HELP!!

Lately (well actually for quite some time now) I have been feeling like I need help. Help in terms of animation that is!

Since I started on my journey through animation land, I have longed to get some proper tuition from those in the know, drooling over course descriptions from animation schools. However as I have harped on about over and over again, I can't afford to. It's nearly two years since I graduated from University, but I am still in no position to start a new course when I have to worry about paying annoying things like rent.

However an animator friend, Jason Tammemägi, has very kindly agreed to give me some tuition. Jason is a 2D animator based in Ireland and is one of the few people I know of who are still employed to draw rather than do 3D stuff. Lucky bugger! Anyway, Jay is going to be helping me out with both my drawing and animation skills, hopefully without getting too frustrated with me!

After looking through all my work, he came to the realisation that had got too hung up on construction, and as important as it was, I was letting it rule my drawings. So my first task has been to forget the third dimension and study drawings from super-2D Cartoon Network-style shows like El Tigre, Samurai Jack, Dexter's Lab and the like. The reason for this is the characters are posed without being constructed, so it's all about the design and less about the physical accuracy. So I began with some quick pencil drawings, copying those on the blog of Chris Battle:
Jay saw that these are much weaker than the original drawings, mainly because they don't follow a line of action properly. Not surprising really since I didn't draw one!
So, seeing that I wasn't too bad at loose gesture drawings, he suggested I approach these cartoons like gestures, not worrying about details but instead concentrating on the main shapes and lines. Here's my first attempts:
They are pretty messy, but that's the idea. Some are more successful than others, but generally they seem to be what Jay was looking for. The group of quick sketches of people at the bottom right are there because he has also asked me to concentrate on doing more of them, but also trying to combine them with the gesture approach. As with the cartoons, the idea is not to produce a nice finished drawing, but just to get into the swing of capturing actions. It's one case where quantity presides over quality!

Right, back to the cartoons. I had another go at some Samurai Jack drawings based on a model sheet I found. Here's the model sheet:
and here are my scribbly interpretations:
I feel like I'm getting a bit more used to doing them, but have been frustrated in that I can't do nearly as much as I want to. I have had sore hands lately due to the seemingly permanent cold weather here in the UK, which has really hampered my drawing ability. Thankfully they are starting to recover now and I should soon be able to draw as much as I like again. That just leaves the fact that I have noone to draw quick sketches of! The people in work don't do a lot so I can't draw them much and I only get time to see anyone else at the weekend. For this reason, the small amount of quick sketches I have done are from people on TV.

So that's where I'm up to so far. I'm technically still working on my 3D short too, but I'm going to try to juggle that with more drawing. There aren't enough hours in the day! Well there are, but most of them are taken up by earning money!

So once again Jay, thanks so much for giving your time so generously. It really feels good to be learning again!

Down Time

What is it about today (well yesterday as it's now after midnight here)? Is it depression day? At work today everyone was feeling down, myself included. And I know we weren't the only ones, as one of my blog-buddies looks like he had a similar day. We should all be happy as it's bank holiday weekend meaning we now have four days off. I guess sometimes it just doesn't work out like that.

I was wishing I could just go and lay down in a darkened room. I ended up doodling what I wanted to do rather than actually doing it:

Looking For Logos

A quick update to my last post. I mentioned the new Walt Disney Animation Studio logo shown with the new Goofy short, but only showed the nearest thing to it that I could find. I think the one I showed is used on signs and documentation and whatever, but the one on the films is different. I have been searching for a video of it but have only managed to find a still. Anyway I just thought I'd add it to show anyone who hasn't already seen it.

Newby Goofy

Well this is my 200th post! I thought that sounded a lot until I realised that I have been writing on this blog for nearly two years. 640 days I have been going, so what's that? Roughly one post every three days? I guess that's not too shabby. If you want to see where I started, click here! Now I have a good subject for this landmark post:

I FINALLY SAW IT!!

After months of waiting and getting disappointed, I finally got to see the new Disney animated short, 'How to Hook Up Your Home Theater', starring the lovable Goofy.
It has been pretty well publicised in America that the short was being shown before the movie 'National Treasure: Book of Secrets', but irritatingly, parting with my money for a ticket for said film here in the UK left me disappointed as alas there was no animation.

However I discovered (only after trawling most of the Internet) that it was being shown in this country in front of The Rock's new movie, 'The Game Plan'. So hestitantly I parted with more money to watch a very probably awful movie, in the vague hope that the rumour I heard was right.

Thankfully it was!

My heart sank as the trailers finished and the film censor's title card (or whatever it's called) appeared with no cartoon. However the low was short-lived before I was catapulted back to an age less than my shoe size by the appearance of the new Disney Animation Studio logo, and all that it promised would follow.
Forgive my excitement, but the short was fantastic! A classic example of how animation should (and hopefully will continue to) be done. It was beautiful to look at, very funny, and even slightly emotional for nostalgic reasons (tired of bad 3D anyone?). There are also plenty of hidden bits and bobs to watch out for like pictures of Walt Disney and John Lasseter, and things printed on boxes like "Dopey Digital".

As I peeled myself from the ceiling, I prepared myself for a difficult couple of hours in the company of a muscle-man attempting comedy (I still have nightmares about the first time I saw my childhood action-hero, Arnie, trying to be funny!). To my disbelief, I found myself enjoying it a shameful amount! Maybe I was still in kid mode after watching the short, or maybe it was the fact that I do like some god-awful films, I just found it rather enjoyable. It was a movie that knew what it was and didn't pretend to be more.

Now excuse me while I go lay down!

UPDATE: The logo above is not the actual one used before the short, but was the closest I could find. I have since found the proper one.

Simply Doodles

Here's a couple of drawings from today. I won't say much about them as I'm not feeling too well and want to just relax.

Flogging a Dead Horse?

My posts are like busses, you wait an age for them and then two come at once!

I have been meaning to post something about animation in adverts. Old adverts to be precise. A week or two back I was looking on YouTube at some TV adverts from my childhood days with a fellow animator at work. I was struck with how good the animation in them was. So much work must have gone into them that companies today wouldn't even consider doing.

Remember this Kia-Ora ad?

Great use of some innovative walk cycles.

And how about this Vitalite one?

Watch those hands. There are some impressive movements there!

And what about Um Bongo?

These adverts all have a very similar style. I'd like to know if they were all done by the same company and who that company was. Answers on a postcard please!

I miss these ads. They seem to be from a happier time. Animation in adverts today is usually terrible. Have any of you seen the one for Hastings car insurance? The one where the knight sings the worst jingle in the universe..."O-eight-hundred-double-O, ten-sixty-six". 1066 was the battle of Hastings right? That presumably makes the knight King Harold who got an arrow in his eye? I wish...well you see where I'm going with that one!

Thankfully it's not all bad. If it's still on TV at all, watch out for the one for Sky TV featuring a cat singing "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog". Looking closely at it, I can't decide whether it's hand-drawn or done in something like Flash, but it has a similar feeling to the old adverts from the 80s I mentioned above. It's happy. It makes you smile. That's what animation should do, whether it's flogging a product or not!

Back to Nature

Some more doodles for you today. On Saturday I went to a farm near my home town of Wakefield with the intention of drawing some animals. I know it's bad, but the only animal drawings I have done thus far have been from photos, so I wanted to rectify that. However I discovered two things about drawing 'out in the field'.

Firstly, it's not easy to draw standing up. Unfortunately there were no places to sit and study the animals, so I ended up only briefly staying with one set of animals before moving on.

Secondly, I hate being watched! The farm I went to was more of a tourist attraction than a working farm, so there were lots of people around. I found myself shielding my sketchbook from prying eyes a lot of the time. Is that normal? I guess I didn't want people to think I was working on a work of art when I was merely studying anatomy. Studies (especially my studies) tend to be very crummy rather than something that I could hold up and have people recognise as a sheep or a horse.
As you can see from this page of frankly awful scribbles, I need to get myself into situations where I am more at ease, can think more clearly and above all, learn.

Sunday proved fruitless in terms of adding to my daily sketchbook on account of a holiday video I'm editing for my parents. However, today I managed at least one character. Even after one day off I had to really struggle to get back into drawing.
I think he looks as worm out as I feel today!

Daily Doodles

I have been busily working away on my showreel animation over the past few nights and so haven't really got round to posting anything of interest. However I have some drawings to post tonight. I bought a new sketchbook last weekend with the intention of drawing at least something in it each day. So far, I have kept to my plan. Here's Monday's drawings:
And Tuesday:
And Wednesday:
And Thursday:
And finally, today, Friday:
I'm hoping this will keep my drawing ability sharp while I'm involved in 3D animation, even if I only manage one or two drawings a day.

Feeling a Mug

As you may know, I'm currently working on an animated short that will form the backbone of my character animation showreel. Presently I'm keeping the form of the short strictly under wraps, having only told a couple of people about it, for fear of the idea being stolen.

However I have decided that where possible, I'll show bits and pieces from it that are insignificant enough to not give away what the animation is about. So here is the first bit I can show you.

Right at the beginning of the scene, I have a moving cup of coffee. I modelled a simple cup and came to animate it when I realised that I had a huge hurdle to overcome - animating a liquid. I have never animated fluids before and don't have a clue how to do it in Maya. I figured I'd have to stop production of my short in order to go and learn some new skills. However upon talking about it with my girlfriend while she was drinking a glass of water, we realised that the movement of the liquid in the glass was actually quite simple. There was very little in the way of ripples, just a simple 'see-saw' motion, which could be animated easily. So I sat down and made a quick animation test to see if I could make the motion believable as a liquid.

Mug Animation Test
Uploaded by andylatham82

It needs to be speeded up and to keep oscillating for longer, as it currently looks like a rather thicker liquid than coffee, but I think it works pretty well.

I'll have to learn proper fluid simulations at some point, but I won't start troubling myself with that for some time yet. There are so many things I need to get on top of. I need to get this short animated, I need to get back into doing 2D stuff and I need to learn more about animation-related things like rigging characters. There aren't enough hours in the day!