Mo Willems has a blog

http://mowillemsdoodles.blogspot.com/



I just discovered it...he had an amazing 226 posts in 2007, so he updates it very frequently. Add it to your list of artist blogs. Happy New Year everyone!

Terminus

"A silent concrete creature follows a nervous businessman through Montreal in Terminus, an eerie and darkly funny short film directed by Trevor Cawood."

(via Boing Boing)

Once Upon a Wintertime

Just in case you didn't see it over on John K's blog already....


A wonderfully illustrated Golden Book, by Disney artist Tom Oreb. He has some great page scans if you scroll down and click on the images. Picking up on the theme of a limited palette, this book actually alternates back and forth. Though, all the colors are masterfully implemented. Check out the striking compositions of snowy scenes with trees and icy rivers.

Let it snow!

A few months ago, Bob wrote about the beauty of a limited color palette. You only need to look outside on a snowy day to see this for yourself. (This photo was just taken last week.) In fact, nature always seems to choose the right colors, no matter what time of year. Happy Holidays everyone!

Grow Island

I found my 5-year-old son playing this:
Grow Island


Pretty cute!

Year End Lists (2007)

Hey everyone! It's that time of year again.
The return of the year end

Top Ten lists!

What's that? You have a Top Ten list, too? Here's the place to state your opinion. No matter the category (books, movies, music, games, quotes, sports, television...whatever!). Contribute to the list craze! I do a list of my personal favorite albums. What do you got?

Nate Wragg, Ratatouille Credits

Many of you who've seen Pixar's Ratatouille have mentioned how much you love the end credits of the movie. I've been checking out Nate Wragg's illustration blog for awhile, but I just made the connection that he was one of the key artists behind the credits animation. I think a lot of it came from the concept art he did for the film. He talks a little about it in this post:

Everything was animated by hand, and since we wanted such a painterly look on the finished animation, we had to paint all the animation in a futuristic old fashioned way, all in the computer, but frame by frame in photoshop with no cheats or short cuts. Unfortunately we didn't get to use any cell painting gloves, maybe next time.

eBooks for real this time?

Appleinsider has a great breakdown and analysis of Amazon's new Kindle eBook reader. A lot of comparisons have been made to Apple's iPod domination of the mp3 market. Only thing is that there really isn't an eBook market yet.

Backgrounds

John K. has a nice little post about some background art from a Donald Duck cartoon. He's blogged frequently about how cartoons should have better color design (he specifically love's Art Lozzi's background designs for Yogi Bear). Worth checking out when you get second. He talks about how the color scheme is limited, but not monochromatic. Browns, reds, grays, and oranges are working great together. And subtle enough so when the characters are overlayed, they still pop.

Beautifully

Looking for a design pick-me-up? Jay passed this great website on to me today. It's a design portal of sorts that tracks current trends in web design by showcasing a ton of cool sites. There's a lot to look at, especially if you're looking for innovative design solutions or just a lot of cutting edge Flash sites.

--> Visit Beautifully

There is a similar site I used to frequent called linkdup that has a bunch of great design as well. I don't know if they update it anymore.

Cancer, Schmancer!

--> Watch "Inside Magoo" (1960)

This is kind of like what we did with the stroke animations.
Except it features Mr. Magoo! (note, you have to skip the first couple minutes to get to the cartoon)

(via Boing Boing)

Good Ole Charle Brown...

I was just watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, like I do every year. ABC shows it more than a couple times between now and Christmas, so be sure to schedule it in at some point. I'm always awestruck by the heartfelt beauty and simplicity of the story and animation. The only problem is that you always have to hurry and change the channel before they show the awful NEW version afterwards (good grief!). Anyway, I got to thinking about the kind of animation we do at FableVision—usually symbol-based tweening that takes advantages of all the short cuts that Flash has to offer to get it done on time and on budget. There is something so incredibly charming about the limited animation in A Charlie Brown Christmas. The voices, the music, the backgrounds, and the way the characters are drawn is almost timeless because they are so embedded in our minds. Here's a little information I've heard before, and dug up again on Wikipedia that might be good to put into perspective when we think about animation:

"The production was done on a shoestring budget, resulting in a somewhat choppy animation style and, from a technical standpoint, poorly mixed sound. With the exception of the actors who voiced Charlie Brown and Lucy, Peter Robbins and Tracy Stratford, respectively, none of the children had any experience doing voice work. This was especially challenging for Kathy Steinberg, who voiced Sally: she was too young to read and needed to be cued line by line during the soundtrack recording. The technical issues are in evidence on the show's audio track, which to some may seem noticeably choppy and poorly enunciated. Melendez has said he remains somewhat embarrassed to see the show repeated every year with all its problems, but Schulz vetoed his idea of "fixing" the program years later."

From a technical perspective, not to impressive---even for it's time. Anecdotally I've heard they animated it at 8 frames a second!

"Another complaint was the absence of a laugh track, a common element of children's cartoons at the time. Schulz maintained that the audience should be able to enjoy the show at their own pace, without being cued when to laugh. (CBS did create a version of the show with the laugh track added, just in case Schulz changed his mind. This version remains unavailable.) A third complaint was the use of children to do the voice acting, instead of employing adult actors. Finally, the executives thought that the jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi would not work well for a children's program. When executives saw the final product, they were horrified and believed the special would be a complete flop.

The show first aired on Thursday, December 9, 1965, preempting The Munsters and following the Gilligan's Island episode entitled Don't Bug the Mosquitos. To the surprise of the executives, it was both a critical and commercial hit. None of the special's technical problems detracted from the show's appeal; to the contrary, it is thought that these so-called quirks, along with several other choices, are what lent the show such an innovative, authentic and sincere feeling."

It goes to show how charm, wit, and originality can go a long way. Everything that worked for the original is absent from the NEW version they show afterwards to fill out the hour for advertisers. From an animation standpoint, I'd like to see us do more of this kind of animation, which I'll call "limited but with a TON of charm" than the robotic stiffness that is so easy to crank out of Flash. But I guess that would be a bigger discussion on philosophies of animation that might be better saved for another posting.