Happy Birthday Iron Giant

10 years! Still a fantastic movie. Wired has a good article about the movie, worth a read. That movie combined CG and 2D in such a good way. Super sweet Blu-ray release one day anyone?

- found via Scott Clark's Tweet

Kyle Balda's animation tutorial

Head over to Jeff's blog and check out his notes on the Kyle Balda tutorial. This was interesting to read:

It's an interesting workflow in that you focus on hitting the scene beats quickly and getting to the heart of the rhythm of the scene, but you don't really arrive at your poses until later on, which is heresy to the way a lot of people work.

How can someone's workflow be heresy to other people? I'm not a big fan of stepped work, but that's just me, I'm not going to declare it as heresy or assume that my way is the best way. Man, some animation stuff can be so childish.

Animtip on Twitter

Yes yes, I'm using Twitter now.... *cough*Hypocrite*cough* and I have to admit that there are some good aspects about it. :)

Someone (who was it?) launched Animtip Tuesday (although I'm sure the tips will keep coming in on other days).

In theory every Tuesday animators put up their animation tips. Or tweet them (I hate that word, right next to blogosphere). There is already a really cool collection of animation tips available and that's just after one day.

So yes. Twitter: 1. JD: 0.
;)

Animation Mentor Newsletter - August 2009 & Refresher Classes

This month you get:

- Student Showcase Summer 2009
- Animation Mentor Hosts Awesome Events
- Official Animation Mentor Badges Are Here!
- Short Film: The Date by Emanuel Amler
- Mentor: Steve Cunningham
- Student: Pavel Antonenkov
- Comic-Con 2009 Through The Eyes Of Super Geek Shawn Kelly

The Comic-Con pictures are great!

On top of that, AM just launched the Refresher Classes for alumnis!! Check out all the information here!

Shawn Kelly on Demo Reels

Most Knowledge of Animation Principles That You’d Want to See in a Demo Reel?

Good tips, go read it!

Last class at the AAU

Thank you for another awesome semester! Thanks for your patience and all the candy! :)

"I will see you again... but not yet... Not yet! "



- pic source

Cameron Fielding's awesome reel

Thanks Bernie for pointing this clip out. I knew of the Turok shots by Cameron Fielding but I hadn't seen the acting clip with the girl yet. That shot hits all the right tones for me. I just love it, love it, love it. The animation is exactly the style I really like. The attitude of the girl when she sits down, so good. Love the secondary detail like the ear rings and hair. The set is awesome too and there is the right amount of camera work in it to give it some life without drawing attention to it.

So all in all a fantastic piece of work and to me an A+ reference clip.

Go to the 0:52 mark in the video for the acting clip: