Books, books and more books

Man, books make it hard travelling light.

But I'm so happy to be back with my mini-library. Going to try and squeeze as much out of them as I can whilst I'm back.

On that note... here are a few books I've seen recently that look like must haves for any collection:

The art of Zootopia - (I wanna go see this sooo bad! Hurry up UK release date!)

The Making of Fantastic Mr.Fox - The look inside feature on amazon is really extensive, looks like a fab book!

Pixar Storytelling: Rules for Effective Storytelling Based on Pixar's Greatest Films - Not the shortest title in the world, but I'm intrigued by the content. It's not directly related to Pixar, I can't work out the exact connection. But I think it's based on Pixar films rather then the opinions of Pixar themselves. But for about £6 on kindle, it might be worth a bash!

Sketching

We are into the second week of Animsquad spring term, and this week, I had a revelation moment!

I was observing our tutor, Malcon, drawing over our shots and really looking at his short hand for describing a new emotion, or better pose. And I started to draw along with him. I felt as thought my short hand got so much better incredibly quickly. 

It's very cool watching someone draw, not for drawings sake, or for making it pretty, but to get the idea and emotion across and using that as a means to study. It really illustrates how they would approach it naturally, and not consciously. 

I wish classes for drawing could be set up like that, but the tutor would be too aware of what they are doing. I'm definitely going to be using it in the future to pick up tips.

Oh...and we love foreshortening!

Happy (belated) New Year!

Okay, sooo it's way past me being able to say Happy New Year, as February is almost done!

And with that, also is Ballerina and Montreal *sad face*. Ballerina was such an awesome experience, and I've loved living in another part of the world. We move back to Blighty soon, with new adventures afoot. Including unemployment, education, friends and family ;).

I actually can't wait to properly concentrate on Cat and Moth, and my own animations for a while. I've joined up to Animsquad, so I'm looking forward to hopefully digesting what I learnt on Ballerina.

I hope you, in the wide world web, are all staying healthy and happy. And here's to an amazing 2016! BRING IT!

What are your (rather late) aims for the New Year?

Merry Christmas!!!

oooohh my, where has the time gone?!

Okay so firstly, CTN was mega! I got to hang out with Ted Ty (our boss) and Sergio Pablos, he's such an awesome bloke, and daaaamn good. We got to meet Andrew Chesworth, such a lovely guy! Eeeek so many awesome people. A lot of the crew from Ballerina were there too, it was so great to run around with those guys soaking up all the inspiration. It's such a wonderful weekend to meet new people and soak up all that knowledge. I really enjoyed going to the story and storyboarding lectures, they were so insightful. Oh and to top it off, I won a raffle ticket to the Disney screening on the last evening and got to see sneaky peeks of Pickle and Peanut, Zootopia and Moana!

Secondly, Ballerina is coming into the home straight now, I can't believe how fast the last year has gone, I don't want it to end!

Thirdly, I never announced the opening up of the Cat and Moth site! It's finally live and I've been preparing some juicy goodies for any followers. Cat and Moth is also on twitter, facebook and instagram, so please give it a like or follow to follow our progress :D

 

Fourthly, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Bits of Things - Eyes 2

Heellloooo,

I just got back from CTN and it was AWESOME!!! Very inspired, and I'll write a post of the awesome stuff I found and people I met.

BUT for today, I've been researching eyes again, and looking at when and why the pupils dilate for my current close up shot, so I thought I would share a couple of articles I found that proved to be useful :)

The Eye Pupil

How we use our eyes to give away what we are thinking

Eyes are just tooo coool.

Back and books.

RIGHT!

Soo however quiet I have been, I have actually somehow kept up my drawing, and I'm neglecting "Bits of Things" - I'd like to take up where I left off, so watch this space for some hand stuff coming your way!

Also, I'd like to draw (no pun intended) you to these pre-order books I've been stacking up in my wishlist, as they look aaaamazing!

Before Ever After: The Lost Lectures of Walt Disney's Animation Studio in Hardcover by Don Hahn and Tracey Miller-Zarneke

This title is up for pre-order coming out October 20th 2015 and I was sold at "Lost Lectures of Walt Disney". I'm so intrigued by Disney at the time of Snow White, and if you would like to find out more about how they discovered everything they did, then you have to pre-order this book NOW.

Another book of Disney hiding stuff ;)

They Drew as They Pleased: The Hidden Art of Disney's Golden Age: The 1930s

At a snatch for only $19 (USD) and hardcover too, this is a hard book not to notice. Written by Didier Ghez and Intro by Pete Docter, it looks to be a great complimentary read to the above "Lost Lectures" book.  Here I hope we can learn and see their source of inspiration. Pre-order for the 8th September 2015.

I think this is probably my biggest want of the bunch

Funny!: Twenty-Five Years in the Pixar Story Room (The Art of....)

I'm just so intrigued by what gags make it, and why, and what gags don't! Plus, I love to laugh, who doesn't! November 17th 2015 for this one, hardcover, and only $14-15 big one's too! (USD)

The next on my pre-order hit list, is this beaut...

The Nine Old Men: Lessons, Techniques, and Inspiration from Disney's Great Animators

I'm sold by this sentence "Deja gives special attention to each animator and provides a thoughtful analysis on their techniques that include figure drawing, acting, story structure, and execution". Looks to be another $19 at pre-order price, and doesn't seem to have a release date just yet.

And finally, but by no means leastly

An Animator's Gallery: Eric Goldberg Draws the Disney Characters

Jeff Williams pointed this one out on his twitter, and strongly recommended by him too. How could I resist not adding this to the list?

And for this week's book order, I bought this (for a bit of fun!), I'll let you know how I get on :)

What books have you got on your wish-list?

As far as I can tell, all these books seem available vai amazon.co.uk, .com and .ca

L'Atelier Animation and iAnimate

Look at this pretty bunch of animator's 

We are over half way now on Ballerina, and iAnimate wanted to show a picture of us ex-students that are on the project. This is about a third of our animator crew, and everyone is sooo good. It's very inspiring every day. 

Sorry for my silence, it's been so busy and crazy, I've neglected my favourite outlet. I shall be less silent, and more posty.

Check out the rest of iAnimate's newsletter here

This project feels like it's going by in a blink, but we still have 4 months of goodness to suck up into our brains. On Friday we had a reference/improv lecture from Ted, and it was exactly what we needed to loosen up in the ref room. What do you guys do to loosen up?