HRA: short films ahead

Alma
Produced and directed by ex-Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas.
Website




This one I was more interested in the making of.



And lastly
my new favorite Simon's cat.

Broken animatic update

Updated animatic for Broken.
- all the rough animation is in place.
- Backgrounds and effects are still WIP.

The Secret of the Stage

The entry I did for the 2011 Sixty40 ProtoNinja awards is now available online for your viewing pleasure :)

14-9-2011 Website Update

Couple of updates to the website:
- Updated the About page
- Updated Illustration and Animation galleries
- Added content about current projects to the Projects page
- Culled a couple of out of date pages
- Reworked some of the CSS

Animatic update

Updated animatic for Broken.
- 45 seconds of rough animation.
- Backgrounds and effects are still WIP.

Also a handy video I found for rendering out of After Effects.

Rough animation - Broken - SC05

More rough animation for my student film :D

Rough animation - Broken - SC04

I didn't quite do what was asked of last monday, however here is the rough character animation of the 2 scenes I've been working on this week.
The second one is just the first pass at the animation. Still gotta go through and do a detailed pass.

Run cycle test

4 frame run cycle test
BAMF!

Eye darts

Eye darts.
I like the 3 frame dart more than the 4 frame dart. 4 frames feels to slow.

Head turn turn turn turn

I'm not good at writing reflective stuff.
Holding for 6-12 frames before and after the EAP (the last 2 turns) is definantly eaiser to figure out what's happened.

Eye blinks

The first is my usual blink. Animated on twos.
The second is the first one on ones.
The third is on ones and has slight differences in the eyelid position to the first two.

Mytho Logique

Stumbled upon this beautiful little french student film quite by accident.
The website is full of concept stuff. Including designs, storyboard samples & color script.
mytho-logique.com

Mytho Logique is a full-cg animation short film, directed by 5 students during their last year at ESMA (Montpellier, southern France) : Jessica Ambron, Amandine Aramini, Alexandre Belbari, Guillaume Poitel et Yannick Vincent. The short film was finished in september 2010.

Below are the film and behind the scenes.

Directed by J. Ambron, A. Aramini, A. Belbari, G. Poitel and Y. Vincent.
ESMA students short film, originally made in stereo 3D.
More info on mytho-logique.com

Lighting test

Lighting test of my set.
I've had alittle trouble getting the lighting to work how I want. Found a way around it by rendering 2 backgrounds (one light and one dark) and editing them together in post. Gives me the effect I'm after :)


I'm having alot of trouble leaving comments on peoples blogs (blogger thinks I'm not logged in and has me going in circles to trying log in), anyone else having this problem?

youTube finds

Just a couple of Youtube finds. Enjoys.

Amination part 2.

Finished this scene to full colour last Wednesday.

Calculated the entire character animation (from sketch to full colour) took about 18hrs. Wowzers.
I was showing some online friends and they didn't believe me when I said that. So I made a breakdown of the process to show them how much work went into it.

On the upside I finished a second scene on Friday and I've almost finished a third. I'm getting faster at this. 4 scenes left to go :)

This isn't for my major either by the way. I should do some work on that.

Amination! Feel the burn.

Over the past few weeks (since holiday break started) I've been trying to be creative... and doing a lousy job at it. I mean I want to draw! I want to get these ideas out of my head but I found I just couldn't focus and my head felt very fuzzy.

Turns out I burnt myself out creatively. After a week of sulking I talked to my flatmates and they suggested trying to do something else creative to get out of my rut.
So at their recommendation I started writing. And lo and behold 2 days later I'm back feeling creative as ever! Huzzah!

So my point. What do you guys do when you're feeling in a rut, burnt out or just not at all creative?

With my creativity back I'm animating like crazy. I'm behind schedule.
Here's some rough animation I did yesterday. Got a few bugs to fix, but otherwise I'm very happy with it :) on wards final cleanup and colour!

I also won acompetition a week back. It was more a 'make a creative video' comp than and animation comp. Anywho this is what I came up with:

Please ignore the horrible lip-sync. I messed up and uploading it pushed it even more out of sync. I loved doing the swirls though, maybe I'm better suited to special effects animation rather than character animation.

All animated in Photoshop. In my opinion regarding the animation tools in Photoshop... If Adobe just made a version of flash that animated with the raster tools from Photoshop life would be so much easier. Animating in Photoshop the way it's presently aid out (and I'm talking CS5) is clunky and a pain in the bum.

Cars 2 & Kung Fu Panda 2. The review.

So a couple of days ago, I was fortunate enough to go see both Cars 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2. I was quite surprised by what I saw.

First Cars 2.
This was much better that I ever expected.

While I do love all the PIXAR films, Cars is towards the bottom of my list in terms of favourites. I was not excited about the idea of a sequel when it kept us away from the new ideas (and lets face it, nowadays most movies are either remakes or sequels). Part of it may also be the fact that since the release of the first movie it's easy to say that Cars has been the most solid of the PIXAR films to secure its own franchise.

Moving on. In terms of the film as I've already written it was far better than I could have hoped. Before it's release critics were calling it as one of PIXAR's weakest films. I disagree.

In terms of it being an animated sequel, well the bar just keeps rising. I believe that PIXAR have done a good job on keeping the film at as high a quality as any other non-sequel movie they would produce.

Now in terms of story; the original Cars was very much the story of Lightning McQueen. Cars 2 is very much Mater's story, while also still keeping with the cast we fell in love with in the first film.

Something I was very pleased to see was how they handled the passing of Paul Newman and his character Doc. This was something I was worried about in terms of there being a Cars sequel because Doc was a very important character to the first film and to me it didn't feel right without him. Would they just have him absent or silent, would they simply recast him? No. Very early in the film they explain his absence in a way that's believable and to me respectful to the character. He doesn't just drop off the face of the earth or prowl around in the background. This made me very happy.

Now as an action/spy movie as it has been dubbed, you would not think that in a world where the dominating species are cars it would be possible. But no PIXAR have pulled the rug out from under out feet again with some spectacular action sequences and very creative ideas.

The soundtrack is quite enjoyable, including a couple of international tracks and a pleasing score.

Overall This movie held my attention for the entire duration, which in terms of an animated feature is a big thing for me (so many films I feel don't do that any more). I laughed long and hard through the funnys and felt for the characters in their hardships. I'd give this 10/10 and see it again.


Oh I should also mention, the short Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian Vacation was awesome too and left us going awww.

My only complaint, that isn't even really relevant to the film is that we didn't see the teaser for PIXAR's next film BRAVE.
But youTube fixes that :D

Scotland. Princess. Yeah!.

Now, Kung Fu Panda 2.
As with Cars2 I had very little to expect from this film. Yeah it's a DreamWorks sequel; please lord let it be decent. It's no secret that I don't hold DreamWorks Animation very highly but usually that's because their films are so full of pop culture references I want to gag.

The first film, I quite enjoyed and kinda had me at a point where I could see them as making good movies. Kung Fu Panda 2 has left me again with that same feeling, only this time it's we can also make a decent sequel.

Immediately you're immersed in the characters you came to love in the first film and very quickly it's into the thick of the story.

Part of the film sees you exploring Po's back story, and why you don't see any other pandas; the rest is full of action and character development (particularly for Po and Tigress).

Something that caught me off guard, but I was really happy to see was the amount of 2D animation that surfaced throughout the duration of the film. I though it was beautiful and makes me wonder if DreamWorks will do more with it in the future. I certainly hope they do.

While there were many laugh out loud moments through this film, there were also moments that left me rolling my eyes going, ' did we really need that DreamWorks? Really?’ Asides from these few cheesy moments the film is overall very entertaining and proves in my books, that DreamWorks can make a decent sequel. I’d give it 9/10.


Again, I was disappointed to not see the trailer for DreamWorks next film: Puss in Boots. YouTube hasn't disappointed me; however I don't know how I feel about the story from what they've revealed. Mind it's all about Puss, so I know I'll see it anyway.

Title goes here

Just a bunch of videos/shorts/trailers I've been meaning to share for ages. There's some E3/game trailers at the end.

Sometimes the Stars from The Audreys on Vimeo.

TIJI "COLOUR" HD from AKAMA on Vimeo.

E3 was on a week or so back, out of it came some nice looking game trailers

Friday exercises

The exercises we've done with Ian on Fridays.

Max: 3 point light

Walk contact pose

Networking - the blog entry

Rather than have a print out for todays presentation about Networking, I thought it would be fun to instead post all the links in a blog entry instead. After all, I do talk about the importance of online networking.

Australian Cartoonists' Association
cartoonists.org.au

Illustrators Australia
www.illustratorsaustralia.com

Paperwings Podcast
www.paperwingspodcast.com

Facebook
www.facebook.com
Nickelodeon Animation Studios Careers - Facebook Page
www.facebook.com/#!/NickelodeonAnimationCareers

Tumblr
www.tumblr.com
Australian Cartoonists' Association - Blog
australiancartoonistsassociation.tumblr.com


and that last site I talked about...
Rooster Teeth
www.roosterteeth.com

Walk planning

I don't know what happened to the post I did of this on Thursday, but here it is again.

The emotion of the walk is a hard one for me to pin down. The first time we did this I put it down as somber (which it's not really), this time as a glum resolution/acceptance.
It's the walk when the little girl gets off the chair and slowly walks over to the ball. Almost like she's not quite with it/in a daze/numb because she's finally accepting that what's happened is not the fault of the ball.
I see it that below her core, it's a steady slow paced walk and everything above her core sways to the rhythm (like it's all secondary action).

I don't know if that makes any sense.


1. contact
2. down
3. passing
4. up

Walking EAPs

Character Energy: Low
Emotion: Somber
Thumbnail Pose:

Shorts and stuff

Been a while since I posted anything. Anyways here's abunch of shorts (and what I think are advertisements) that I found by randomly surfing through tumblr.

Vigour from Chang Dai on Vimeo.

Hollow from Oliver Franklin Anderson on Vimeo.

Perspectives. Freely inspired by the new Moleskine collections from Moleskine ® on Vimeo.

Amongst Giants - Turn from lwz on Vimeo.

Method Virgin "We're All in this Together" from three legged legs on Vimeo.

Apache from oneedo on Vimeo.

The Pirate - With end credits from Meindbender on Vimeo.

Animator video blog - week 9

10 minutes to film. 15 minutes to edit.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still debating if I want 3D in my major narrative. I don't really, I only made a model of my set to help with the perspectives. I'd rather draw my backgrounds :/
Maybe I can work on making a 3D show real instead (walks, runs, ect.). I'll be needing one of those for my portfolio if I want to work at my dream studio and I'd rather produce something worth while instead of something that I won't use, particularly considering what I'm currently doing involves modeling (BLAH).

Oh yeah and for your enjoyment here's last weeks blog. I recorded it but was too sick to edit it; so here it is, a week late.

and some bonus JumpFails for your enjoyment

1-4-2011 Minor Website Updates

Few minor updates to my website:
- Updated the illustration gallery
- Removed the design gallery completely (let's face it. It was out of date)
- Updated the awards and installed gallery of winning entries

I ♥ coding.

3D catch up

This is me trying ton catch up with my 3D work

First, I finally finished my seahorse

I never want to do modeling again.

And second, my 3d environment


badda bing badda boom!

HRAnimation: stop mo, slow mo, youtube and ponies!

No video blog this week. Instead I'm going to write up about the interesting things that I have been meaning to write about.

First up is MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON. A very cute stop motion short that I stumbled across.

Next is an interesting channel I've been watching over on youTube called The Slow Mo Guys. As their name suggests they film stuff in slow motion. I find it all quite fascinating to watch and a great resource to study.

Now for some Disney.
Claire Keane, one the artists that worked on Tangled (and Glen Keane's daughter), got to paint a mural in the Disney art department.
What's even more interesting? She's also the artist that developed Rapunzel's mural paintings on the inside of her tower ;)

Now for my last thing I ask that you read on with an open mind and not just roll your eyes.

So what is this next thing?

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
(don't cringe, just read)

Developed for television by Lauren Faust (who is famed for her work on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) MLP:FiM is a refreshing take on an existing franchise.

Not only is is enjoyable animation to watch, but I was quite pleased to see that it hasn't been dumbed down for a younger audience; so us big kids can still enjoy the story without getting bored. MLP:FiM has even generated a large internet fanbase.

Oh and here's what their animation studio looks like too. Source.



Anyway watch it for yourself. Here are my favorite clips and the first episode.
My favorite pony would have to be Fluttershy ;)

Art Contests - I win at arts

So I entered an art contest back in early January, simply because I could.
Well it turns out I won.

"Scheree had a beautiful portrayal of the last scene of the season that was really mind-blowing." - brandon

Wow. I did not think I had any chances at winning.

The first years might remember the drawing, I showed it in my photoshop talk :)


I think as artists and animators, participating in competitions is a worthwhile venture; and I don't mean simply for the sake of winning. They're great practice for deadlines, give you something to strive towards and if the right people see it, it can even open doors. Not to mention be a great addition to your portfolio.

And you never know, you might be surprised and find you win.

He Mele No Lilo

So my favorite Disney song of all time would have to be He Mele No Lilo from Lilo & Stitch. Besides the movie being one of my very favorites of all time, I very much love that it's sung in hawaiian and the authenticity in the hula. If I remember right the animators had to keep it as close to their referance footage as possible with the dance because straying away from it was disrespectful (I think. I can't remember exactly. Note to self: rewatch L&S special features)

Let us make a trend and post what your favorite Disney song is in your blog. Don't forget to tell us why.

BTW Nick started it.

And because I can, my second favorite.

Snappy animation and tons of visual jokes. Not to mention it being a great song.
Sadly I can't see them trying to pull any of the visual gags they did here anymore. Like when Abu yanks the sword out of that guys throat or when an axe gets thrown at Aladdin with fruit.

Actually now that I think of it, Aladdin was chuck full of things like that. I must rewatch that movie.

Storyboard improvements

So I just presented the storyboard for my major narative project and I got a few ideas to improve upon it.

- Change the greens/colours of the jungle to help show emotion. Maybe even insert more shadows vs light.
- make first entrance to the jungle more menacing

News Stuff: 2011 Proto Ninja Award and the PaperWings podcast

Hey guys, just a few things to report that have popped up over the past few days that people might find of interest.

FIRSTLY
The Sixty40 Proto-Ninja Award is back. They have revealed yesterday on their Facebook page this years theme "the secret". Full details are to be released soon. Keep an eye on their website or better yet their facbook.

If you have no idea what the Proto-Ninja award is go check out their Website. It's still showing all the details (and winners) from last years competition. I don't think too much will change.

SECONDLY
Back in February I wrote about an upcoming podcast called Paper Wings.
Well they released their first episode on monday. I highly recomend that everyone checks it out. It's rich full of information that anyone wanting to work in the creative industries will find useful.

The first episode is the first part of 2 episodes that go over making a winning portfolio. Presently it can be found at their website. They're still waiting for it to connect through iTunes but that should be up soon enough.

They also have a twitter if you use that social network.

AND LAST
Is an interview with John Lasseter discussing PIXAR's upcoming film Cars 2.
I want to know where this man gets all his awesome shirts.

Animator video blog - week 5

10 minutes to film, 45 mintues to edit.

Lessons learnt this week: Don't edit film while doing laundry. Laundry gets forgotten very quickly; A 3 minute video at 17mb takes about 12 minutes to upload on a good connection; remember to empty memory card before filming. It will always run out of space while you're on a roll; Mobile phone equals big distraction. Particularly when it's family.

I was going to try have my photoshop talk up tonight but I have to go back and cut it up again into smaller pieces to my computer/internet connection/youtube can handle it.

Animation environment

My animation environment. Havn't decided if I want a floor yet :/

Stop Motion Bounces & Max

BAMF!!

and Max

Narrative Storyboard

Portion of my colour script/story boards produced today in class.

HRA: upcoming animated features and more LoK news

As time passes we get closer and closer to release dates for the highly anticipated animated features. Anywho, a couple of trailers have been released this week. Now I'm excited for their movies.

ALSO
With the topic of Legend of Korra still abuzz creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko had and interview over at the Wall Street Journal.

There's some interesting tidbits in the interview. My favorite is that Nickelodeon has ordered another 14 episodes on top of the 12 already in production. Good times :D

News Stuff: This week in the world of cool things 02

So in the last 24 hours there have been alot of buzz around the 'The Last Airbender- Legend of Korra'. First the Wall Street Journal Released some exclusive artwork(above) and then during the night another article was released about the voice actors and which roles they'll play.

Janet Varney as KORRA
Kiernan Shipka as JINORA
Daniel Dae Kim as HIROSHI SATO
David Faustino as MAKO
Seychelle Gabriel as ASAMI
Lance Henriksen as LIEUTENANT
P.J. Byrne as BOLIN
JK Simmons as TENZIN

Exciting stuff, isn't it :D

SOURCE |SOURCE


This next bit isn't really news, more a cool entry about Spirited Away that I found on tumblr of all places. It's some interesting insight regardless.

I’ve noticed that several of my followers are Miyazaki fans, so I thought I share this little tidbit of information with you about Spirited Away.

I always wondered why the symbol “ゆ” (said “yu”) was on the door to the bath house. I asked my Japanese teacher, and he wasn’t too sure so I did a little research.

The symbol is used on the entrance to 温泉 (onsen) and 銭湯 (sento), or Japanese bath houses. The word “yu” is translated to “hot water”. So, makes sense to be on a bath house, yes?

Then I did more reading. During the Edo period, these public baths became popular for men because of women who started working at these communal baths, washing men and selling sex. These bath houses were called “yuna baro”. The woman were known as 湯女, or “yuna”. This directly translates to “hot water woman”. So basically, they were brothels. Guess what the woman who ran this bath house would be called?

ゆばば。

Yubaba.

(translates directly to “hot water old woman”)

Yubaba is the name of the woman who runs the bath house in Spirited Away. If you watch Spirited Away in Japanese, the female workers are referred to as yuna.

Chihiro was forced to change her name to Sen. Kinda like how strippers get names like “Candy”.

カオナシ/No-Face keeps offering Chihiro money. He “wants her”.

THEN I read interviews with Miyazaki. This was all put in intentionally. As we all know. Miyazaki’s stories are weaved with different themes and metaphors. He said he was tackling the issue of the sex industry rapidly growing in Japan, and that children being exposed to it at such early ages is a problem.

To me, this makes me respect Miyazaki even more as a film maker.

And also, frustrates me because so much gets lost in translation, and people see it as this cute childrens movie and this “master piece of animation” (which it definately is) instead of the real statement that it is.

Thought I’d share :).

SOURCE

Animator video blog - week 4

I've been so out of it this weekend, I nearly forgot to do this.

5 minutes to record, 40 minutes to edit.

Lessons learnt this week: I had wanted to take some footage to show the progress of my letter but according to my Maya the files are corrupt; we need screen capture programs on the class computers. Because that would be awesome; recording after a long nap my voice pitch go all over the place; according to youtube I have people viewing my stuff from Europe and the US (whaaat?!); Somehow I manage to bring home files for the video blog except for the one I want; Remeber to face the camera when talking

Jumpfail :D

This feels abit weird to me :/
I think I've done something wrong. Just can't put my finger on what.
I enjoy watching myself stack though :D

*sqeak*

Animator video blog - week 3

Lessons learnt this week: remember to charge camera battery before setting up to record; remember to bring extra files home to be put into video; I say yeah! a lot; I have really poor memory so recounting the week is a lot harder than it looks; specially when I forget words that I knew five seconds ago; over half of the recorded video (that's now on the cutting room floor) is me staring silently at the camera, or at a random wall in my room or me coughing.

15 minutes recording, hour for editing.

I ♥ video editing.
funfunfun

Screenshot of my modeling progress.
Sorry Frank. I neglected to render this properly.

Walk cycle

Walk Maxie boy! Walk!

Animator video blog - week 2

Lessons learned this week: uploading a 14mb file on a dinky dialup connection takes forever; how to balance ones camera; inserting one clip over the top of another; did I mention that the upload to youtube took over an hour?; props are good and bad at the same time. At least when I'm involved; while I love learning all this editing, I'm already sick of seeing my face;

The letter t

concepts and the unfinished character sheet for my seahorse letter t :)

The moment of contact

Monsterzzzap

Stopmotion power!!!!

Ukraine's Got Talent - Storytelling sand

That's all real time. Yes, she works that fast. Amazing stuff.

She's got her own YouTube Channel with more videos like that, but some of them you can't tell if they're real time. I think it's bothersome that they've edited out bits. Still fun to watch though.

Animator video blog - week 1

Done because I'm a silly girl who wants to learn video editing and all that.
And because it was ridiculously fun.

An hour worth of filming. Hour and a half for editing.

Lessons learnt: if can't think of what to say remain silent because it makes it easier to edit; I say fun an awful lot; Write some notes beforehand about what is being covered because chances are I won't remember them; enthusiasm dies quickly when you have to repeat yourself several times; clean bedroom.

News Stuff: This week in the world of cool things

So a number of things have popped up over the last week or so that I've not only found interesting but find myself rather excited about. So lets start from the top shall we.



So first off the news bat, offical word has come that Nickelodeon and Dark Horse are releasing a series of comics revolving around Avatar: The Last Airbender. These tales will contain previously published yet presently unobtainable stories as well as new content that picks up after where the animated series left off. Exciting news huh?
Here's some of the speal from the original article.

"The Last Airbender — The Lost Adventures will be released TK. This all-new 240-page comic book contains over 70 pages of never-before-seen material in addition to long-out-of-print comics previously published in Nickelodeon Magazine. With 26 stories set in Airbender continuity and created by a host of top-notch talent, many of whom worked on the original animated series, this is an essential addition to any fan’s bookshelf.

Additionally, Dark Horse will create all-new Airbender stories that will be published as digest-style original graphic novels—conveniently sized paperback collections—in early 2012. Picking up where the season three finale left off, this new series will follow the further adventures of Aang and his friends, as they help to rebuild a world torn apart by 100 years of war.

“We had a great experience collaborating with Dark Horse on Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Art of the Animated Series,” series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino said. “We are excited to work closely with them once again to bring the further adventures of Avatar Aang and his friends to the comic world.”

SOURCE


Second in my prattle of news comes the announcement of a new podcast begining next month called Paper Wings.

Hosted by Lora Innes (creator of The Dreamer) and Disney artist Chris Oatley it will cover "all aspects of visual storytelling. Chris brings an animator’s perspective and insight into the movie and film industry, and Lora brings experience in comics–both for print and web."

Acording to Lora's blog: "The show will post new episodes twice a month–each a 30 minute segment, one episode focusing on art, the other on story."

I'll post a reminder when the show starts up, in the mean time check out Lora's and Chris's websites. They're both fantastic artists and it's well worth the poke around.

For more details about the podcast check HERE, HERE or HERE for more details.


After dicovering that last piece of news I found a few gems over at Chris's blog. My favorite being the release date for another animated movie that I didn't know was coming.
Hoodwinked Too - Hood vs Evil.

Now if anyone remembers the original Hoodwinked you should notice that this one visually looks a little different and a couple of the voices have changed. Expected to realease in the US at the end of April (there's no confirmed release date for Australia yet), I think it'll definantly be funny if anything.

Mah world

Mah world. The first sightings.

Maxie boy

Max starring as The Thinker.
Experimented with some dynamic lighting

Time capsule: where I want to be?

Where do I want to be? What do I want to do? That's a hard question and one with an answer that's constantly changing. If you had asked me that a few years ago I would have said PIXAR but things change as time flows.

Presently I kind of have a list of things detailing where I'd like to be and what I'd like to be doing. They're a bit jumbled but they're still in the raw form that spilt from my head. Some are general life, others are art related. All in all it's my list of wants and dreams :)

- I want to be producing webcomics (at least 1) on a regular basis (TEAM ZiNE)
- I want to have gone to Auckland and have met the folks from a Texas based studio
- I want a steady income
- I want to write some new tutorials
- I want to have a MacBook pro laptop
- I want to be ready and rearing to travel
- I want to have a high quality student film to submit to 2012 film festivals
- I want a new business card and a cool looking portfolio to hand out so that the awesome studio from Texas will hire me
- I want to improve my people/social skills
- I want get even better at drawing and backgrounds
- I want to have some story ideas in planning/scripting stage

But most of all
-I want to be working doing the things that I love



Wait a minute. Scratch that. I want should be I will ;)

Song of the Sea

From the creators of the Secret of Kells comes "Song of the Sea".
More details here

This looks so pretty.

Wicked animated adaptation

Ex-Disney employees made a video “animation” of a storyboard for a scene from a potential “Wicked” animated adaptation. This would be an adaptation of the musical or course, not the book per say. First off, I love this video and this idea. “Wicked” the musical had a very Disney-esque quality to it (despite the storyline itself being more the type of scenario Dreamworks would pick up). This would make a great animation. And the people who did this story board clearly know that. The tracks used are from the “Hunchback of Notre-Dame” and “Wicked”.

Pleaaaaase please please please Disney dooo iiiit.
Wicked has to be one of my all time favorite musicals, second only to the Copacabana.

SOURCE / ORIGINAL SOURCE
Heidi Jo Gilbert's Artblog (One of the artists blog. It's so worth a peek at)

Inside Glen Keane's thinkerbox

Glen Keane. Forever an inspiration. I love watching him draw.

If you're the kind who's into Twitter, I recomend following Disney.

Magic Paints

So if you havn't noticed by how pretty and pink my blog has suddenly become, it's because I'm integrating it as a part of my website; which I'm in the process of relaunching.

Actually technically it's already launched, seeing as it's online. Just working out the kinks now. (If anyone would care to take a browse through, I'd love some feedback.)

This is the first time I've used so much CSS in codeing. I learnt to make websites just as it got big so we didn't touch much of it. After four years of tinkering, trying to understand and a vodka shot it suddenly all made sense and had me up into the wee hours of the morning because everything making sense was exciting.

So yeah check it.

Anyway also, purdy picture. Drawn today. For the website. And cuz I could.

"Magic colour changing paints. Bringing inspiration and magic to everyday lives.
Available in colours of the rainbow and purdy pink sunset."

Tangled. The review.

So Tangled came out today, saw it and well I was blown away.

Not only is it simply beautiful to look at but Disney have managed to achieve a beautiful story. Before seeing Tangled, I was unaware of the tale behind Rapunzel. I knew she was the girl with long golden hair locked away in a tower and that was about it, I had no desire to look into it any further. After seeing the movie I hunkered down, did some reading and read the original origin of the fairy tale. Much to my surprise, a lot of things in the movie are much like their fairy tale counterparts but at the same time a lot of things are also different.

I remember reading, in the Art of Tangled that at one stage of early production they had wanted to modernize the story, but that the idea was squashed. Regardless, I feel that there is a little modernization however the film still pertains that classic story telling feeling; and while you may be able to guess how it ends you still want to stay and see how it comes about.

This has to be one of the few movies that the forms of expression have really stood out to me (The only other from recent animation that comes to my mind is Toothless from httyd). From Rapunzel, whose hair acts as an extension of her body, to the animals Maximus and Pascal, who only rely on body language, and Flynn, who has some wild facial expressions, the way each character expresses themself is very well done. Even Mother Gothel has a distinct way in which she carries herself.

My favourite scene (which I’m not really spoiling because it’s been in all the trailers oratleastithinkso) is the lanterns in the sky. The back story behind them is a sweet one, and I found myself lost in the however-long the scene went for. For lack of better words, sooooo pretty.

The music. I’d listened to the soundtrack long before the film came out here in Australia. In fact, a lot of people I talked to from the US said that they found the musical style songs to not be very memorable. While I agree with them to a degree, I still feel they are still very fitting to the film. All I feel they’re missing is a bit more Omph! Mother Gothel’s ‘Mother Knows Best’ kind of has it going but I feel it was still a little on the soft side. The score itself is beautiful, then again I expect no less from Alan Menken who already has a list of my favorite Disney film scores under his belt.

Overall I loved the film and it will be joining my list of ultimate favorites. Fantastic story, fantastic characters, simply fantastic. At no point did I ever feel squeamish or bored. I even came out of the cinema having not chewed my finger nails which is a rare occasion for me (and a sign for that the film has had my 100% attention for the entire time).

I highly recommend seeing it, even if it’s only once in your lifetime. I’m rather excited because I’ve already got 2 more viewings of the movie scheduled in over the next week or so.

Fanart I did back in early December. Because I can.

and a photo of the artbook, which I recieved last night and proceeded to run through the house cheering about.

New “Legend of Korra” News!

Information:

Co-creators of the original series (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) will write all of the episodes.

Why a female Avatar:

- Large audience of females of original show
- Adoration of headstrong female characters by fan base
- Time for a big action franchise with a female in the lead
- Expected to be darker, more mature than original show; HOWEVER, they’re not attempting to target a new audience.

- Dante Basco (Zuko) said he will return to voice a character

- Confirmed (via Twitter) that it will have something to do with Zuko
- One of the new episodes will be entitled “Skeleton in the Closet”
- The Track Team (composers for the show) has said that the music will be “the Roaring ’20s with an Asian twist.”

Rumors:

- The series may continue for more than 12 episodes if it gains enough popular support. (This happened with Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was scheduled for 13 episodes at first but continued for 61.)

- Korra could be descended from Sokka and Suki.

- There may be flashbacks of the original series. (DiMartino mentioned that there was a “definite link” between the old and new series.)

- The Cabbage Merchant will not appear but “his legacy will be present in some form”.

SOURCE that I found it at and the ORIGINAL SOURCE

Let the geekout begin.

Aniiiimation abounds

As part of one of my holiday projects, I had to format and upload a heap of animation work to youtube. Some of it is new done over the course of 2010, some of it is old from years past. Lots of After Effects practise in pulling these togther, and hateing myself for using so many Movie Clips as apposed to Graphic Symbols. Live and Learn.
Anywho, here they are :)

I've got one video left to reformat, though It's basicly all movie clips so I'm still debating if it's worth it.