Wednesday, August 17, 2011

ReelBarrow

This site is an awesome resource and inspiration.
http://www.reelbarrow.com/index.html

Go there and check out animation reels from some of the top animators in the industry.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Strawberry Swing

This is always major animation inspiration for me. Watch it full screen in 720p!
It's a reminder that even though a project may consume countless hours, the final result lasts forever, and hopefully you can say it was worth it.


Check out the Making-Of at Motionographer:
http://motionographer.com/theater/shynola-coldplay-strawberry-swing/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZQGrhQdeSQ#t=32

Animation podcasts

All of these sites have amazing podcasts about animation well-worth listening to:

Spline Doctors

Speaking of Animation

The Animation Podcast (my personal favorite)
The Animation Guild (interviews)
Toon In!

And if you're a fan of Pixar:
The Pixar Podcast

Monday, August 8, 2011

What I've been working on...

Did this animation in a week for the Spungella 100 Frame Animation Contest. The theme was "Magic."

Every new shot I work on excites me, because I feel like I'm actually learning a ton. It's funny... by the time I'm done with a shot, I've learned enough to see it's weaknesses that I'm never happy with an animation. I guess that's a good thing, because that's the way to grow.



Friday, August 5, 2011

Lip Sync Demos by David Latour



Quick Trick: Moving an object in space


Something I find extremely helpful in Maya:
You know the yellow box in the middle of the move tool that lets you drag an object in your viewport? Did you know you can hold down control and click one of the handles to change it to only move perpendicular to that handle?

The practical uses are many, but I included an example from a shot I'm working on now. I control+clicked the y-axis (green) handle so I could drag the foot along the ground.

Zoopraxiscope

Lester Banks

For CG animators, Lesterbanks.com is an amazing resource. If you're looking for free tutorials on lighting, rendering, modeling, rigging, ect. then you'll find this site really useful:
Lesterbanks.com

He also has a Twitter and updates it when there's a new tutorial up:
Lesterbanks' Twitter

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Animation Articles

This post has become it's own page on my blog. You can find the link to it under the header, called "Animation Article Database."

New blog

This blog is hopefully going to be a place where I can put together some resources for learning animation and links to great animation I've seen. I'll also post my work from time to time. Maybe throw in a thought on animation from time to time, who knows. Things just might get crazy up in here.

For now, I'll leave you with this. Never gets old.