I'm a Monster

I'm a monster from Headless Productions on Vimeo.

what can i say? it's a great piece of work=) enjoy.

Christmas Break

Yep, so we're all probably breaking for the Christmas Holidays and just chilling, kicking back and relaxing during this period. So from us to you guys, have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. CHeerios!

Wisdom Teeth

Don Hertzfeldt’s new short Wisdom Teeth, he was the guy that did rejected

enjoy~

Illusion of life?

"Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one."

- Brad Bird

Annie and Boo

Annie and boo
Uploaded by LiloonandBruce. - Watch original web videos.

i remembered i saw the trailer for Annie and Boo at school back in 2002 or someting. And i really wanted to see this. But i didn't have the chance cause it wasn't finished yet. And after some time you know how you forget about things and such..

And fast forward to now, i was looking at a uk production house's website, Studio AKA, and one thing led to another and than i found this! It really is coincidence!

im sorry i couldn't find one with a better resolution, the rendering is really very nice, you can get a snap shot of it here!

Maybe the animation is not as polished, but i thought the acting and posing was very good. Also the facial expressions were really really well done, the head tilts and all. Just very thoughtful acting i guess.

The story is really charming as well. I just feel that it's very well delivered as a whole. Absolutely love it! And it's a student film done back in 2003 or so. Amazing~

Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Episodic Trailer 3

Latest in the....ahh storyline of trailers from the soon to be released Marve lVs Capcom 3 game. Apart from the crazy nice visuals and colors, I'm amazed they managed to get decent facial detail into the characters. Looking good! Makes you wanna buy the game.

The Little MatchGirl- Disney

Finally it's time to keep your light sabers and pick up the revolver!

Megamind

Well, just caught Megamind on the big screen. Yeah i know it's a lil late but...HEY! it's australia, we're always late. Anyways, i've gotta say...awesome AWESOME animation man! There's sooo many little bitz here and there that just make the show awesome. Little takes and frowns and movements that really sell the characters emotion and thought process. Even hand gestures and head bobs take the story telling to a whole new level.

The story gags and pacing was...alright; very Ben stiller-ish lol. There's some parts that felt a little bumpy and rushed. Overall I think they did a pretty good job.

Next up! Looking foward to RIO!!! So hyped for it.

Uncharted 3 Drakes Deception BTS( Behind the scene) HD

Behind the scenes at Naughty Dog Studios

Hit and Run

Collaborative Senior Thesis produced at the Ringling College of Art and Design, Class of 2009. Created by Alex Marino and Greg Peltz. Film can also been seen at the 2009 Siggraph Animation Theater


Ringling College of Art and Design., Hit and Run animated short by Alex Marino and Greg Peltz, 2009.

Despicable Me Mini Movie - Home Makeover

Universal Studio and Illumination Entertainment., Despicable me - Mini Movies - Home Makeover directed by Kyle Balda and Samuel Tourneux, 2010.

Orientation Day

Universal Studio and Illumination Entertainment., Despicable me - Mini Movies - Orientation Day directed by Kyle Balda and Samuel Tourneux, 2010.

Video Game Award 2010

Here are some of the game trailers shown at Video Game Award 2010. Don't just limit yourself to feature animaton, sometimes game animation can be as awesome.

Portal 2
Funny and entertaining animation created by Value to promote their latest Portal 2. It makes me wanna buy this game too.

Video Games | Portal 2 | PAX 10: Full Co-Op Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Value., Portal 2 developed by Value, 2010.


Batman: Arkhan City
Realistic animation and rendering of the latest Batman game, Arkhan City. Can't wait for this game to be released next year.

Video Games | Batman: Arkham City | VGA 10: Exclusive Hugo Strange Reveal Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment., Batman: Arkhan City developed by Rocksteady Studios , 2010.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
Another realistic game developed by Naughty Dog. Take a good look at how they animate Drake's expression.

Video Games | Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception | VGA 10: Exclusive Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

SCEA., Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception developed by Naughty Dog, 2010.

Gorillaz, Murdoc dressing room diary

crazy eye movement~ haha. other stuff aside, i thought the eye darts were pretty well done.

cheers.
yk

Latest of Jono's A.M progress

Urrrghh.....the more I look at it the more mistakes I see....jeez. Anyways, i promised to put it up so here it is. Summary of Class 3 Adv Body Mechanics work.

Despicable me - Mini Movies - Banana

Hilarious Despicabe me mini movie by Illumination Entertainment starring the Minions.


Universal Studio and Illumination Entertainment., Despicable me - Mini Movies - Banana directed by Kyle Balda and Samuel Tourneux, 2010.

Meet Buck/ Salesman Pete

Meet Buck from animationclub.ru on Vimeo.

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.

A couple of clips by students from Supinfocom in France. Great stuff!

yk

Silhouette Studies 2

Adding on to what Jono was talking about on Silhouette Studies here is another clip which has been online for quite a while now. See how the 2 duelists are posed and how their different line of actions, posing and the timing of their movements informs you about their personality. The duelist on the left is more confident and proud, thus that "C" curve in his spine. While the one on the right is more unsure and thus that slouchy "S" curve is running through his pose. Awesome stuff, simple lines yet you can tell so much from it.

hope it helps!
-yk

Classic screen types by NY Times.

This is a gallery of classic screen types by the NY times interactive magazine. Featuring Hollywood actors and actresses.

Look at how Matt Damon moves around the stage, it shows that even it's a half body shot, you got to translate the hip, and not just rotate it around as if on a stick. By translating it gives more believability to that character you are animating. It feels that the character is shifting his weight. Even though you cannot see the legs, simply by rotating the hip and not translating won't cut it.

And also a lot of good acting elements in the rest of the clips. Things like subtext, facial expressions and posing etc.

Good stuff. Have a look here!


hope it helps=)
-yk

Silhouette Studies

This short is solely based on having strong silhouette value to tell a story. The style doesn't promote the type of animation that we are particularly interested in but it's really good for looking into how shapes and outlines can help draw your audiences' eyes to your work. Look out for strong uses of negative space and shapes.

The Awesomeness of simplicity

Kung Fu Panda 2 trailer showcases pure awesomeness by showing us animators the ultimate in being lazy and bringing 120% of pure awesome animation work. The fine details put into the multiple subtle actions of basically a SINGLE POSE animation clip. Down to even the theater audiences reflected in Po's eyes is finely crafted in. I mean come on....this is a one animator job trailer, and it's just awesome!

So what i'm essentially trying to get at, if i'm trying to get at anything at all is...Sometimes, simplicity is key!

Motivation, how it works for me

Motivation.. It's a hard thing to grasp. Especially how to motivate yourself to keep on animating, be it for work, or just animating a personal piece. Because seriously, even though how much animation runs in your blood, there are seriously distractions. That game, the ukulele lying in the corner of your room, online shopping...

I personally feel that the important part is to get yourself started, on that 1st thumbnail drawing, or that 1st "golden" pose in 3D (depending on how you work). And once you have that the rest will just come naturally, you'll want to add on to what you initially started, and before you know it, you have the key poses more or less sorted out by now. And so on and so forth. That's why i spend quite a bit of time on my 1st pose. the all important pose that sets your character in the mood of things. And seeing that pose acts as a motivation for me to continue animating.

Another way i find quite useful is to listen to some podcast of animators, from places like spline doctors, speaking of animation, animation podcast etc. Because during the intro, they always say how they started out being an animator, their first job which is not kinda what they expected, drawing saturday morning cartoons, freelancing, being laid off and such, until finally they reach where they are now. So it kinda reminds you that even these guys had it tough once. And in turn it might motivate you to keep going.

If all else fails, maybe draw on something that is within you (i know it sounds pretty corny) People who support you in what you are doing or the reason why you started animating in the first place.
Mine was in my final year at Nanyang Poly, during my portfolio review.
Lecturer A: "Hmmm, from your portfolio, it seems that you are pretty adept at modelling, maybe you can concentrate on that,"
Lecturer B: "No I don't think so. From your reel, I believe that you have potential in animation, and I seriously think you should look into that."
And there you have it, simple as that. That was how I got started on animating haha

So draw on that and just get yourself started on the animating process be it thumbnailing, video referencing, posing the character key pose etc. Whatever works for you. Use it!

Keep on animating!
yk

------------

Jono Li said>>

Yeah, you got that right. Motivation is something that all animators find tough to balance. I mean getting motivated can be easy enough, watching movies, looking at inspiring animators and clips, video games etc. Staying motivated, now THAT's a whole'nother can 'O' worms.

I personally find that sometimes, you just need time off. EVEN IN A WORKING ENVIRONMENT. Animation is not something you can force. It's not something that you can sit at your desk and the longer you do the more you get done. In fact it's probably the direct opposite. The longer you sit at your desk trying to animate when you're un motivated and drained, the longer you're gonna NOT get anything done. Think of it as a spell or skill on cooldown for all you gamers. Generally, skills with short cooldown are early or crap skills. The ones with huge cooldowns really bring the rain. It's the same with animation. You want good quality stuff done fast? make sure you get breaks in between renergize and get right back into it.

My last mentor always told me that she constantly goes to malls to do window shopping when things don't go well or when she's really drained and then comes right back the next day ready to tackle the job renewed.

Even my current mentor mentions that when you take these breaks, take is as though it's all part of your whole animation process, don't seperate the two, lest you lose focus.
December 8, 2010 12:13 AM

Temple Rider 奇廟單車遊

A beautiful and surreal animation by RTHK and Simage Animation and Media Limited. It's about a little girl overcoming her fear and becoming a happier person. The water colour paninting style is really amazing and appealing.



RTHK (香港電台)and Simage Animation and Media Limited (線美動畫媒體)., Temple Rider 奇廟單車遊, 2010.

Beautiful Short

Thought of You from Ryan Woodward on Vimeo.

BBC Knowledge

BBC Knowledge - Honk If You're Human from Sean Pecknold on Vimeo.

Ark

A film by Grzegorz Jonkajtys. This film has won a lot of awards.

ARK from grzegorz jonkajtys on Vimeo.

Ark directed by Grzegorz Jonkajtys, 2006. http://www.thearkfilm.com

Olympics 2008 BBC Sport 'Meet Monkey'

An awesome animation by Gorillaz creator Jamie Hewlett and with music by Damon Albarn. It's a part of BBC campaign to push its coverage of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.



Passion Pictures., Meet Monkey animated by Jamie Hewlett and music by Damon Albarn , 2008.

How to draw faces by Austin Kleon

how to draw faces by austin kleon

simple yet effective way to sort out your facial expressions during thumbnailing stage or just drawing for fun!

Cheers,
yk

motion in words

*excuse my cheapo looking mindmap haha

This was something i learnt during class at Bournemouth University, MA3D.
Something taught by Steve Harper. Thought that it'll be nice to share it.

This chart describes motion, which is categorised into 3 sections, Weight, Space and Time.

Heavy or light for weight, direct or indirect for space, sudden or sustained for time.

And by picking one characteristic from each category, and putting them together in any order, decribes a particular motion.


Below are some examples;

a heavy, direct and sudden combination might give you an action that suggests a punch.


a heavy, direct and sustained combination might give an action that suggests a push



and a light, direct, sudden combination might describe a tap


I hope it makes sense and hope it helps too^______^

Good Day,
yk

Tapoleds Productions - Street Fighter Omega

All right one of my all time favourite game, Street Fighter. The fights are definitely influenced by how they are in the anime Naruto. It looks pretty raw, but still cool nontheless.

KungFu Panda - Holiday Special

KungFu Panda Holiday Special 2010 from lautdalam on Vimeo.

Dreamworks., KungFu Panda - Holiday Special directed by Tim Johnson, 2010.

The Arctic Circle from Sheridan

The Arctic Circle from Kevin Parry on Vimeo.

Paths Of Hate

Some trailer for a Russian short film maybe?
Looks cool.

PATHS OF HATE long trailer from Platige Image on Vimeo.

Rapunzel!!!

Rapunzel is magical, it brings back the old Disney feel in 3D. Sure we all know how the story goes from the book but Disney interpreted it well. Anyway, here is a technical demo of how they did her lovely tresses.

Animation Food For Thought - Video reference and Stick figures

I know that we may not always have time, especially if we're working on a TV series or short clips that require us to finish under an extremely tight deadline and sometimes we get lazy. We go, "ahh stuff it i can't be bothered shooting reference and/or thumbnailing." Truth is, without first planning your shot, or having no form of reference or research material, it's bound to look nothing like what you envisioned. There's that common saying: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail," and animation is no exception to that. You want to improve your quality of work, you've GOTTA shoot reference, do your research and draw Draw DRAW!

Some people say, "ahh but i'm not actually doing any work when i draw or shoot ref. I should just quickly do it and get it over and done with." Truth is many of us feel this way. One of my mentors used to tell my class: "Take it as part of your animation process. Do not seperate it. Planning -> Shooting reference -> Thumbnailing -> Blocking -> Blocking Plus -> Splinning -> Polishing. I don't view the first 3 steps as getting no animation done as it all contributes to the entire clip."

Which is easier? Getting nice poses on paper with a pencil or getting a nice pose on the computer with your rig? I think it's kinda obvious. In the time taken for you to pose out something that you may think didn't turn out so well, you probably would have drawn 30 variations of that 1 pose in paper.

What if you can't draw that well. Hey MANY of the good animators and not pro animators, myself included can't draw that well, but that's not stopping us. Use stick figures, get the shoulders and hips in there and start drawing those poses out. Push those poses on paper so that you know EXACTLY how it's gonna turn out on the computer. If you need a good example of how this works, look no further than Jason Ryan's amazing stick figures.

Video reference is also a good way to find out things about your animation action that you didn't know or are confused about. Never never copy or roto your video ref, unless your job IS to roto then...yeah. We're animators! we make things fun and spruce up the motion, add life, zest and character to the rig. Remember that video reference IS NOT what your clip is gonna end up looking like. It's to help you figure out how you should be going about tackling that particular motion, be it a jump, backflip or crawl etc.

Another good way is to bring your drawings into flash or something similar, so you get even your timing down pretty well there. Han Xiang uses this method and i think it's served him pretty well so far, but like i said, for all those who don't want to "waste" so much time on it, hey! drawing is fast so JUST DO IT!

Love Sport - Paintballing

A lot of animators always tell me that it is very hard to show emotion of the character if it is armless, expressionless, or no background for it to perform in. Well, you can always show emotion through body langauge, rhythm, squash and stretch, etc. True enough, music, sound effect, light and props do amplified the emotion, but try to get it right through animation so that when you put them together, the emotional of the character will be stronger.

I found a very good example of using just pixels and sound effect to show emotion of the character. By adding just squash and stretch, rhythm and sound, you can actually feel that the pixels has a life by itself. Even without sound, You can also tell what is happening in the scene.

Love Sport was done by StudioAKA.

Love Sport - Paintballing from Qoob TV on Vimeo.

Lost and Found

An awesome animation by studioAKA. Lost and Found is the winner of BAFTA for Best Childrens Animation. It has also won a total of 46 international awards to date.



For more info about the company please visit
http://www.studioaka.co.uk

Out of Sight

Since there was a post on Ghibli below, thought I would share this ghibli-esque piece of animation from Taiwan University.

It gets better

No I am not talking about your job or skill as an animator getting better. I guess as animators we are always working long hours at our desks, planning shots and meeting deadlines. So I thought it would be good to share this video with employees from Pixar speaking, that once in awhile we could spare a thought for the things or issues happening around us.

Animation Food For Thought - Manhandling Poses

I'll be honest. I used to animate by first setting up your golden poses then filling in the gaps with in betweens that you may need. The rest is done by the computer when you hit the spline button. By doing so you either find yourself pleasantly surprised or totally shocked and apalled and most of the time it's the latter.

The main problem with this is that you don't have as much control over your animation. Ever feel like, "damn...that didn't really come out the way i planned or thought that it would." Well, the reason is NOT ENOUGH POSES. I'm sure you've heard soo many people say this but when you get down to it, it simply just doesn't work out. Then you go back to your old way of animating and getting all nice and comfy which essentially stumps your growth process. So what exactly does 'NOT ENOUGH POSES' mean? Well it basically means just that. For those who are scared that it'll mess up your animation, it most definately will and that is why you need to keep fixing it and keeping it all under your control.

Letting the computer do your in-betweens is as good as hoping for the best. Take control of those poses, if you have to key every frame so be it. That's how the old skool animators used to do it. Trust me, the computer is a lousy LOUSY animator. Trusting the computer to do inbetweens and breakdowns for you is like animating while having your eyes shut.

In any case this is my take on it having gone down both paths. Is it the gospel truth? I would think not. (Eg. some animators create brilliant stuff with just the graph editor) But for those who are in similar situations like me...try it out! You won't regret it...well maybe on your 1st and 2nd clip when you hit the spline button.

Yay! You've decided to be an animator!

Here's a good forum thread I dug out from long ago. Probably one of the best post about the reality of being an animator that I've read.
Have a "look here"

Cheers,
Yk

Animation Backgrounds Blog by Rob Richards

I found this website while doing reseach for my assignment. It contains a lot of the current and past backgrounds art done by Disney, Warner Bros and etc. It's a cool place to check out if you wanna learn more about composition and layout.

http://animationbackgrounds.blogspot.com

Cool Facts and Works of Hayao Miyazaki

Although it's all in Japanese, you should still be able to understand most of what's going on. Enjoy! Courtesy of Rae

Disney's latest offering