via BoingBoing:Offworld
Looks like A LOT of FUN! Created by a company called Hand Circus. Coming in December for all of you in the iPhone cult.
---> http://rolando.ngmoco.com/
Monday, November 24, 2008
Immersion (Video Game Faces)
via Videogum:
New York Times photographer Robbie Cooper used a camera behind a screen to capture kids' faces while they play video games
I hear someone calling us to make games that matter...
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Ira Glass on Storytelling (x4!!)
via Flooby Nooby
On the basics...
On finding great stories...
On good taste...
On two common pitfalls...
On the basics...
On finding great stories...
On good taste...
On two common pitfalls...
Saturday, November 8, 2008
An Approach to Character Design
Food for thought (juice for creativity) from cartoonist Bob Camp:
(from a post on his blog called The "ON MODEL" rut)
--------------
Here's my design approach:
I have an idea of a character and the overall form of the show, comic or whatever. Then I start experimenting, scribbling mostly like in the horse and pig drawings I posted the other day. VERY loose. I try to get to know the character first. Draw them as many times as it takes to start to feel like you are getting some where. NEVER start carving out thick black lines in an attempt to get a style. Lots of people perfect a style but do not perfect the underlying character construction, line of action etc. I catch myself doing this too. All icing and no cake. It's a dead end trap. You spend so much time working on a beautiful rendering over a badly constructed or boring drawing.
Once you start getting to know your character, try to create a shorthand version. I find in storyboarding that after I've drawn a character a few dozen times I have developed a shortcut way to draw them that is always more alive, simple and yes funnier. Now that you know who you are drawing you can start to refine the individual moods and emotional states that you will put him through. You know when Ren gets really angry he suddenly develops harder angles and much more realistic anatomy?
Here's the main point of this whole diatribe:
The style you choose for a drawing should be about who your character is, what he/she is feeling. It's about how to use style as another layer to tell the story in a funnier way and not as a way to design the life out of it!
Do not grip your pencil tightly! Hold it loosely and use gesture. Use your whole arm. Do not draw slowly. make quick confident gestures/strokes. These gestures will bring you character to life and you always want to push the pose and expression because you know that once the drawings are translated into animation, much of the life will be corrected out of it.
Being a good cartoonist is like being a jazz musician. You need have great chops and not be afraid to..
Experiment
Invent
Exaggerate
--------------
Store all that away the next time you take your pencil for a spin :)
(from a post on his blog called The "ON MODEL" rut)
--------------
Here's my design approach:
I have an idea of a character and the overall form of the show, comic or whatever. Then I start experimenting, scribbling mostly like in the horse and pig drawings I posted the other day. VERY loose. I try to get to know the character first. Draw them as many times as it takes to start to feel like you are getting some where. NEVER start carving out thick black lines in an attempt to get a style. Lots of people perfect a style but do not perfect the underlying character construction, line of action etc. I catch myself doing this too. All icing and no cake. It's a dead end trap. You spend so much time working on a beautiful rendering over a badly constructed or boring drawing.
Once you start getting to know your character, try to create a shorthand version. I find in storyboarding that after I've drawn a character a few dozen times I have developed a shortcut way to draw them that is always more alive, simple and yes funnier. Now that you know who you are drawing you can start to refine the individual moods and emotional states that you will put him through. You know when Ren gets really angry he suddenly develops harder angles and much more realistic anatomy?
Here's the main point of this whole diatribe:
The style you choose for a drawing should be about who your character is, what he/she is feeling. It's about how to use style as another layer to tell the story in a funnier way and not as a way to design the life out of it!
Do not grip your pencil tightly! Hold it loosely and use gesture. Use your whole arm. Do not draw slowly. make quick confident gestures/strokes. These gestures will bring you character to life and you always want to push the pose and expression because you know that once the drawings are translated into animation, much of the life will be corrected out of it.
Being a good cartoonist is like being a jazz musician. You need have great chops and not be afraid to..
Experiment
Invent
Exaggerate
--------------
Store all that away the next time you take your pencil for a spin :)
Friday, November 7, 2008
Having fun with inbetweens!
Greetings zany animators! I haven't redirected your attention to John K's blog in a little while, so I thought I would share some of his most recent posts with you. In particular, this post from today (Inbetweens Can Be Fun Too). It's often common practice to focus your efforts on keyframes in animation, but much like his idols from cartoon days past (Bob Clampett), John reminds us that you can have fun with every frame of animation if you so choose. Be sure to watch the quicktime at the end of his post to see the animation in action.More "Yogi posts" here and here. In later, he talks about how he channels limited Hanna-Barbara techniques---still using fun drawings.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
This is Halloween...
I'm spreading the Halloween wishes from Randall Sly over at the Character Design blog. He's posted a candy-haul's worth of character sketches and concept art from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Definitely take a look--->HEREHAPPY HALLOWEEN!
(a day late)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
4 Flash Games to Help Educate Your Kids
via Geekdad
"There are possibly millions of flash-based games out there. And, this short list is a way of sharing a few, but also putting the call out to GeekDad readers. What flash games do you play with your children? What do they learn from them? What games have had to be banned – for their sheer addictiveness?"
Here are the 4 games they're offering up (I've included their descriptions as well). The games all think outside the box...not sure if they'll make your kids smarter. A handful include open-ended play, which is plus.
Bomomo
This art-based game is beautiful. It allows you to explore shape, and more beautiful in its open-ended style that allows you to play and create amazing images forever. A series of bubbles follow the mouse in very subtle ways, in the beginning it is a little slow, so may be difficult to hold children’s attention. But, there are ample buttons to click and options to try. And, you can save the final results as a jpg file.
Thinking Machine 4
Ok, it is chess. But, this isn’t just another chess game. When the computer has its turn it begins graphically representing all the possibilities before it. What results is an amazing pictorial representation of the thousands of options a computer considers before making a move. It looks pretty, in fact, it may be a ruse to distract you from concentrating on your next move.
Falling Sand
This is possibly one of the ultimate flash games. It has appeared in a couple of different forms, but what is nice is that it challenges the concept that people need an end goal, or a points tally to make the game enjoyable and addictive. Using a suite of simple tools you can stop the falling materials, change thgeir direction, gather them up, plant algae in the water and watch it spread, set the oil on fire and watch it burn. The possibilities are endless. It is great for primary aged children to explore a whole range of concepts in simple ways from volume to through to gravity.
Physics Invaders
Suggested by a GeekDad contributor (thanks Matt), here we have space invaders turned even more geek by the fact true principles of physics apply. Rather than exploding, aliens bump and plummet into each other and it takes some effort to push them out of the way. This version of the classic game is also set up to be a bit easier, so even pre-school aged children will enjoy the aliens flying and bumping all over the place – just as Newton theorised.
"There are possibly millions of flash-based games out there. And, this short list is a way of sharing a few, but also putting the call out to GeekDad readers. What flash games do you play with your children? What do they learn from them? What games have had to be banned – for their sheer addictiveness?"
Here are the 4 games they're offering up (I've included their descriptions as well). The games all think outside the box...not sure if they'll make your kids smarter. A handful include open-ended play, which is plus.
BomomoThis art-based game is beautiful. It allows you to explore shape, and more beautiful in its open-ended style that allows you to play and create amazing images forever. A series of bubbles follow the mouse in very subtle ways, in the beginning it is a little slow, so may be difficult to hold children’s attention. But, there are ample buttons to click and options to try. And, you can save the final results as a jpg file.
Thinking Machine 4Ok, it is chess. But, this isn’t just another chess game. When the computer has its turn it begins graphically representing all the possibilities before it. What results is an amazing pictorial representation of the thousands of options a computer considers before making a move. It looks pretty, in fact, it may be a ruse to distract you from concentrating on your next move.
Falling SandThis is possibly one of the ultimate flash games. It has appeared in a couple of different forms, but what is nice is that it challenges the concept that people need an end goal, or a points tally to make the game enjoyable and addictive. Using a suite of simple tools you can stop the falling materials, change thgeir direction, gather them up, plant algae in the water and watch it spread, set the oil on fire and watch it burn. The possibilities are endless. It is great for primary aged children to explore a whole range of concepts in simple ways from volume to through to gravity.
Physics Invaders Suggested by a GeekDad contributor (thanks Matt), here we have space invaders turned even more geek by the fact true principles of physics apply. Rather than exploding, aliens bump and plummet into each other and it takes some effort to push them out of the way. This version of the classic game is also set up to be a bit easier, so even pre-school aged children will enjoy the aliens flying and bumping all over the place – just as Newton theorised.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Gorillaz Animatics
I just found these animatics over at Flooby Nooby. I've mimicked a similar layout here:
Dirty Harry
watch the final video
DARE
watch the final video
A couple things struck me when I watched these animatics, already familiar with the videos. First of all, wow! Very detailed, especially when you realize that the final versions don't quite match up shot for shot. It's almost as if they were created to inspire the final versions. Even in pencil, they're pretty amazing to watch. I can only imagine having the luxury to work so purposefully on something that's at a very early stage in the process.
Dirty Harry
watch the final video
DARE
watch the final video
A couple things struck me when I watched these animatics, already familiar with the videos. First of all, wow! Very detailed, especially when you realize that the final versions don't quite match up shot for shot. It's almost as if they were created to inspire the final versions. Even in pencil, they're pretty amazing to watch. I can only imagine having the luxury to work so purposefully on something that's at a very early stage in the process.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Chestnut Tree
Here is a charming animated film by Hyun-min Lee. I couldn't find out much about it besides the information located at the Picnic Pictures website. The simplicity is moving and reminds me of what we often aspire to create with our Peter Reynold's inspired films. It's not all that dissimilar from Someday, really. After a previous post focusing on good sound design, this shows you just how much well-crafted animation can play a dominant roll. The music reinforces the mood and pacing, but you could follow and appreciate it without any sound at all. The narrative is entirely visual. But the music enhances it, and definitely influenced the storyboarding decisions. Because the movement is choreographed like a dance.
via Flooby Nooby
UPDATE: I noticed the original embed was taken down. I found it again at another YouTube url.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Good sound design and cheesy pants
Via Cold Hard Flash:
For Fremantle’s (American Idol) web and mobile channel Atomic Wedgie, Camp Chaos’ Bob Cesca has embarked on a new animated series. It’s titled Unga Bunga Banana, and it stars “a weird antagonistic critter with big goggles who loves to wreck havoc wherever he goes.” Cesca created the series along with John Christian Plummer, and then he invited two of my favorite artists to join him in the production. Bob directed the series with Anton Bogaty who also animated the series. Both Bogaty and Joel Trussell helped Cesca with character design. The first episode, which you can see below, is titled Cheese Pants.
Via me:
I truly believe this is a great example of strong sound design. Watch how fast the animation goes by and notice how the sounds make it believable. Oh and, of course, the visuals are really fun to look at too. :)
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