Meeting Andreas Deja

One of the greatest feelings in the world is the feeling you get when a dream comes true. That happened to me last November when I went to CTN - X 2011 and I got to speak with a legendary animator in the making, Andreas Deja. Not only did I participate in a small group discussion, I got to speak with him privately after the discussion and then later on after a lecture by Ron Clements and John Musker.

All the experiences I had with him was amazing. During his small discussion group, everyone was asking him questions. I think I asked the most question is session I was in. That has been something I've been looking forward for a long time. Since I'm from Florida and it's very hard to find people in the industry that I look up to, this was a great opportunity. I wasn't about to pass that up... I better ask all that I can while I got the chance. Afterwards, we spoke, I asked some more questions, he thanked me for all the questions it made his time during the discussion group easier for him. and I got a photo with him. Later that day, there was a presentation about Ron Clements and John Musker - animation directors from Disney. I saw that Andreas was sitting in the row across from me, and I wanted him to review my portfolio, because I didn't get a chance to do that earlier. After the presentation was over, I walked over to him with my friend and fellow animator, Brad Faucheux. We spoke with him some more and asked more questions. He reviewed my portfolio and he gave me some really good feed back. He told my work was fantastic and pointed out somethings I could improve on. He liked how I am able to express emotion easily and that I was a great artist. He suggested that I tone down the details on my artwork if I want to animate them. I was really the best critique I've ever gotten.

Andreas Deja is a great person to talk to. He is very passionate about animation and he describes animation as almost an emotion rather than an art. He truly is a legendary animator in the making if he isn't one already... which I think he is. He is a humble person and very approachable. I am truly honored to have met him, even if it was just for a brief time. I look forward to going to CTN-X this year and hopefully Andreas will be there again. I got some more questions.....

Here is the photo 

Also, please follow his blog... it has some amazing stuff on it! CLICK HERE

New Year and New Goals (This time I mean it!)

2011 is now gone and in comes 2012... So like normal and every year, new resolutions and goals. THIS time I'm going to achieve them, not like last year... or the year before that... or the year... OK whatever, moving on! I am going to be strict on myself this year seriously. I have a bunch of resolutions and goals that I have been meaning to do for a long time and I feel that these goals or rather my lack in completing the goals are what has been holding me back.

One resolution I will share is the goal to be more consistent with posting. Postings will be done once a week from now on. That sounds like a big undertaking, but it's something I need to do.

Another resolution is more tutorials. A few months back I made a list of tutorials that I want to create. I made a few, but I have a lot more to create. This is something that I know that will be helpful for everyone and especially for me. As a professor, I realized that no one learns more than the teacher. Since I started teaching, my own skills have improved greatly. I also got a nice Christmas present for my wife and I. We got a really good camera and tripod. So now I can do some drawing tutorials. A lot of people have been requesting that from me recently, well NOW I'm going to do it.

One more resolution, work to improve and create more artwork. This covers a lot of smaller goals, but to summarize, it means that I have to improve my work in animation, drawing, painting and every type of art I create. I have some web comics that I am going to create with my buddy Steve Alvarado that will be funny and entertaining... keep an eye out for that!

So, before time runs out... it's 11:54pm as I type this, I'll finish this post for I start the New Year working on one of my resolutions. Stay tuned and I hope you enjoy everything I create for 2012 and the years to come!

Later Animators!

CTN - EXPO 2011 was AWESOME!

I just came back from Burbank and the wonderful and all inspiring event known as CTN - Expo! For those of you not familiar with CTN here's a link - (CTN - X). It was an awesome experience and well worth the time that I spent there. I got to speak with some of the top professionals in the animation industry and some of the top animators and artists of our time. I have truly been energized and inspired to continue on my professional development and my progression as an artist. I highly recommend for everyone to go to CTN - Expo every year if possible. This is my second time going, I went to the first, missed the second, but I will going every year from now on. I'll write a longer post of my experience and everything that went on at the event. I'm still very tired from the flight. Need sleep........

Later Animators!

It's Been a While!

Wow... it's really has been a while since my last post. Mostly because my computer isn't working and I'm stuck having to use the computers at my job. It's super annoying that I have to rely so much on a computer. Well, at least I still draw in my sketch book. Like I said on my last post, don't let yourself become defined by what you use, but by what you can do. Also, another life lesson... no matter the circumstances, never give up and complete your goals. I made myself a personal goal earlier this year to keep up my blog on regular basis. Since my computer died, I slacked on that. But I made a decision to not let that stop me. So I will keep new posts coming along more frequent with new artwork, tips, tutorials, and my normal postings. So please keep a look out for that and share it with your friends! Stay tuned!

Later Animators!

Endangered Species by Tony White

This video is about a year old and it comes from animator and author Tony White. Tony has written one of my favorite animation books The Animator's Workbook: Step-By-Step Techniques of Drawn Animation and
Animation from Pencils to Pixels. Tony is an accomplished animator and in this video he talk about something that is not happening in animation, but in many different art forms. This video talk about how animation with a pencil is a dying breed. That the art of using something so simple as a pencil and paper, is being overshadowed by technology. He believes, as do I, that one should not replace the other, but that they both have a place in our industry and that they could work together to create amazing stories. I hope you enjoy this video and get his books!

Endangered Species from Tony White on Vimeo.

Andreas Deja NEW BLOG!

Master animator, Andrea Deja has started his own blog!

This is something I've been wanting to see from what I consider one of the best modern day animator. He, and other animators like Glen Keane, Eric Goldberg, Don Hahn, Don Bluth, and Ruben Aquino are the top animators today. I am very happy to see that Andreas has taken the time to share stories, animation tips, and whatever he has in mind with everyone. You can check out his blog HERE. Also below, I added some images of Andreas and his work.

Beautiful Animation

This is a repost from one of my favorite blogs Animationmonster.blogspot.com. The following animation is gorgeous!!! It has a fantastic story. Here's the short---

Drawing Inspiration from Wesley Louis on Vimeo.

What the production here

Here's another AMAZING animation. Absolutely gorgeous!

Key Frame Animation Still Reigns Supreme Over Mocap

Unfortunately, Disney’s Mars Needs Moms opened today. I have no plans on watching it... ever. Not even on TBS. I don't even want to post an image or video on my blog. "Why?" you ask...I tell you why. I don't like motion capture and I don't care how people try to push the term "performance capture" just to make it sound better, it still sucks. Many animators agree with me other don't. But it's ultimately up to the audience to decide. Granted, the technology has improved and made some interesting innovations. But it does not replace artistic talent. Some may say, "but no mocap is ever done without an animator cleaning up the motion" (I'm not calling animation, it's just motion). That may be true, but common sense just tells me, if you need an animator to clean up the mocap, then why bother with mocap at all. It's just a plain waste of time. A skilled and talented animator can and will always do better than mocap. It's true. I'll go on explaining more why mocap sucks later in another post. But I wanted to pass along some interesting reviews and ratings about Disney’s Mars Needs Moms. Hopefully the people at Disney have learned their lesson and never use mocap again in a fully animated film. Leave the mocap for video games and live action films (although key framed animation will always be a better choice).

So, Disney’s Mars Needs Moms came out today. It's gotten pretty bad reviews. Over at rottentomates.com you can read some of the reviews and it received an overall rating of 41%. But a more reliable movie review site IMDB.com gave it 4.6 out of 10 stars. That's bad, anything less than 6 stars is pretty much unwatchable.

Mike Hale from The New York Times said this in his critique:

“It seems that it’s time to admit that dressing actors in LED-studded catsuits, asking them to give performances on sterile white sets and handing the results to a team of computer animators is not a way to make a good movie. It didn’t work for “The Polar Express,” “Beowulf” or “A Christmas Carol,” and it doesn’t work for “Mars Needs Moms,” the latest product of Robert Zemeckis’s obsession with motion-capture animation.”

Writer Betsy Sharkey from The Los Angeles Times wasn't all that enthusiastic about the film either:

“Live versus lifelike continues to be problematic for this particular technique. Despite refinements in the years since filmmaker Robert Zemeckis — a producer on “Mars” — pushed it into the long-form, storytelling arena in 2004 with “The Polar Express,” its characters still carry the Stepford look.

Let me say this before I continue, I understand what the process is for working and creating mocap. I know it's not easy and it takes skilled people countless hours to work on it. I appreciate the hard work the people at ImageMovers Digital put into the films that made.

However, mocap does NOT work for fully animated films. It doesn't. It looks bad and lifeless. The comments about mocap is that it looks dead, zombie-ish, and creepy. Mocap just does not belong anywhere near animated films. Every fully 3d animated that used mocap did not do well in the box office and/or did not receive good reviews by critics and audience alike. Now the argument will arise..."but the audience can't tell the difference!" True.., maybe.., they can tell technically the difference and most of them won't care, but the can feel that something is not right. And because of the negative feeling, all of 3d animation gets a bad rap. And people will tie key framed animation together with mocap when they should be far from each other as possible.

A funny side note, Rango is doing great at the box office and has received great reviews. And many critiques talked about how great the animation was. Many of the reviewers would say that the animation itself was the real star of the film. Some people that the animation was so good that it was mocaped.... but it wasn't. No motion capture was used at all in Rango. It was 100% key framed animated. So it goes to show... many things make a good movie. Story, characters, direction, cinematography, and more. But animation plays an important part as well, especially if it's a fully animated feature. Rango is prime example of this and the Mars needs Moms is an example of how mocap can ruin a film. Maybe in a 10 years motion capture will improve more and look better... who knows... I'm not holding my breath. But no matter how much motion capture improves, technology is not and will never be a replacement for artistic talent.

Weekly Web Findings 2

1. Snow White Deleted Scene

This is a deleted fully animated scene from Snow and the Seven Dwarfs. It is just a wonderful piece of animation animated by the best. Enjoy

2. New Tron Series - TRON: Uprising

I liked both the original and new Tron films a lot. Now Disney is releasing a new series called Tron: Uprising. The teaser looks very cool and I'm looking forward to watching this!

3. Early UPA Character Designs

This is a great find. I am a big fan of UPA cartoons and especially the retro style. Over at Animationarchive.org they posted some awesome images of those classic cartoon designs. Check it out at this link:

http://www.animationarchive.org/?p=2399

The Looney Tunes Show... something else Hollywood has to destroy.

You know how the saying goes... "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Well my fellow animators, looks like Warner Bros and Cartoon Network just broke Looney Tunes.

If some of you are not aware, there is a new Looney Tunes cartoon coming soon. It's called The Looney Tunes Show, and the only thing that the new show has in common with the classic cartoon shorts is the name.

Here is the abomination of some of the most memorable and classic cartoon characters of all time.

I won't comment on the voices because they're not Mel Blanc. Besides that, the designs are just awful and made me nauseous. I know that the Looney Tunes characters' designs have changed over the years many times. But there came a point when the designs weren't just perfect but they became iconic. That time period was obviously during the 1940s - 1960s. Here is an image showing Bugs Bunny design progression throughout the years. Notice the last three. Relatively the same design, just slight changes.

My second complaint is that the clips Cartoon Network is releasing, are not funny. If these clips are the supposed to promote the show, then I have low expectations for it's survival. It's a major disgrace to the legacy of Chuck Jones and to all the animators and artists who worked on the classic cartoon shorts if the new show is not funny. Looney Tunes is wild and spontaneous. Extremely funny, sarcastic, crazy and wonderful. This show looks like they stripped all that and couldn't find people who couldn't draw the characters well enough.

I strongly suggest everyone to boycott this new "version" of the Looney Tunes and stick to the great shorts. Go to Best Buy, Target, Barnes and Noble or search Amazon and buy The Looney Tunes - Golden Collection. Here's the Amazon.com link:

http://www.amazon.com/Looney-Tunes-Collection-Mel-Blanc/dp/B0000AYJXS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1299302731&sr=8-3

And to clear your palette from the bad taste left with that horrid version of the Looney Tunes, here is a masterpiece.

Weekly Web Findings 1

1. I love Cartoon Brew!

One of my favorite websites is Cartoon Brew.com. I go visit that site almost hourly. There's an abundant amount of information that is valuable to the education and progression of the animation artist. There are also some great articles that are just fantastic to read. Here's one I just read about how people have a misconception of Walt Disney. Click here to read

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2. New Thundercats Cartoon on Cartoon Network

Yes, you read right! There's going to be a new Thundercats cartoon coming soon to Cartoon Network. At first I had mixed feelings about it. I don't like that Cartoon Network is remaking Thundercats. It bothers me that so many things are being remade all the time; Yogi Bear, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Smurfs, etc... But after watching the preview, I changed my mind. I like the designs and the style. The story looks like it's completely different (which I like) and the animation is improved (tv animation standards). I'm looking forward to seeing it, hopefully it lives up to my expectations of it. Here's the video and judge for yourself.

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3. Female Norman Rig

I recently found this modified version of the Norman rig. It's pretty cool, Ben Halstead modified the Norman rig into a female but kept the simplicity of the model. Here's the link:

http://www.animatedbuzz.com/forums/topic/28/norman-rig-female-version

But here is the link to the Norman Rig Database with lots of modified versions of Norman

http://www.romanim.com/norman_database.php

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My KickStarter Project

Hi everyone,

I have recently created a video and posted on Kickstarter.com, a fund raising website. I'm trying to raise funds for my kid's show project I have been working on for sometime now. Here's the link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/772024248/taras-animal-adventure?ref=projects

and the video:

Please donate as much as you can... this is a great idea and it's something I really want to get moving and help the animation industry in South Florida.

Thanks!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I everyone! I wanted to wish you all out there in internetland a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. Have fun, eat well, watch football, and store up energy for the craziest day of the year... the horrible BLACK FRIDAY!!!! I'm not going out that day. I hate shopping on normal days, yeesh!

Well I'm writing some new tutorials and I'm also working on new projects that I'm really excited about. Especially the short film project that a few friends and I have been working on for a while now. So new things will be posted soon!!

In the meantime, I made a quick animation for one of my classes. Check it out.




HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

What happened to Disney?

I came across this article on Slashfilm.com - Click HERE. It's about how Disney has often turned to Pixar for help. I find this kind of sad.

Don't get me wrong I like Pixar, but I love Disney. Disney at one point was the reigning king of animation. And in my eyes it still is. Pixar produces some fantastic stories and they deserve all the credit in the world. But what is lacking at Disney that they have to turn to Pixar for help so often? I know that Disney owns Pixar, so essentially Disney is getting help from themselves. But articles likes this just disappoints me that the Disney artists can't resolve their own problems. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but Disney needs help from NO ONE! But if they do I'm glad it's Pixar.

Why Digital Will Never Replace Pencils!

Let me begin by saying that, technology is great! I love it. I think some really good things and really helpful innovations have come from technology. But it WILL NEVER and SHOULD NEVER replace traditional art.

Don't get me wrong, like I said technology is great. After all I work in computer animation, I create CG models, I started a computer animation studio, I love Photoshop, and where would we be without the internet.

(I use the word digital instead of technology because I am referring mainly to digital programs)

But in my opinion, the digital world we now live in is making everyone lazy. Young artists are relying too much on computer programs that make everything easier and faster. I believe that working easier and/or faster will not make you a better artist. What makes you a better artist is how efficiently you are with your work flow. But more importantly, what makes you a great artist is the training and discipline in traditional art techniques. Some may argue that companies want easier and faster. That saves money!!! But like the Project Triangle says: Good. Fast. Cheap. You can only pick two, but you will not have the other.

The ability to correct mistakes quickly in a digital format also makes the young artist inferior to a well trained traditional artist who is able to carry over those techniques into the digital realm. Young artist almost have their left hand glued to the CTRL and Z buttons on the keyboard. The search for perfection in the young artist mind is making everything even, symmetrical, and equal. The truth, and as shocking as it may sound to some, is that perfection is imperfection. (This is part of my problem with Blu-Ray. More on that later)

Many of the digital painting programs, Photoshop, Corel, Sketchbook Pro, and others, are trying to imitate real painting techniques, textures, brushes and so forth. For efficiency, these programs are excellent to use. But the artist who can physically work with real paint, real canvas, real pencils, will excel far beyond the artist who does not practice traditional drawing. There is nothing like the feel of drawing on paper. Your hand and pencil become one. As you draw, paint, sculpt or create with your hands, there is a resistance on the material you work with. It's almost like the paper, canvas, or clay is challenging you to make something. That resistance is akin to physical inspiration. It's hard to get that from a Wacom Tablet or the Cintique.

If a young artist does not understand the basic principles of art, or doesn't even try, there is no computer program on earth that will make you a better artist.

On the right side of this blog, under the links section, there is a list of great artists who have that traditional art background that makes them great! The proof right there. These are the people that will have and will continue to have great careers.

Art inspires technology and technology inspires art. Walt Disney was very adamant to always use art and technology together. I love a quote from Walt Disney when he said, “One foot in the past and one in the future.”

If you are inspiring to become the next concept artist, modeler, animator, or digital artist it's extremely important to have the traditional background as an artist.

This is one of the greatest cartoons ever made!

Roger Ebert on “Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too)”

It's good to hear from real film critics now and then. Roger Ebert talked about how he hates 3D. As in movies that you need to wear 3D glasses. He makes great points and I agree a lot with them. Take a look at the rest of the article HERE. TELL LIKE IT IS ROGER!!!

Update 2

I came across this article on AWN.com that talks about how the majority of the critics out there (mainly bloggers), have no idea what the hell they are talking about. The author of the article, Dr. Toon, uses The Princess and The Frog as an example. He makes great points about how some critics go over board with insignificant details and try to "over think" the film.

You can take the points Dr. Toon makes and apply it to any film. My favorite quote from the article is "Among the most common mistakes that some uninformed critics make is equating the value of a film with its box-office take." And the quote "Determining the success of this movie by box office gross does it a gargantuan disservice."

So it doesn't matter how much money a film makes, it doesn't mean it's a great film or even "the greatest film ever made." For those of you who know me... You know exactly what I'm referring to!

Click HERE for the article

New Looney Tunes Show on Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network has decided to release a new Looney Tunes cartoon series. Click HERE to see the link talking about the new show. Below is an image from it.

I don't know how I feel about this. I'm happy to see the Loony Tunes characters again with new stuff. I hope that Cartoon Network does justice to these characters. I'm not sold yet on the artwork. I do not like the premise at all. The characters are no longer living in the forest, but in the suburbs! It's also going to be more like a sitcom than a series of shorts.

I'm glad that a new generation of kids will be able to experience Looney Tunes. But, I would LOVE to see Cartoon Network show more of the classic Looney Tunes cartoon shorts. It would be nice to this new cartoon, but then right after it show the real Looney Tunes.

Update 1

Hi everyone,

So I did some remodeling to the blog. Nothing to drastic, I just wanted to optimize how I update the blog and how accessible it is for you. One thing I did is modify the tutorials section, so that it is more organized.

I will be adding some of my work soon, so keep a look out for them.

I want to let everyone know of a really cool website. It called ffffound.com. Yes, with 4 f's! It really cool for image searching. Basically, when you visit the site you'll see a bunch of images. Once you choose one you like... click on it to see it. That's not the cool part. Underneath are images that are similar to the current one you are looking at. As you click on a similar image another group of similar images appear on the bottom. So it keeps going and going on like that. Now, it's not anything new. I'm sure you can search Google for cool images as well. But what I like about this site is that people from all over the world tag these images. The majority of these pics are odd, rare, or something you'll never think about searching for. But, once you see it... you'll be like, "Oh wow!" or "I've been looking for something like that!" or "I've never seen anything like that before!" or whatever.

The only downside is that you cannot register to the site. It's by invitation only. But, who cares. You can still look through it. So take some time and browse. But beware, it can be addicting!