Animation Time! - Whale Rig

Today's Inspiration:
"I wonder if we shouldn’t speak briefly about the endowment of “talent." Certainly there are those to whom the flare for graphic design and visual rhythm has been gifted. Drawing flows from the fingers of such prodigies as freely as a stream tumbles over the mossy pebbles in its path. I’m thinking of someone like Picasso, who from his early childhood, drew incessantly with increasing skill. He possessed a prodigiousness that seemed to be his way of talking.

Oh, yes, and did I mention that Milt Kahl’s favorite artist was indeed Pablo Picasso; he studied Picasso daily. There is even a scene in The Rescuers showing Snoops arguing with Medusa. If you look closely you can see Picasso’s influence in the drawing. “And the tide was coming in,” says Mr. Snoops, gesturing with both hands. “Snoops,” purrs Medusa, “you are much too soft.”
I’m sure you remember the scene. I recall Frank Thomas’ displeasure upon seeing it. “You’ve gone too far Milt,” he remarked. I remember this vividly because we were all standing at the urinals when he said it!

But, let’s get back to the question of talent. There are many young people that love the art of animation, and would love to make it their career. But how can they keep up with the gifted artists? Can perseverance really overcome the lack of talent or is “talent” just a synonym for hard work? It has been said that you can’t teach a pig to sing. Some say that it can’t be done and it annoys the pig. In my opinion, I certainly believe you can train someone to be a good animator; I know this from my own experience. Sadly, many talented people fall by the wayside. The key to success is perseverance!"

- Don Bluth Productions
http://www.animationnation.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=013682

Milt Kahl Medusa Animation
https://youtu.be/WRLdqlkr-f4

Program - Maya 2014

Rig - Whale Character Rig


Animator's Bibles:
Character Animation Crash Course
Animator's Survival Kit
Illusion of Life
12 Principles of Animation
Drawn to Life

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Where's the feeling? Where's the emotion?

Don Bluth's critique this week really hit home with me. There's no feeling or emotion, not in the drawing itself, but behind the drawing. He's been talking about this for a little while now between the man vs art podcast and his last two seminars. He said he's gonna keep shouting it until someone hears. I for one am going to open my ears as wide as they can go to hopefully try and grasp what he wants. A couple of his questions he wants us all to ask ourselves is did you push it till it becomes obvious what you feel? Can you draw a character that represents emotion? Can you animate a character that makes people think it's alive and thinking? And in the words of the illusive Mark Rudolph ... Think about it.

Visualize

Visualize Visualize Visualize!

Last night I finally signed up for Don's Club, the Don Bluth Animation course, now I'm kicking myself that I didn't do it sooner. Tonight was my first class and it was chock full of information. I don't usually take notes, but I ended up with a page full of notes and a page full of drawings.
The main theme he had for us today was Visualize. What makes creative people valuable is that they can never really be replaced. As Rual from ManvsArt says, "be yourself cause no one else can be" or something to that effect. That being said our creativity and our skill come from our visualization, before you do anything visualize what you are going to do and try to get as close to that as you can. Whether it's animating, caricaturing, drawing, story-boarding, illustrating, whatever visualize, visualize, visualize!

Here's a quick glimpse at today's notes. (Note to self: use darker pencils!)


(second page of just notes and like always click to enlarge)


Today's concern week pose is Sorrowful Concern.


Here's a little concept design I'm working on that I might turn into a logo, or menu for the site later on.

(Gilligan, Claude's Turtle, Claude, and the Little Hero)

Just a couple quick bloggestions

Another fun night of drawing.

Gilligan celebrating Earth Day a little bit early.

Mr Money bags and his turtle, I mean Claude.

Pirate a Day.

Our little hero just wanted to go home, so he got out of the pigs lair as fast as he could. Feeling so relieved to be free, he hummed to himself all the way home. Something akin to what might now sound like Zippity Do Da.

A few nights ago I talked about the trailer for Disney's new animated feature Tangled. John K also posted an entry about the movie this weekend, which has been garnering quite the attention of the animation community. He makes some very valid points, I'm not sure I agree with everything, but no matter what it's well worth the read.

I don't think I have nor can I enough recommend Inspector Cluezo's Blog. Sandro has quite the resume from working as an animator at Don Bluth, Fox and even Disney. Most of all he always has something inspiring to post and he loves Milt Kahl.

Thanks for the inspiration!