Animation Mentor and Blog

Hey everybody who hasn't seen this blog yet - Well I'm about to start animation mentor and needless to say I'm pretty excited about it! I also want to make it known that I WILL start using this blog (I guess I'm making this more a personal commitment to myself at this point) :) Anyways, I'm going to start posting some stuff over time - REAL good stuff, not just my work with AM and sketches, but stuff for everyone that I think you'll like. So stay tuned!

First Image of Disney's "The Princess and the Frog"

Hey guys,

Just wanted to share this new image with you from Disney's upcoming movie (and traditionally animated, which is AWESOME) of "The Princess and the Frog." This is another movie I can't wait to see, it's nice to have the talented duo of Clements and Musker at the wheel.

You can click on the image for higher resolution shot!

An Email from Tom Sito

Before I shut down my last blog, I manage to salvage this from it (actually I salvaged it from my own e-mail, but details, details). So here is part of an email I recieved from Tom Sito (shown right) sometime back. I wrote to him awhile back when I was just beginning in animation, and this is part of the response given to me:

“In terms of what to study, it sounds like you are off to a great start with studying Frank & Ollie, Loomis, Vilpu and the others. I would add Richard William’s Animators Survival Guide. Dick Williams was a great student of the old Disney greats like Milt Kahl and a lot of his ideas are adopted from the animation lectures of Art Babbitt we attended in 1973. Dick also gave the first breaks to punk kids like James Baxter, Eric Goldberg and me.

If I could also suggest extras to your curriculum I would take a class in acting: and or mime. Some can move shapes , but as Glen Keane said” Don’t move a character before it wants to.” Meaning, learn to express thinking in your character, not just move it from point A to point B. Milt Kahl was not just a great draughtsman, he had an innate sense of acting. Dick said he could boil a scene down to two key poses. Amazing stuff. Babbitt and Tytla reccomended the book ACTING: THE FIRST SIX LESSONS by Richard Boleslavsky, Theater Arts Books. Reprinted every year since 1935, it’s a fast read but it has some good ideas about an approach to a performance. Also, Michael Caine did some videos on acting technique for the screen that are top notch. Try some Stanislavky as well. He’s the classic guru of Method Acting, like DeNiro, Pacino and those folks.

The best animators never stop learning, they never think they know it all. I’ve seen both Glen and Andreas not be too proud to still grab a newsprint pad and sit down in front of a life drawing model.I hope this is he answer you wanted. Thanks again for writing and best of luck in your studies." Sincerely,

Tom Sito

Definitely helped me along the way, mainly because Tom was always a big influence for me. Anyways, Thought this would be an interesting little tidbit (and reminder) to read!

Long Time since last post!

Well, I know too many aren't out there reading this but it's been so long since the last post! Since that post I've mainly been down here in South Tex-us, but I'll be heading back up to Dallas finally so I can actually have access to a scanner around me =). So anyways, keep checking back and I will be posting up some stuff soon!

But for now, I just saw this little clip of Laika's "Coraline" and I have to say it looks stunning! For those of you who haven't seen it, check it out:

Coraline Clip

First Post

Testing testing testing...first post! So this is mainly a place for me to elaborate on things I've learned (or things that will be of interest to everyone else), post up sketches and life drawings, and even host some animations! Though I know no one is out there at this point, so I'll just post up some drawings or something a little later. Cheers!