2d Animation Articles
Featured 2d Animation Article
Acting and Animation
"An animator is an actor with a pencil", goes the oldest and truest animation cliché. Not "a draftsman that acts", but first and foremost - an actor. If you're trying to tell a story through a character, inevitably you're an actor. The only question is whether you are a good actor or a bad one...
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Drawing for Animation
Drawing Lessons #1: Draw what you See
The biggest problem that artists must overcome is not one of technique or of inspiration. The biggest problem is the lack of seeing. When people go through their lives every day, they do not see. They look. There is a very simple reason for this; no-one could possibly notice every detail in the world around us. So the brain filters out the details for us. When you are walking down the street, you see the street, the sidewalk, the other people, and the buildings. You do not notice the cracks in the sidewalk or the weeds growing in those cracks;...
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Becoming an animator(by Shanna Smith)
What does it take to be a Disney animator? What spectrums of talent and elements of training are needed to produce these wonder-working "actors with pencils" called animators? We recently put these questions to Frank Gladstone, Manager of Animation Training for Disney, who works out of the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World.
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Character Animation Books(by Harold Whitaker and John Halas)
Acting for Animators covers a lot of ground that doesn't get addressed much in animation school. Sure, we're all told to make the character "live and breathe", but most of the info that follows that admonition is from an art perspective. Hooks draws on his acting training and experience to give a different set of tools animators can use to reach that goal. The information on psychological gestures alone is worth the cost of the book (there's something you don't hear about in your Maya classes).
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Concept ArtistAaron St. Goddard
I try to create a level of realism in my designs which will make people think that it really can exist and function in the real world. This is definitely the most challenging part of coming up with a design, since people are so accustomed to knowing what looks right or what looks wrong. Even if the design is outrageously strange, I'll try hard to make it based in some sort of working reality.
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Acting and Animation(by Doron A. Meir)
In the following article I have put on paper my thoughts considering acting in animation, which apply to any form of character animation - including 3D. The article is not meant to provide a "good acting in animation" formula - simply because such a formula does not exist. Every animator has his personal attitude, every film has needs of its own, and undoubtedly there are other ways of getting good acting.
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Brokensaints.com Character DesignerAndrew West
I think I enjoyed drawing Raimi the computer hacker most. I had a lot of freedom with what I had him wear and look like a lot. It was very enjoyable dressing up. But I guess I liked them all the same. It's like parents like all their kids the same I think, it's too hard to choose one over another!
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