November 30, 2014

Penguins of Madagascar - Exclusive Clip

Boxtrolls Pencil Test



ANIMATION BY MAËL GOURMELEN

November 25, 2014

The Art of Richard Thompson

Les Grandes Grandes Vacances



This is an interesting trailer for the upcoming French animated TV series "Les Grandes Grandes Vacances". Directed by Paul Leluc at Les Armateurs & Blue Spirit Studios. It's all CG Animation with the classic "Toon-Shader" rendering technique, but I like the classic European comic strip style to the line work and art direction.

November 14, 2014

"Improving Your Animation" by Daniel Gonzales

If you are an aspiring animator (or artist) and you find yourself spending more time reading than actually DOING anything then I'm writing this for you. No baseball player ever read a lot about baseball and then was an amazing baseball player. If you think that since animation isn't a sport you do not have to practice? Wrong. Articles and tips can get you motivated and inspired to work but thy wont make you great.

The nine old men of animation (9 men who invented the guidelines of HOW TO ANIMATE) they didn't have anyone give them tips or tricks. They had to do Good ol' hands-on-training. I've searched the internet and asked around and I have put together a list of exercises for an aspiring animator to do! Even if you consider yourself advanced I would suggest you still start from level one. never hurts to make sure you have your fundamentals locked down.

Basics
- Bouncing ball (loop) (squash and stretch/spacing)
- Bouncing ball across the screen (2 bounces) (squash and stretch/spacing)
- Cinder Block sliding off a shelf, hitting the floor. (spacing, form)
- Flour Sac Jump (mass)
- A blink (spacing/squash and stretch)
- A head turn (transitions/ arcs)

Breaking a Sweat
- Walk cycle (technical)
- Run cycle (technical)
- Character jumping (physical/spacing)
- Suicide backwards fall off a ledge (subtle delays and overlap)
- A character getting up from a chair (physical/ anticipation)
- A smile (face muscles, appeal)
- A sneeze (exaggeration and timing)
- Do an action that requires a 'smear' (technical)
- Laughing (reference studying)

Marathon Training
- Animate a hand doing something-close up (anatomy)
- Character lifting a heavy object (weight)
- Animate a dog shaking after a bath (overlap/follow through)
- Hammering a nail (timing/spacing)
- Character blowing up a balloon (physicality)
- Piano falling on a character (timing/weight/debris)
- Character brushing their teeth (personality)
- Character eating a sandwich (personality)
- Getting up out of bed (physical personality)
- Waiting for the bus stop (entertainment/appeal)

Quitters Quit, Winners Win
- Character throwing a bucket of water on another (physical acting)
- Tug of war b/w two characters (tension)
- Character drinking wine (research)
- Character making an egg - full process from fridge to mouth (rhythm and timing)
- A feather falling and being blown by the wind (reference)
- Character reacting to "your parents are dead" (acting)
- Putting on a pair of pants (physical)
- Sleeping character being startled, then going back to sleep (rhythm and texture)


KEEP IN MIND - These will make you better, not get you a job. Studios want to see dialogue and acting. what these exercises above do is help you become a better animator!

You are not animating lines, you are animating a personality, an emotion, the feelings. You are animating something deeper than just what you see.

Keep it simple.

You don't have to show anyone, these tests are for you!!!

Via

November 13, 2014

Realistic Cosplay of Futurama's Farnsworth is Awesome & Terrifying!



The good folks over at Tested (who you may remember from their Zoidberg cosplay) created a hyper-realistic mask of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth from Futurama, with all his ghastly proportions intact. The video above shows the exact process they went through to achieve such a phenomenal recreation.

"What should we think about death?" Narrated by Stephen Fry

November 10, 2014

"Song of the Sea" Official US Release Trailer

The Big Picture - Teaser & Featurette

Animator & Model Maker Chris Wilder:
“The film is a life-size wall painting/stopmotion animation in which full scale painted characters interact with a 3D environment. The film was directed by Daisy Jacobs and tells the story of two brothers struggling with the care of their elderly mother.”





Via OnAnimation

November 06, 2014

Flix - Storyboarding Tool



- Designed specifically for the story process, FLIX is full of features that allow artists to find better and faster ways to draw and share storyboard panels.

- Save time and money on production and make the creative process more open by bringing editorial, pre-viz and even lighting into the creative process much earlier on.

- Posting panels to editorial is automatic and instantaneous. Easily play back panels in the correct order with the latest timing information and audio track and pitch the story reel immediately, to anyone anywhere with web browser access.

- Remove arduous non-creative tasks like naming and file management from the list of things a story artist needs to think about.

- Editing panels is easy. Simply double click on the panel and it’s opened in Adobe® Photoshop®, Maya®, TVPaint, FCP 7, Premiere16, MODO or a host of other 2D and 3D creative applications. Then save back to FLIX and instantly see your new version in context.
Take the technical complexities of trying to remain organised. Never lose a version of a project. Everything is stored and can found whenever you want to go back over the project history.

- Share ideas, collaborate and iterate together with everyone on the project, remotely from anywhere in the world.
Innovative time saving features help artists get a headstart. Panels can also contain 3D camera and other metadata that will always be stored and travel with the panel.

Trench 14 – Letters from the Front by Cirque Obscure



An old man opens a box with letters from World War One and is haunted by his nightmarish memories from the "Great War".

"Jamon" by Iria Lopez

November 02, 2014

"Invasion"



Mister Modo & Ugly Mac Beer
Judgment Day remix by Ugly Mac Beer
Written & Directed by Hugo Ramirez & Olivier Patté
Produced by Moustache
AnimationAssistance by Wang Chuan-Chin
Mixed & Mastered by Mercer

Urbance



Last chance to contribute and help to make this great pilot happen. Donate here.