This is a cute stop motion animation short. The video uses stop motion animation to animate two drawing skeletons in an epic Midwest showdown. The video is funny and ridiculous in it's simplicity. There is an animated explosion at the end which the only non stop motion part of the video.

Kubo and the Two Strings

If you're a fan of the stop motion animation films that have been produced by Laika studios (they're known for producing Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls, as well as contract work for Corpse Bride,) then you may have heard about their new film that's releasing this summer, Kubo and the Two Strings.  

Like the films mentioned above, this is a 3D stop-motion animated film that provides some glorious visual effects that is just a pleasure to watch, and this is only the trailer.  When I first saw this trailer, I had the same reaction to it as I did to when I first saw a preview for Steven Universe: I thought that there is definitely some potential to this film and I can see it doing really well.  In a way, the film's style reminds me a lot of Steven Universe.  The scenes have a very distinct color grade to enhance the mood, there's plenty of mystery to it that makes me look forward to seeing it, the fight scenes look very well choreographed, and it incorporates music with very specific instruments to highlight a character's personality and fighting style.

The art style and character design reminds me a lot of those from Over the Garden Wall and Samurai Jack as well, and coupled with the coming-of-age story arc of Steven Universe, this seems like it could be the animated film of the summer that could be enjoyed by all ages.  I recommend giving the trailer a watch if you haven't already.

Always Working

I’ve taken a growing interest lately in “behind the scenes” videos for large budget productions. One animated video that I recently saw was a short promo for McDonalds called Always Working. It was a one minute piece made with 3D printed figures and a background full of miniature plastic trees and hills. The reddit user who posted it also included a “making of” video that I found to be very interesting. It shows all aspects of the production process, including some of the character modeling in Maya and compositing in After Effects. The reddit user was an animator on the project and also held a mini AMA (Ask Me Anything) session in the comments of the post. I think that videos like this one give an interesting glimpse of what it may be like to work as a professional animator.

Meow

The inspiration for this week's blog goes out to my cat, Pepper.  At seven in the morning, and at five in the afternoon, Pepper likes to remind me that it is time for him to eat.  Like any hungry individual, he expresses his hunger quite vocally, so it's a routine that we have both gotten used to.  However, today Pepper's dedicated plea's reminded me of a video that I happened to stumble upon a few years ago.  Created by a well known youtuber, named "cyriak," this video combines music and motion graphics to create a rather abstract, and somewhat unsettling music video simply of his cat meowing.  I'm not sure what his exact technique was, but it combines manipulating images, and moving around parts of the cat's body to make it look like there are multiples of the cat, as well as movements that don't look too lifelike.  Check it out, because it's pretty cool:

While you're at it, you should check out his other videos too, because they're amazing.  Great work at manipulating what your eyes see.

Slow Wave Short Animation

https://vimeo.com/155080375

While looking for something to blog about I came across this video and instantly got intrigued. The animation throughout this short is really captivating. The storyline itself was so imaginative and it managed to capture such an interesting that every child has more than likely faced. I think it's incredible how much effort went into this animation. The way the floor moves, and the lights shine through is really interesting to me. There is so much texture going on throughout the entire short that it really does leave you intrigued the entire time.

Sound.

Unfortunately for me sound isn’t terribly important within my creative or production process even though it consists of 50% of my final film. Sound plays a tremendous role in how people interpret your film; from the emotions the sound leads the audience to feel as well as to also help drive the action within your film. Sound can be used in this huge multitude of ways, yet time and time again I throw scoring on the back burner while I continue to work on other projects. Ideally you should spend as much time, if not more, on sound and how it works within your film rather than saving it for the last minute to compile in so that there is something backing your film. What really alarms me is the fact that although I acknowledge the importance of sound and it’s effects within film, I still don’t take the initiative to work on the sound when I really should. Although this isn’t directly related to animation, it still is an important topic to bring up. First imagine your favorite animation without dialogue? (Now if your favorite animation already lacks dialogue you are one step ahead!) If you can imagine all the sounds that went into making that soundscape (ticking clocks, cars passing by, footsteps etc.) and silence them to what are you limited to? A film without sound lacks an entire layer that can be used to tell the story as well as eve emotion. Nothing is truly silent therefore our short films shouldn’t be either.

Meet the Robinsons

Meet the Robinsons is a computer-animated science fiction Disney comedy. It's a family-friendly movie about an orphan who finds his home and family in the future. It is very loosely based off a book by William Joyce called A Day with Wilbur Robinson. It probably still is one of my favourite movies because it's just heart-warming and well done. It sends a positive message to "keep moving forward." The animation is fun and vibrant and the scenes in the future are quirky and white-based as most futuristic things, making the future look like a pretty fun place in general. It has everything from robots to dinosaurs to singing frogs. Its's a very cute movie and I'd recommend watching it.

Looks Like Animation, But Isn't Animation

I was trying to find something to blog about when I stumbled upon this video of paint mixing. Yeah. That sounds weird, I know. But watching paint mix is so much more fun than watching paint dry!!!!!!  (Lol). The experimental piece is by a French artist named Thomas Blanchard.

Memories of Paintings from Thomas Blanchard on Vimeo.

You can animate anything you want, but there are some things that look just as good (if not, better) when they're not computer graphics. I think it just depends on what the animation is for and the feel of that particular project. For my Program Development project, I like the feel of a stop motion animation for the title sequence because it shows right from the get-go that the show will be fun and entertaining.

This video is very relaxing to watch. It also reminded me of the Joshua Light Show's piece from 1969, and I wonder if Blanchard was influenced by their work at all.

Studio Ghibli Animation Software Free

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tech/heres-download-opentoonz-studio-ghiblis-free-animation-software-138465.html
Apparently the software Studio Ghibli uses to animate has been made free to download within the last couple days.

Along with the main software package, they've also released an effects development kit for advanced image processing like lighting and distortion effects, as well as GTS, a scanning tool developed by Studio Ghibli that allows for efficient scanning of sequentially numbered drawings.

Harry Potter Magic Wand Lightning Effect Tutorial

This tutorial is a bit old but most of the instructions still made sense. I was looking through youtube the other day and came across this video under tutorials in after effects. First off I don't know anyone that can say they don't like Harry Potter and beyond that I can't imagine that I was the only one that always wondered how they did the wand effects when dueling out in the forest or wherever potter would duel out. The directions are pretty simple and I wouldn't be surprised if some kids in our class already have an idea on how to create these effects in AE. Hope you guys enjoy

The Iron Giant

The blog post made recently about the show Archer, and the ways in which it utilizes both 2D and 3D animation techniques in its production, reminded me of one of my most beloved childhood movies that also uses both animation styles (though not in the same way). The Iron Giant, released back in 1999, takes place in the era of McCarthyism in the U.S., and is the story of a boy finding a giant alien robot and befriending it. Almost the entire movie is animated in 2D, with the exception of the Iron Giant itself, who is rendered in 3D. The animators do an incredible job of making the 3D alien robot feel less alien within its 2D environment, and, along with its great story and interesting characters, make for one of my favorite films of all time.

Here's the trailer for the remastered edition:

Fresh Grass

Fresh Grass is an animated short film written and directed by Irish filmmaker Robert Cullen. Released in 2014, Fresh Grass follows the story of a little dog who leaves his small town home to journey to the big city to visit his sister. A seemingly simple and innocent story, this short film quickly pulls a 180 and throws the audience into a bizarre setting that leads to a bitter twist.

   
This 10-minute short does a great job of deceiving its audience of where it is headed and it definitely catches you off guard when things start to get weird but this is exactly what the director intended. In an interview with Robert Cullen, he explained how he has had this story idea for years and had every shot and composition thought out already when he was finally given the opportunity to make it. The short was put together using elements from Flash, Photoshop, and After Effects and it took about eight weeks to complete with a crew of 25.    

   
Overall, Fresh Grass is a fresh twist on an innocent tale that is definitely worth checking out. You can view the entire short by using the link below.

                                                          https://vimeo.com/148380343

Properly Setting up a Track

As I become increasingly frustrated with a poorly executed screen track that I am working on as one of my products, I've begun to think about the best way to set up a track on set so that it minimizes the effort required in post.

I found this neat little article that talks about the best way to go about marking the set so that you can get an easier track in post. https://www.fxguide.com/featured/art_of_tracking_part_2_tips_and_apps_overview/

Archer

So the new season of Archer is here and that means more antics from H. Jon Benjamin's character Sterling Archer. Other than the hilarious plot of the show, Archer has a unique style of animation that combines 2D and 3D animation into a show. The backgrounds are 3D whereas the foreground, usually the characters, are 2D.  The scenes in the show where this is most noticeable is in the car chases. The best way to illustrate this is to watch "Archer and Conan's Day Out" above if you haven't already.

Azizi in Space

Azizi Gibson is a rap artist that I have loved for a few years now. He’s an underground artist who gradually became more popular recently. He is very creative when it comes to his style and his image. His music video for “Smoking With The Gods” displays a creative way to incorporate animation into a music video. The animators did a great job of capturing the essence of being in space and creating a story to go along with the song. It is one of my favorite music videos to watch. I hope that in the future I will be able to create videos as intriguing and entertaining as this one. 

Ping Pong Opening

This opening sequence is from Ping Pong The Animation.  I find the style of this show really unique. It has a very loose, hand-drawn rotoscope-type of feel to it, that I don't see very often. Because of the "loose" style, there's a lot of variation in how the characters look in different parts of the show. This style does a really great job of conveying emotions to viewers. The characters look almost grotesque at times, but it shows the character's expressions more clearly than a lot of other more polished (or as my friend likes to say "shiny") animations. In addition to that, I think it's also just a lot more interesting to look at.

After Effects Scripts

This is a great website that contains tons of After Effects scripts. These are scripts that have been written by other people and sold online. The scripts vary in price: some free, some expensive, some where you can name your own price and question how much of a cheapskate you are. There are effects like many of the plugins you come across, but many just help with productivity and quickly doing things that would normally eat up time. The scripts and plugins vary in type and program and can be very useful. Check them out when you get a chance. They can inspire ideas, or click in your mind when you see how convenient something can be.

LINK

Rotoscoping with Breakbot

One of my favorite music videos is Breakbot's "Baby I'm Yours". The shimmering colors and shifting shapes are hypnotic and go along with the music so perfectly. For my next project I'm working on a mini music video that uses this technique, although mine will be a lot less cool than this. I think it's interesting when artists use other mediums for rotoscoping like watercolor or gouache.

Breakbot generally has really cool animated music videos so if you like this one, I'd definitely recommend looking at their other ones.


Breakbot - Baby I'm Yours (feat. Irfane) - HD from Ed Banger Records on Vimeo.

Title Sequence

For my next project, I would like to create a title sequence that either resembles the colorful absurdity of the television show Broad City, or the quirky title sequence from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Both fit into the level of excitement that I want to portray in the sequence, and the colors pop out and caught my eye the most.

Horror Addict

I'm that weird kid who's always down to watch a scary movie.  You suggest it, and I will always be down.  When I'm not watching horror movies, I'm looking up creepy short films, and stories that may cause me to lose some sleep.  In my studies, I happened to stumble across this super short animation, which actually disturbed me a bit.  It may look simple, but I found that the simple design made it all the more effective.  It also helped that it was hand-drawn, which I'm also always a sucker for.

 Created by a student at the Vancouver film school.
Disclaimer: If you're not a fan of psychological horror, then I don't suggest watching this.

Loving Vincent

Loving Vincent is the first animation of its kind. Directed by Polish painter Dorota Kobiela and British filmmaker Hugh Welshman, the animated feature is an investigation of Van Gogh's life through 100+ of his most famous works. The story is draw from 800 letters written by Van Gogh himself that reveal much about his mysterious life and death. It will be the first feature length that is an entirely hand painted animation, where every frame, running at 12 frames per second, is an individual oil painting done in the style of the famous painter. In total, the film will require a total of 57,000 paintings and it should be release sometime this year. 

Most Used Motion Graphics Techniques

This week while browsing reddit, I found a blog post that summarized the top 25 techniques that motion graphics artists use to make simple videos look better. Some of these techniques I had practiced in the past, while some of these were completely new to me. It’s a good checklist to go through if you’re looking for ways to make a plain video look better, and I will definitely check this list before finalizing videos in the future. The link can be found here, and it’s a url that I have bookmarked for future use. /r/aftereffects has provided me with lots of valuable posts, and I plan on using these posts in the future as a valuable source of learning. 

My Next Project

I'm wrapping up my name animation now (yeah, I know my workflow isn't the fastest) and I finally came up with a new project that I think is both challenging, yet achievable.

In my Program Development class, I'm working with a team to develop a web series called Turnt Trivia. On the show, our host will pull people off the street as they're either on their way out, or on their way home after a night of drinking to ask them trivia questions for a chance to win some prizes--like a free ride home, pizza, and a t-shirt.

I want to create a short animation to play at the beginning of the show that will end with the logo. I also want to put the logo on the t-shirts but that's a whole other thing.

So here's what I've come up with so far:

My terribly drawn storyboard

In case you can't tell by my drawings, I basically want a hand to reach for a bottle of beer, open it with a can opener, and the the bottle cap will flip in the air and land on a table revealing the words "Turnt Trivia" on it.

Also, here is a mock up logo I quickly made. I'm probably going to put the word "turnt" on the bottle cap.

I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback on this, so if you have any ideas, I am more than willing to hear them. Thank you!

Android: Rock, Paper, Scissors Commercial

While watching TV one day this commercial appeared one day and I thought it was the cutest concept. Usually, like most people, I fast forward through commercials as they get so tiresome, but this one really caught my attention. Everyone knows the idea/game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and to make it into a little story I thought was really clever. I think it is interesting when animation uses real life elements and then puts animation into them, it creates a stronger story line that you feel more connected to. Overall I thought this was a captivating little commercial, I give props to Android for this new Rock, Paper, Scissors animation commercial series as it really is a intriguing concept.

Yung Lean - Kyoto

For those of you who don't know, Yung Lean is a 19 year old rapper from Stockholm, Sweden. I was lucky enough to find out about him a couple of years ago when he released this video. Ever since then he has been coming out with a lot of new music and videos that include a lot of heady graphic animations that really don't seem to difficult to do but certainly make the videos. "Kyoto" was the song/video that helped jung lean blow up in 2013 and the video certainly helped that happen. Theres one animation on the car in the video at 3:25 that id love to learn how to do. Somehow they change the color of the car along with the beat of the song and I know it sounds pretty simple but the way its done is news to me.

I LAVA Pixar Shorts.

So you know how Pixar has those shorts to start off their films. So recently I was reintroduced to LAVA.(You know the short that started Inside Out.) You know, the one about the really cute song about the volcano that sings about how much he’d love to love someone someday! At first the animation style semi-realistic and it pans up to a very old weathered looking volcano. Each animal shown has it’s counterpart and the volcano man longs for this connection. He deserves someone to "lava" too! Anyways the story goes on and the short is very vibrant with color and just a beautiful short and I swear there won’t be a dry eye in the house!

UPDATE:
Unfortunately, and probably due to copyright issues, there is no full version of Lava That I can find online. However, I have found the full song in a lyric video that shows screen caps from the short film So feel free to take a listen.

Designing After Effects Assets in Adobe Illustrator

Someone posted this article on Facebook. For people who are just getting into After Effects animation, this can be helpful when designing assets. Photoshop is great for some things but it is raster based meaning things created in it are a set pixel ratio, and scaling it up will reduce the quality. Illustrator is vector based so your images basically have infinite resolution. Because the two programs are both made by Adobe they work very well together, so making adjustments to an imported illustrator asset file, will show up in your After Effects project. Illustrator is also a more advanced tool as far as asset design in many ways, because that is really what it is meant to do, while After Effects is primarily a compositing program. Consider using illustrator to design your assets and export and import them into your After Effects project. Especially for more detailed objects. And check out the article if you want. It just gives some advice on asset creation and proper importing of layers and what not.

LINK

The Recipe - Kendrick Lamar - Lyric Video

Lyric videos are interesting to me because there are so many different ways that you can connect the typography to the theme of the music. In Kendrick Lamar’s lyric video for “The Recipe”, the typography is very simple but it works perfectly with the song. The lyrics are also easy to read, which is nice because many lyric videos today get so carried away with the animation that you can barely see the lyrics. This inspires me to do more with typography in the future because I have yet to really work with it in my projects. It’s nice to have these lyric videos for inspiration. 

Wallace and Gromit

As a kid I loved the Wallace and Gromit animated movies and am still amazed with the amount of time and effort that it takes to create films like these. Although his behind the scenes isn't incredibly specific it still gives good insight to how long even a short like this can take, two seconds per day. The attention to detail is incredible and makes stop motion an intimidating platform to approach as someone who has never taken it on before.

Grandma's Hero

Grandma's Hero is an animated short film that was released in 2016 and directed by Ben Ozeri and Corentin Monnier, two film makers from Denmark. The story follows a boy named Lulu as he graduates from the hero academy and embarks on his greatest challenge yet: to kill a dragon. Lulu is joined on his adventure by his grandmother, a sweet woman who would rather use kindness than violence to solve her problems. Lulu's epic journey quickly turns into more of a family trip as his nerves are pushed to the limit.

Grandma's Hero excels the most in its various environments that are very vibrant and detailed. Over the course of seven minutes, viewers take a tour through a very diverse amount of setting that add a lot of depth to the story, given that it has no vocal narration. The characters are fun and the monster designs are very well thought out. The music matches very well with the style and fans of Adventure Time will enjoy this short a lot.

Overall, Grandma's Hero packs a lot into its seven minute run time and is definitely worth checking out. You can check it out using the link below.

                                                      https://vimeo.com/154208352      

Teen Titians Go! and the loss of standards

So over break I was watching my brothers for my parents and they were watching Cartoon Network. Now like any TVR major I can't resist watching TV when one is on, and I recognized a show from my childhood, Teen Titians Go! The only thing was that in the early 2000s it was called Teen Titans and it looked and sounded much different. The old series that ran from 2003 to 2007 had darker color scheme, it was sleek and not completely obtuse. When compared to the rebooted series in 2013 that I saw my brothers watching, I had to wonder why the drastic change? Is it because we as an audience have less of a standard for animation when it comes to a younger audience? This would certainly be the case in the Teen Titans franchise and similar cartoon shows across the board. I cannot say I blame the animators since they are just creating what the producers and studio wants. I will not get into plot structure or the crude humor influencing young minds in the reboot, but as a visual work the new Titians are lacking what they once had, class.

Cool Morphing Animation Short

I recently found this strange cartoon online and was impressed by how fluid its animation was, especially for such bizarre movements.  Definitely worth checking out.

BATMAN!

Earlier today, the first trailer for The Lego Batman Movie was released, and, as a fan of Legos, Batman and movies, I am quite excited. The Lego Movie, released back in 2014, was a surprisingly good and very fun movie, and Lego Batman was one of the best characters in it. I am also a fan of how the people responsible for making both of these movies were able to create a fully computer-generated feature that also sometimes appears as though they just used stop-motion with the actual figurines. The simplistic aesthetics of the Lego blocks and figures make the goofy behaviors and dialogue exhibited by the characters feel more believable, which might not have worked as well with real actors in a real-world environment.

Here's the trailer:

Joe Zombie

                                    (Just a warning--the video's a bit gory for a stick animation.)

This is Joe Zombie. It's the first episode in a Flash animation series made by Rob DenBleyker back in October of 2001. This particular video is actually a remake of the original first episode, which was made a 9 months prior, in January 2001.

I remember being in 4th or 5th grade when one of my friends showed this to me. It was super scary and I remember being afraid Joe Zombie was out to get me after watching it. However, It's nice to be able to watch it again now!

When I first saw it, I didn't realize I was watching the remake of the original. The sound and animation in this version are really nice compared to the first and it really shows how much someone can improve their skills in just under a year.

You can find the original first episode here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/10476

A tutorial I found this week was that was very helpful was the way to prepare or make motion animations using Illustrator. This tutorial makes it so you can drag illustrator files in to After Effects, making it an easier process to apply effects to the movie. It is not always the best solution for motion graphics but definitely a good stepping stone and tool to learn. Illustrator is such a powerful software and when combining that with After Effects, its bound to create something worth while with the right skills. 

http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/create-assets-in-illustrator-for-after-effects/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=Pro-Tip%3A-How-to-Create-After-Effects-Assets-in-Adobe-Illustrator&utm_campaign=03-2016-facebook-posts

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an American animated television series that aired on Cartoon Network. It centered around Mac, who had to give up his imaginary friend Bloo because he's "too old." When he brings him to this home, he gets to make a deal that he has to visit the home everyday and Bloo won't be put up for adoption. Through this, we meet the other characters from the house who are all different imaginary friends (aside from Frankie and Madame Foster. The animation is fun and colourful and bright, which gives all the characters more ability to be different and three dimensional(personality-wise) and more well rounded. Each character has different quirks to correspond with the different personality as they were each created by a different kid who wanted imaginary friends.

I LIKE CHOCOLATE MILLLK.

La Noria

I'm not sure if you have seen this yet, but if you haven't I highly recommend that you check this out. This film, La Noria, which is currently in the works is an animated horror film in the animation style of 3D CG, its very creepy looking but beautifully animated. It's not being done by a particular animation company which is pretty cool in my opinion. It is the director, Carlos', passion project that he is working on with animators from all around the globe. They do sometimes work together in person, most of the work and meetings are help via Skype. While this film is still a bit of a ways away it is definitely something to keep your eye on.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/la-noria-film#/

Cartoon Saloon

Cartoon Saloon is a animation company based in Kilkenny, Ireland. This company has had Academy Award and BAFTA nominations within the past few years for their works The Secret of Kells and The Song of the Sea.

They caught my eye because of their 2D style. They create everything so that there is the illusion of depth with only 2D planes. I also relate with their stories as they focus on Celtic history and mythology.

Their upcoming feature film, The Breadwinner, will take tell a story very different from their previous ones. Based on the book by Deborah Ellis it tells the story of a young girl growing up in Afghanistan in 2001. It is set for release in 2017 and I can't wait to go see it.

Deadpool Visual Effects

Deadpool is not only a box office success, that was thought to be an extremely risky movie from Fox,  smashing all records and having more domestic gross then other big box office films like Iron Man and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I was lucky enough to have worked for Lauren Schuler Donner at The Donners' Company this past Fall and go to hear about a lot of the behind the scenes aspects of the film when it came to budget and story development. Lauren had discussed with me about how since the film had a much lower budget than bigger Fox/Marvel films she had produced ,like all the X-Men films, they had to use their resources. Visual Effects was one of those major aspects. In the industry it can be easier to say have a car chase all visually animated than get a stunt team to make it reality. The lead visual effects company that was responsible for Deadpool's effects released a breakdown video, and Lauren was not wrong Deadpool was animated quite a bit, even in places I thought for sure was real. Luckily Deadpool's costume/design can be more easily animated then say Wolverine or Magneto.

Why James Cameron waited to create Avatar

James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster hit, Avatar stepped over boundaries that had not been crossed in the cinema and CGI world ever before. Nominated for 9 Academy Awards, and winning 3, Avatar is also the #1 All Time Domestic movie ever, and the #1 All Time Worldwide movie. But what made this movie so different than any other, and why was it not done sooner? As a matter of fact, James Cameron wanted to release the movie in 1999 because he had the story complete, but did not have the proper technology to complete it until it was released in 2009. What convinced him that CGI effects had progressed enough is when he saw the motion-capture CGI animation that was done to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. The movie is more than half CGI, and each frame of the CHI scenes took an average of 47 hours to render. When I was in London this past fall semester, I worked on a Sci-Fi list documentary where I was able to help find extensive facts about the movies that we were given and able to contact people to interview for the documentary. I researched Avatar extensively and was able to find out this amazing information plus so much more, and was astonished by the achievements and advancements that were made throughout the process and production of this movie. Here's a few of the videos I watched to learn more about Avatar. 

After Effects Tutorial: Particle Text Effect

I've been looking for a lot of After Effects tutorials that would give me cool text effects and give me lots of options for customization. This is a nice one that I found by Morocco that uses a particle effect--but I found that it could be altered to fit any other type of aesthetic.



I really like the style of this tutorial--it feels very modern and fresh but extremely customizeable. It's a good resource, especially since we've been dealing with a lot of text. Morocco's channel also has a lot more tutorials that deal with particles and logos and such.



If you want to explore more, definitely check out his Youtube channel--he has Photoshop tutorials as well as After Effects that are just as good.

A great new resource will soon be available!!

Like Studio Ghibli films and Futurama?  Ever wanted to create animations like them?  Well there's great news for animation enthusiasts, because it was recently announced that the software company Digital Video will release an open-source version of their software Toonz.  (It should be set for release on March 26.)  This new version of the software will have features developed by Studio Ghibli themselves, which will certainly be interesting to see how the animation process in the east differs from here in the west.  I've always had a fascination with Japanese-animated films like the works of Miyazaki and other Ghibli films, so I might give this a shot.

The company will still offer its Premium version of Toonz for animation studios at a competitive price, so whether or not the open source version will be drastically simplified is one of my main questions. It may not be a bigwig animation software like ToonBoom, but if you're at all interested in the anime and Ghibli animation style, definitely check it out.

The full story can be found right here on Digital Video's website.

Stopped Motion.

I’m at a bit of a standstill when it comes to my next project in Motion Graphics. I’m really thinking that I’ll give stop motion animation a try but I’m kind of lost at where to start. From what objects to animate to where they should be animated to when I’m even going to find the time to do such project. Although I planned to work a lot over spring break the sporadic weather made it difficult and other plans fell through. My next attempts we're quickly overshadowed by prior engagements leaving me shotless and somewhat anxious about if this project will actually go through.

BUT I STILL HAVE HOPE! And instead of letting that get me down (and maybe you down?) here’s a speed run of QWOP with the most inspirational soundtrack ever!