time wise:frm 1 to frm 59. I call these anchor drawings... they are starting and stopping points, but a lot needs to happen inbetween them. For example, from 1 to 59 the character is just listening to another character say "So what's the flight situation". I have a lot planned for this but i will not execute it untill tie down. Things like breathing, looking around and such. The main thing is to not draw too much attention to himself just yet-- whenever another character is talking and in the same frame (as there will be eventually hence the nudge pose at the end of the shot) you keep the other character "alive" but subdued. I really like using eye darts and breathing for thinking (which you won't see until tie-down). That's all this character is doing at this point, he's thinking about their situation. Thus he hits a brewing point and at frm. 59 lets out the word "simple".
Something else i look for is when an actor takes breath's in their performance, i know i mentioned it for thinking moments but i just plain like it in performances too. It helps give you the sense that the character is alive. It's easy to over-do so you gotta be careful with how much you use it but i like to try and build them into the performances on a consistant basis.
So you hit up all your main story telling keys, roughly time them and then move on to filling it all out a bit.

The next step is to break down your anchor keys with some other keys. This is where you build in arcs, breathing, extra thinking poses, head turns. Basically flesh it out-- you really need to be planning ahead for what your eventually going to tie down. Ultimately it's the performance your after but if something is so indecernable (a.k.a so stinking rough and off-model) that you are having an impossible time tying it down maybe you ought to complete your ruffs a little more before you go to tie down. everyones different of course, but i know I've learned a lot from this phrase "Value your ruffs". It's a Glen Keane term not surprisingly-- Some animators treat their ruffs as a means to an end... no no no no, ruffs are an art unto themselves! why do you thinkeveryone loves a good Glen Keane ruff... it's his heart and soul that's why! I digress!

So basically all your doing from here on out the end of the first pass is fleshing things out a bit. You dont want to waiste your time on details that don't matter yet, but you do want to give enough information to tell your director what the shot will eventually look like.

Incidentally, the sooner you can get some numbers going on your animation (i.e timing) the better!

Okee doke peoples! That's it for now-- i do plan on taking a little break from this online teaching stuff for a little bit since it's gonna take me a long time to tie this stuff down on top of work and stuff. So, i might post here and there about some other stuff but rest assured i will finish this series. Looking forward to completing it! take it easy!

Post 2: ROUGH IT OUT

2006-07-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

hand drawn animation - video powered by Metacafe

Before i forget i DID NOT DEISGN THIS CHARACTER. This is Steven MaCleods of www.clockroom.blogspot.com. This character is from HIS film from CalArts this year. It's one of those designs that just roll off your pencil, really wonderful shapes! i love him Steve!

Here it finally is! In the next couple days i will go through it piece by piece and breakdown exactly how i approached this rough stage. Remember everyone, this is just a rough. There's a LOT tweeking that has to happen from here (mainly pulling things back a bit), this is just your heart and soul on the paper. the next step is refining it all in tie down. but look for my next post where i will break it all down for everyone. enjoy!

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

2006-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

Welp, here we are again on the second post of the "animate your own shot" saga! This post will mainly be a sorta of common sense kind of lesson. There are some helpful Tips and Tricks that i employ while getting ready to animate a shot. and by the way, these are in no particular order. OK! you've got your road map, you've got your conviction and your gusto, and a lot of coffee! your almost ready to start your amazing shot that young and old will admire for centuries to come! The very first thing i do AFTER conception of a shot (this sounds like Health Ed), is write up your X-Sheet. Richard Williams does a fine job of explaining this in his book, but using your X-Sheet is a great way to think through your timing. Sometimes you want to do funny little hand gestures ontop of your main pose and aren't sure if the hand will settle in enough time for your main pose to read, this is where you start to gestimate whether it'll work or not. It's hit and miss. The more you animate the more your know what'll work and what won't. And also, number your X-sheet all the way to the end on the odd numbers: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc... I've had animators tell me that at ALL cost keep things on odd numbers. This never made complete sense to me, what they meant is "if you keep it on odd's then you can keep it all on 2's and make less work for yourself". As long as that works for your scene fine, but if something needs to be keyed out on 3's just do the work! If you don't want to work hard why are you in animation for heavens sake? but also more practically if you plan things on 2's and they stay on 2's it's easy to throw things on 1's without having to renumber like made. Plus, it's easier to find where your at in the shot if you have a problem arising. Your drawing number IS the frame number on this system and makes things easier on everyone.

Another tip for ya is to blow up or down a xerox of the model sheet to match the size of the character your animating and tape it to the top of your disc (as shown in pic above) so all you have to do is flip to the back to check on how your drawing the model (a turn around is ideal). Trust me, no matter how big or how small your shot is DO THIS! There is a great story i heard from animator Derek Thompson. He worked at DreamWorks on Prince of Eygpt... one day he walked into James Baxters office and started small talking and asked him how he got his work "so solid". James didn't say a word, stood up, walked down the hall to the xerox machine, tapped on it as if to say "like this" and walked back into his office. All with a smile on his face. He meant that he uses the xerox machine in ways like this to maintain the model. If James finds it useful, i think WE ALL need to be doing this.
Also, and this is a matter of opinion, do turn off your music, radio, dvd, whatever it is. I LOVE to "watch" or listen to movies while i work. I do it all the time, but NOT while i am doing my first pass. Your first pass is really your heart and your soul and if your like most you need concentration to find the scene somewhere inside you. It may not be the prettiest version of your scene, but it sometimes is the most honest. Personally when i know the shot is working acting wise, i put on a film that helps me zone out but not until i have it.
I know this post must seem slightly boring and thin compared to the last, but this is just a simple tips and tricks post. The NEXT post (in 2 days!) you get to actually see what the roughed out shot looks like and i'll talk about how i approached it. Until then be thinking about questions you might have and i'd be happy to answer them!

Teaching at CalArts

2006-07-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

Phewwwwww- these 2 free-lance gigs are killing me man! Am thankful for the work but sheesh, i need a little me time know what i'm sayin'? This post is mainly for my CalArts students... I just wanted to let you all know how much fun i had last semester, it truly was MY pleasure to get nerdy about animation with you guys. But alas, teaching first year was not to be for me this coming semester. Mike Ngyuen will be returning to teach 1st year so Cynthia asked me if i'd be willing to step aside............... AND TEACH 2ND YEAR BABY! Oh yeah, we get to nerd out for a whole other year! And boy do i have some RAD RAD assignments for you guys! You guys are gonna get your brains so swelled with animation goodness that all you'll be able to do is respond to people in animation terms. "so how long will you be gone for? Ohhhhh, about 3000 frames" or, "Could you reach that for me? Sure, let me time it out on my X sheet first. Let's see, anticipate, squash down, stretch up, delay arms...
But seriously folks, it's gonna be RAD! Be looking for the next post on the "How to do a flippin' cool shot" serious. I am gonna cover a little more practical tips and tricks in what you do right before you start animating next. stay tuned!

Step 1: Planning your Shot

2006-07-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

Soooo, the long awaited "Start to finish" series of posts has officially begun! I am sorry for the time it has taken, but i have been gone, am working 2 freelance gigs (and am thankful for the work), and plainly i wanted to make sure this was as good a post as it could be. So i've put a lot of thought into it!
Let me start this post out with the comment that this is only ONE way of animating. there are as many ways of animating a shot as there are animators! So, find what works best for you and then modify it. The wonderful thing about art and animation is that it is so very personal-- make it your own! I can't say that i use even my own methods all the time. Sometimes certain scenes are very simple shots that don't need elaborate planning. I am doing a 30 frame shot for a commercial right now-- very very simple, i didn't even thumbnail it. However, i find when a shot is "lengthyer" and more specifically offers certain acting/staging challenges I NEED to explore on paper. but before any thumbnailing happens i am going to tell you to do something that a Production Manager would HATE me for, but here it is: THINK! The last thing you should do when starting a new shot is pick up your pencil. You HAVE to internalize what you are about to execute. If you can't do either one of these things you're scene will not be successful.
A: Visualize
B: Internailze
Ollie Johnston has been qouted as saying "If you can't see it, you won't be able to draw it. I believe that seeing it and feeling it (internalizing it) are related but not necessarily the same. I think they are related in that if you can't feel it, then you won't be able to invision it clearly in your head. So, think about your scene. Ask questions: who is he what's his personality, where does this shot take place in the arc of the story, who did he just talk to and what was the last emotion he/she felt, what's the arc of the scene, where's the entertainment value in this shot. BE RUTHLESS with yourselves in your exploration... if you find yourselves slavishly applying Preston Blair formulas to your shots then your scene is already dead. Yes, sometimes books like that help with technical things but right now i'm talking about conception of a shot! Get OUT of your studio, take a walk, ride your bike, read, whatever inspires you!
I personally like to take walks and really think through my shots... by the time i'm done with my walk i am ready to start writting down some ideas. Also, this is a great time for research. Now this i will say with no apollogy... everyone needs to research. I don't care who you are but so much comes from studying and researching that you couldn't possibly have brought to it any other way.
So to sum it all up-- get juiced up and excited about what your gonna do. I know that i cannot animate something unless i believe in it wholeheartedly! Have the guts to challenge and idea you think is weak (with grace of course) and be willing to be wrong. that's the big one, throw your pride out the window man! I learned that one the hard way!
So... now that you've though all about your shot and have conviction and just KNOW that your scene is going to be revered through the anals of time you can begin to plan and thumbnail! Ideally before you start thumnailing or even thinking about your shot you should have your dialogue memorized. All of the ups and downs... where the accents are. KNow it in and out. What i start doing at this point is finding some gestures that tell the main key points of the scene. It doesn't have to be many poses, in fact it's usually better when you simplify. Tony DeRosa's main comment on most of my animation has been to simplify it-- so start scribbling and finding those gestures that explain what the character is feeling and thinking.
Here are some pages of thumbnails i did for the shot i will be animating. It is here where you find your gesture, plan your staging, write down ideas... let it all out. Try things that are outrageous-- you never know where your thoughts might carry you. Oh, and don't worry about making pretty drawings-- these are just thoughts, i use stick figures a lot when i am thumbnailing. Especially when i don't know the character too well yet.
The line of Dialogue reads: Deer:"So whats the flight situation?" Bear: "Simple (pause)... there's no way on earth we're getting out of here tonight(pause and laughs). we'd have more luck playing pick up sticks with our butt cheeks that we would getting a flight out of here before midnight" ( i tried posting the dialogue put could not)

I mean come on, look at these drawings! they suck! They're not meant to be pretty, they are meant to be honest. I think sometimes it can be a downfall of animators to mistakes nice poses for "thinking". I've done it for sure-- certainly poses can evoke thinking, but i really feel like think is shown mainly in change. i.e A character is in a situation where he is being asked to make a difficult decision. He is tense, shoulders up, chest inflated, brows down-- he realized he needs to make a certain decision and is at ease with it. He relaxes his shoulders and exhales and lifts his brows. There is not a huge pose change in there, just a change of shape that shows us his thinking. You are working within a pose with something like this-- now sometimes you want to have some sort of change of line of action to make your idea clear it's just knowing where to do it. I am only skipping around these topics because i will cover more once we get into the animating portion of the posts (the FUN part).

I hope that's a fine start for everyone! Please please feel free to ask question if you have them either e-mail me or just post it and i'll reply. So get excited, get inspired and have fun everyone!

I'm Back!

2006-07-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

Phew, THAT was a great vacation! Went to Alaska with my wife and immediate family and just in time too! I was feeling so dry and so imaginationless but wow, Alaska is truly a place that can kick your imagination into hi gear!
Of course todays post isn't gonna be anything huge, it's the 4th of July man! I got BBQ to eat! but i did want to hop on real quick like and say "hi" to all the animation bloggers out there! The next post will be on starting a scene. As i said before i left, i intend on going from start to finish meaning planning to tie down. All for your viewing pleasure-- it will not be consistant posts as i am animating this stuff in my off time, so you can expect other non related posts in the meantime such as, pictures of the the NEW disney feature animation building. Or at least, i am 90 percent sure it is-- and other cools bits.
Until then for all your Americans out there "Happy 4th of July!" and alll the rest, have a great rest of your day!