After all the posts about animation studies and work on mime tests, you might notice that there has been a bit of a shortage of updates over the past week or so. Last week was one of those weeks where there was just no time to get any work done, and this week eczema has kindly decided to set up shop on my hands, making any kind of meaningful drawing impossible.
I’m trying to use my time away from the animation desk wisely though, reading a couple of books to try to learn a few new things. They’re great so I thought I’d recommend them here.
First is The Mime Book by Claude Kipnis.
This was lent to me by a colleague, clearly as I’m working on a short film about a mime. The book has a lot of useful information about miming which I can make use of in my film, but the reason I’m recommending it is that it’s generally good stuff animation-wise. It’s really interesting to read a different point of view on situations that will be familiar to animators.
It talks about things from both biomechanical and emotional points of views, and really makes you think about how you move your body.
Second is Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form by Eliot Goldfinger.
I have owned several anatomy books over the past couple of years, some of which have been better than others, and none of which have been an all-encompassing book. I think I have spoken before about my other current anatomy book of choice, The Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist, but I have often found it difficult to identify the muscle groups under the skin of a real human. Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form goes a long way to solving this problem with labelled photographs along-side the drawings, making it nice and clear what the different muscles look like under skin. There is a lot this book doesn’t teach, but simply from the point of view of identifying muscles on a live model it is well worth the money.
Finally, as I work on the Lego video games in my day job, I thought I’d share a great new Lego Star Wars animated TV show that was aired on Cartoon Network a couple of days ago, called Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace. This was not made by our company, but was instead the creation of Animal Logic. The only version of it I can find on YouTube is filmed off a TV screen:
You can find the other parts on YouTube. I can’t wait for it to come out on Blu-ray!