HORTON TEASER - as promised

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Horton Hears a Who - TEASER!!!!

Horton teaser is hittin' theaters today!!!! You can see it before the Simpson's movie. So go check that out. Or if you don't feel like spendin' any dough, I hear you can catch it on AOL today. Or find it on the tube...or somethin'.

I'll try not to be lazy and post a link as soon as I can find one.

Word to ya motha!

Some Face Stuff

Here are a few handouts that I feel have helped when it comes to posing the face.

More updates soon!

This last one was stolen from The Temple of the Seven Golden Camels. Its a blog that every animator should check out. So click the link to see what this picture means!

Animation Mentor Rocks!

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've updated this thingy, so I thought I should give a shout out to everyone at Animation Mentor.

My first term Mentoring there was a blast. I had a great time and had a super talented class. I'm sure we'll be hearing more from a lot of them in the near future. I only wish they could know how much I learned from them.

Anyhoo, their stuff really rocks, and I highly encourage you to click on the picture above and check out some of AM's showcased work.

Lookin' forward to another semester.

NO TIME FOR NUTS wins the Annie!

No Time for Nuts wins an Annie Award for Best Animated Short! For those of you that don't know the Annie Awards are like the Oscars for animation.

Congrats to Mike Thurmeier, Chris Renaud (directors) and the rest of the team!

My Thumbnails

Now that I have a bunch of students, I will occasionally try to post something animation related that I can point them to. I just want to everyone to keep in mind that any tips and ideas are just things that work for me and that I've heard in my travels. In no way am I saying that any of the tips/ideas are the "right way" to do things. I personally learn something everyday and sometimes that "something" changes the way I have thought before. So just keep all that in mind. So with that said, here are some of my thumbnails.

Before I thumbnail, I try to write down a title for my shot. The title is essentially the gist of the shot, sometimes the title is just an emotion or a feeling. For this assignment the class was to come up with a situation that would create an emotional shift. I tried to keep the thumbnails relevant to the assignment, so my idea was to have the class "know it all" realize that she does not actually know it all. So my title is "The know it all gets a bad grade." The characters shift is to go from poise to flustered.

After I get the overall gist of the shot, I will write down a few things that summarize the character, such as who they are, what they're feeling, and any other things that may help me. If I'm working on a shot in the movie I may write down where they are in the movie, how they were feeling in the shots before, and where they are headed in the shots after. After I get my little notes down I may make a little time-line for the shot that includes all the beats of the character. First I jot down the main beats like what the character is doing in the beginning middle then end. When I feel confident that I have thought through everything I begin to thumbnail.

Thumb-nailing is the fun part. For me thumb-nailing is in no way a story board, it is an exploration of the poses I may want to use. They are meant to be rough and quick. In no way am I trying to make perfect little drawings. They are for me and me only.

First I try to figure out that one pose (one frame) that may summarize the feeling for the entire shot (match my title). Not only do I think about the pose, the the pose in relation to the framing and layout of the camera. This was a tip I got from Stephen Gregory at Spline Doctors. Once I get that I begin to thumb-nail any of the other key poses (beats) of the shot. From here on out I thumbnail anything and everything I can think of. I always to explore all the different ways I can approach a pose with a bunch of different thumbnails. Don't ever settle with your first idea. Sometimes I will even thumbnail out individual parts of the body if I feel like they are important to the shot. All along the way I will also add any little notes that will help me or remind me of ideas that are tough to thumbnail.

Ultimately, the more searching I do on paper, the less searching I have to do on the computer, and that saves me a LOT of time.

I'm sure there are tons of things I'm forgetting, so if you got anything please comment.

Animation Mentor Starts Today

Today is my first day as a mentor for Animation Mentor! I'm super excited as you can tell from my self portrait.