I just saw this on Drawn! and had to pass it along to anyone who might have missed it.
"Disney artist, Stef Kardos, is posting iPhone sketches to his Flickr page. The miniature digital paintings were done on-site using the Brushes iPhone app."
The real kicker is this video. Who would've thought you could legitimately paint on a phone?? Quite impressive.
Oh...and HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us at Creative Juices!
As some of you might already know internally, Allie and I have been pushing the boundaries on background stylings in some of the short animations we're working on. I was taken by a bunch of backgrounds Rob Richards posted over at Animation Backgrounds yesterday, from Disney's Paul Bunyan. Be sure to hop over to his blog to see all of them. They are credited to Walt Peregoy, who was likely influenced by the more modern approach used in Sleeping Beauty.
The two biggest things to note for me: color and space. Color shifts in hue throughout the film...blues, greens, purples, neutrals. They are not monochromatic, each image is composed of related hues using a limited palette. But the design approach from background to background is consistent. Also, even though the application of paint and patterning is flat, there is a vast sense of space.
I'm most taken by the above background, how he used these polygon ponds and lakes in receding scale to truly map out the topography of the land. Vertical arrow-shaped trees sprout up in varying scales across the landscape as well. All of these visual devices are working perfectly to create the overall effect.
The river is skewed in a similar way in this background. The blue is completely flat, but recedes back in perspective. He sprinkles in beaver dams to a similar effect here. Plus, check out the shape of the river (I mean, COME ON...how cool is that?). It's straight out of something Stuart Davis would do.
Finally, here's the cartoon, in two parts: (note the colors are washed out a bit)
An article by Sarah McBride of the Wall Street Journal. Things to consider, as we continue to think about how we deliver media and storytelling. Get the FableVision holography pilot program started...
Hollywood studios and tech companies are rolling out a host of innovations that will change the way we experience films at home and in theaters. They've already begun to serve up DVDs that let you chat with other people who are watching the same movie. They're also sprucing up theaters with crystal-clear screens and amenities like cozier seats and restaurant-quality food.
Coming soon: kiosks that can burn a copy of a movie while you wait, from a library of thousands of titles. The industry is also working on ways to easily send movies from gadget to gadget -- so you might download a movie on your iPhone and stream it onto your TV.
Down the road, expect new ways to easily store digital movies online, so you can access them from any computer, anytime. We might also get theaters filled with dozens of speakers for super-sharp sound, as well as much more lifelike animated characters."
We've been posting a bunch of videos at Creative Juices, lately. Back to drawing. Just moments ago I had a chance to hop on over to John K's blog, where he's talking about a term I'd never heard used before: how to avoid twins in your poses. See Mickey, above.
"Another sign admonished us to watch out for 'twins' in our drawings. This is the unfortunate situation where both arms or both legs are not only parallel but doing exactly the same thing."
Drawings like this should remind you of how you probably started drawing when you were a kid. I drew countless Ninja Turtles that looked just like this. John talks further about how this ties in to avoiding symmetry in your drawings, period. Symmetry has the effect of sucking the life out your character. He posts tons of great model sheets of Mickey to show what an alive character should look like.
I'm mentioning this as a reminder to all you Flash animators (that means you, Fablefolk!). It is INCREDIBLY easy to be tempted to copy, paste, and flip arms and legs to save time. Especially when you have a character facing forward. Every shortcut has a consequence. If you can spare the minute or two that it takes to rid your drawings of symmetry, they will appear all the more lifelike...less mechanical.
David Rosen has taken the time to do a video walkthrough of World of Goo. He pays special attention to all the little details that put the game over the top:
"Whenever I play a game, I look for design lessons that I can learn and apply to my own games. Recently, I decided to show these lessons in the form of a video tour of games that make interesting design decisions."
We should do the same at FableVision. And World of Goo is exactly the kind of game we should be studying to make our games better.
I just saw this on Drawn! and had to pass it along to anyone who might have missed it.
via Animation Backgrounds
We've been posting a bunch of videos at Creative Juices, lately. Back to drawing. Just moments ago I had a chance to hop on over to John K's blog, where he's talking about a term I'd never heard used before: how to avoid twins in your poses. See Mickey, above.
