How James Benson animates things

Always interesting to see workflows:

The Joy of Animation: Tips Tricks and Techniques - Hjalti Hjalmarsson

iAnimate Lab - No21 - Brett Pascal

iAnimate Lab - No21 - Brett Pascal from iAnimate on Vimeo.

Successful Animator

I've only followed Successful Animator for a day or so but the output is crazy. I don't know how much gets repeated and how automated those tweets are but it's very interesting to read through and there are a lot of tips, not just quotes. Worth going through and reading:

- found via Clay Kaytis

Reference Reference Kickstarter

How To Overcome A Creative Block

I usually tend to look at other people's work that inspires me (at work or movies or clips online in general). There's always a great idea that makes you go "Nice! That's cool! Oh, wait! What if I do that in here? Tweak it like that? Oh, here's a new idea! Oh yeah, that works!" etc. Not very scientific, but inspiration from other other people's work helps me a lot, more so than taking a break (unless you talk to someone else about your shot). :)

Pose Drawing Sparkbook

I unfortunately missed posting this during the Kickstarter campaign, but the good news is that it was a great success and according to Cedric Hohnstadt you can now preorder the book!

Head over here for more info!

Richard Lico | Games Animation Workflow

Creature Animation on Demand by Animation Mentor

Head over to Vimeo's On Demand for Animation Mentor to check out all the different Lectures you can purchase.

Animation Notes from Ollie Johnston

Head over here for the full list.

1. Don’t illustrate words or mechanical movements. Illustrate ideas or thoughts, with the attitudes and actions. 
2. Squash and stretch entire body for attitudes. 
3. If possible, make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression. 
4. What is the character thinking?
etc.

There are 30 points in total and gold! Found via @AnimSchoolTweet

Inside the studio

That sounds very familiar..

Another common thing artists will experience is suddenly having a trailer shot due. A trailer company is hired to cut a trailer from the film’s current edit. They work separately from the director who is busy working with the editor. They may cut several trailers, and then show them to the director and studio for feedback. Once everyone agrees on a few cuts, the studio will test the trailer for a small audience and the one that scores the highest across the desired demographic will be the trailer that is selected for finalization. It happens so quickly that even the internal teams can barely keep up. The shots in the trailer which are visual effects shot have to go back to the vendor for completion. Sometimes they can’t complete the shot and they say to send it to another vendor for trailer version only, and sometimes they beef up hours and get it done and charge a slight overage or rush cost. That’s when you the artist are called, usually late into the process, and you find out the shot has a trailer version due soon and you need to work overtime. It’s a compliment that the trailer company chose the shot, but it’s also a drag because it might not look as great as you want for the final film. All that matters is that it’s good enough for the trailer at that point.

There's a lot more at vfxlaw and well worth a read if you want to know what's going on "inside the studio".

Walt Disney Animation Studios – Technology Papers Videos

Love seeing all that! Head over here for all the clips.

Realism and Abstraction - by Andreas Deja

Great post about using reference and how to alter the timing and staging. There are great photos and the information is very interesting (as with everything on Mr. Deja's blog). So head over there to check it out! => Realism and Abstraction

AnimSchool: Showing Weight

It's awesome that AnimSchool puts those lectures online!

AnimSchool Interview: Aju Mohan, Part 2

Go to the animschool blog for pt2 of the interview with Aju Mohan. There's a cool little clip showing how he achieved the look for his shot.

bhGhost - Outline onion skinning

I thought this was super cool and will try it at home very soon. Head over here for more info!

bhGhost Tutorial from Brian Horgan on Vimeo.

Disney's Paperman Tech Demo

Super cool! Click here for the clip!

Arthurnal - animation examples and shot breakdown

 

I highly recommend you head over to Spungella Workshop feedback page and look at the work of Arthurnal. He's been doing a lot of great work and it's always exciting to see what he comes up with. 

Besides the two shots above, he's also working on another body mechanics one, and he was very forthcoming by sending me his different stages for that shot and I thought it'd be cool to share it here as well.

Here's the first blocking version he sent me (he's also a very fast animator):

                                    

And below you can see the different stages and his approach to certain technical aspects. Click on the images for the clips to play.

 

In his words:

Hello JD,

      I'm so appreciate that you interesting in my shot and thank you very much for the feedback.
I'm pleasure to show how I come up with my ideas. It's very simple animation but if we're take a look for the detail  we could see a little more technique such  FK , IK switching all the time . I have to analyze how he gonna hung on the steel bar first because we gonna get more work if we get the wrong plan. In this case I decide to move  the root under the all mover for change the pivot instead we constraint by locaters , it's very easy.

     For this shot I want to move camera simple ,it's easy to see the animation clealy. I want to show the body machanic and make it feel interesting also, and your feedback is helping me a lot.

AnimSchool Classtime: Starting a Dialogue Shot

AnimSchool Instructor and DreamWorks Animator, Tyler Phillips, talks about the steps he goes through when starting a dialogue shot, from AnimSchool's Facial Performance class.

A Life Less Sedentary: CG Artist Health

Fantastic post and a must read!

Head over to infusionstudios3d.com for the full thing! NOW!