Must-See-and-Read Color Study

It's already been picked up by both Drawn! and Cartoon Brew, but I wanted make sure all you FableVisionaries and creative folk weren't missing out on a great study in color design. Hop on over to Oswald Iten's blog called Colorful Animation Expressions for a break down of color in 101 Dalmations (1 and 2 so far).
Call it Color Theory 101! (ha)

Questionaut

Gary passed a game on to me called Questionaut. It's a free game on the BBC's KS2 Bitesize site, described as the following: "Journey through strange worlds and test your knowledge of English, Maths and Science on this magical mission to recover your friend’s hat." It looks like it's by the same creative folks behind Samorost.

The game design is striking, and just like Samorost, involves a lot of click-based exploration. It's educational, but once you get into the game, you discover it's more of a pretty packaging for quiz format education. Not ideal, but each of the stages are related to the subject matter you get quizzed on. I enjoyed it—the quizzes seemed 6th grade level or so.

A couple things to point out in terms of Flash production: they are really clever about mixing beautifully rendered raster art with simple vector characters that are easy to animate because of their design. The sound design adds a ton, but the game doesn't take long to load at all. So they've definitely optimized everything well.

You follow a simple narrative as you travel from stage to stage, so overall, I think they've done a nice job of wrapping a story around a quiz game. And the puzzles you solve to get to the quizzes are also very pleasurable (to interact with, and watch). Nicely done!

Sports, in 3-D!

via Wired


Having a hard time getting into Fenway Park? Have you always wanted to see the Superbowl or World Cup? TV not quite cutting it for you? Why not try watching...in 3-D?

"Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave a presentation to the FCC about the future of digital media, and his number one point ...was that people will be able to go to a movie theater and watch a major sporting event in 3-D...It truly is a different experience from seeing a game on 2-D television. It's not like seeing it live, either, but something different and interesting. As the Pace folks explained, for instance, they discovered that constant cutting to different shots -- a TV staple -- isn't necessary in 3-D. It seems better to let the camera take in the full-court action. Viewers feel a little like they're watching from halfway up the arena seats."

Apparently the technology is almost there...we're likely to see experiments in the next couple of years. Cool, huh?

Got Milk?

--> got milk?

Thirsty? Cookies welcome. Lactose intolerant applicants need not apply ;)

Great site design and overall concept. Take special note of all the attention paid to transitions and sound design.

’skine.art.

What are you doing with your moleskine? 'skine.art is a blog that's been kicking around for a few months "dedicated to moleskine lovers and their art." What's a moleskine, you ask? Their slogan proudly touts that it "is the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin." They come in all sorts of forms (journals, sketchbooks, agendas).

This beauty is by Mattias Adolfsson. I'm not sure I've seen a wide format moleskine like this before. There are tons of talented sketchbook artists featured on this site, as if you didn't already feel guilty for not doodling enough ;)

Get sketching!!

Background Design

Renée came to me the other day with a question about background design...mainly that she wanted some inspiration to look at, so I pointed her in the direction of Rob Richard's Animation Backgrounds blog. I'd seen it referenced before on John K's blog as a one-stop depot for animation backgrounds of all styles, minus the characters! There's even a handy list on the side that helps organize them into films and periods. Well, a day later, John K. is blogging away about backgrounds. Check out his post here, as I'm referencing only a few of the images he pulled from Rob Richard's site.

I'll be the first to admit that I have a difficult time with backgrounds. John K. does a good job breaking down the key principles of composition and hierarchy—how you frame a shot and how you organize elements on a page. Like with everything else in image-making, it's always key to consider things like contrast, positive and negative space (you know the laundry list)...all the things you would consider as a designer of anything. Here are two "stylized" backgrounds that really excel (from Warner Brothers Cartoons of the 1950s):



Breathtaking! I can recall a recent film we did where we had a scene with a park bench —notice the frame of reference here. I know I fall into the trap of keeping the horizon at a flat 180 degrees. See how much more dynamic these compositions are because of the angling of forms? They still adhere to a system of perspective and logic. Here are poignant words from John K:

"Some modern layout artists see a license for anarchy in these stylized images. I see very slightly distorted perspectives and stylistic interpretations of reality, but with still great planning and organization of all the graphic elements into a quickly readable statement that has a purpose in the scene and story. Each element does not follow its own physics ; it is subservient to the overall composition. Every detail follows and helps define the larger object it is part of."

Check out this fire red background from 101 Dalmations:

Here's a random shot from The Jungle Book. You can tell right away where Mowgli is supposed to go, and the background is balanced as to not overwhelm you with jungle:

Or a house fit for a mouse! This is from "Jonann Mouse", a Tom and Jerry cartoon that won an Oscar. This is the full pan...low to the ground (notice the chair leg in the foreground):

Anyway, that's just a small sampling. Definitely check out this invaluable resource!

Clouds

via ColdHardFlash



"Sam Miller, a 21-year old student at the University of Hertfordshire, created this 2-minute short Clouds, which follows a young girl’s adventures flying through the sky. The film, which took Miller around 5 months to complete, was produced as part of his second year at school. The character animation was created in Flash, and the clouds were handled in After Effects."

--I think this film is about motion and composition (striking on both accounts, anyway). I would love to see the storyboards. The character design and animation is nicely handled as well. Notice how well he mixed Flash with After Effects.

Go See Wall-E

Drop what you're doing and go see Wall-E. I mean it! If you've seen it, feel free to leave your thoughts.

Also, the Pixar short Presto is a real treat as well.

What are you waiting for?...stop reading!!

Previously: Wall-E

Best Cartoon Bumper Ever?

I often post on some of the more striking things John K. has to say about animation. His latest post analyzes the opener/bumper of Rocky and Bullwinkle:

"How the Hell did they come up with this great bumper? Not only is this frame the best drawing of Bullwinkle, but just about every aspect of the cartoon is inspired...How would you plan a cartoon like this? Certainly not with a script. I don't think you could do it with just a storyboard either, because it has no logical continuity , but it all seems to go perfectly to the crazy wonderful music."

Link to Video

Previously blogged about:
The Design of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Wall-E

Whenever Pixar puts out a film, animators and the public as a whole take notice. They've kind of replaced Disney as the standard bearer for animated feature films. So far, the buzz around Wall-E has been extremely positive—some are already touting it as Pixar's Best to Date. One early circulating "spoiler" is that the first half hour of the film is almost entirely silent...just Wall-E hanging out on Earth all by himself---little to no dialogue. Which intrigues me.

However, I just came across the first heavily negative review I've seen. And it comes from Michael Sporn, one of the top bloggers in the animation community. He says that "the film, to me, felt less like an animated film than a special effect film." Which is an interesting statement in it's own right....heavy on spaceships and robots (obviously). But, here's the essence of his criticism:

"The technical abilities are high, and the film is done with the greatest professionalism. But they’re machines being animated, and I never felt close to them. The Iron Giant, from that film, was a hostile, war machine and was supposed to stay a machine, but I felt more for that character than I did for Wall-E or his cutely developed girlfriend, EVE.

The film has a better concept than story. It’s the bane of all movies these days. If you can narrow the story down to one sentence, it’s more concept than story and has a harder time being successful. Wall-E feels a lot like Short Circuit 3 with no humans - for at least the first half."

Definitely disappointing if true. I'm gonna hope for better. I think that for me, it will fall on character development. R2-D2 and C-3P0 were extremely likable robots. But it IS an interesting choice for Pixar to work with less animated-looking characters. What are people's thoughts and expectations for the film, based on reviews and trailers you've seen? It hits theaters tomorrow.

Open House Animation

We set up a light table at our FableVision Open House last Friday. I prepared a stack of index cards for people to draw on and what ensued was an animation tag of sorts. Where one person draws a couple frames and leaves their last card for the next person to step up to the plate. We stole the idea from a "Drinking and Drawing" event held in Boston by Frederator. Here is the animation from that event.

Wobbly Land

via Drawn



Wobblyland is a new show for toddlers created by Ireland's Brown Bag Films.

FANTASTIC!