Major Post

Posted on by Bobbi Ho

As future animators, we have to appreciate and thank the inventors of the Phenakistoscope, Zootrope, and the Praxinoscope. The idea of hand drawing frame by frame actions to create a moving picture was evolutionary. With the advancement of technology and what we now know about animation, cannot be compared to the first animators who had to discover different techniques to create such experimental media. Learning about the different animation techniques such as the stop trick, the lightning sketches, or the substitution trick was interesting. Although I personally didn’t find it as interesting as watching the short films about animated cartoons, I still appreciated the patience it would’ve taken for the actors and the artist themselves to create such a time consuming, precise entertainment. It had never occurred to me, before learning about these animated techniques, how they originally came to be.

Taking my first animation class, I can fully appreciate the concept of using pegs and cels. It makes animating a lot easier and manageable. The process of hand drawing each frame is time consuming and the use of pegs and cels, helped ease the process a little bit, although it was still time consuming.

Major Post 1

Posted on by marissatso

This week, I studied the origin and forerunner of animation. it is amazing to know how animation was found and developed. Although I planned to take animator as my future career, I do not have a very deep understanding on the history of animation, this lesson did raise my understanding on my future path.
Last lesson on Thursday, we have watched some animation and visual effect clips. I especially liked the works by Winsor McCay. As one of the pioneers of animated films, his works truly inspire me. I like how fluidity and swiftness his works are, and how clean his line works are. Also, from the video shown in our class, he drew without any drafts and marks, this astonish me a lot. I enjoyed to watch Gertie the Dinosaur the most(the mosquito one is too creep :p), the storyline and interaction with Gertie is interesting. This animation inspires me on how to engage audiences with simple lines and limited time. 

Marissa Tso

Major Post 1: Svankmajer

Posted on by LeAnn Schmitt

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech surrealist puppeteer and animator who was born in 1934. He uses a mix of both stop motion animation and live action to accomplish a very unsettling storytelling aesthetic. A lot of his work appears to be inspired by early animators such as George Melies who used stop motion as a way to create trick films. You do not need to watch a lot of Svanmajer’s work to see that this same idea of tricking the audience by making strategic cuts and using stop motion elements. However, I will say that his techniques are much more advanced and hold up much better than Melies’s.

             Svanmajer’s most famous piece of work is a three-part short film called Food that features 3 distinct shorts examining the relationship with humans. The whole film is a combination of stop motion, videos, and claymation. Most of the clay is only used for a few frames to create very scary wild expressions that can make the viewers skin crawl by how uncanny and how abrupt they are.

LeAnn Schmitt

PQA – Alberto Mielgo

Posted on by Claude Lau

Alberto Mielgo is a Spanish animator, director, concept artist and painter. He came to my attention because of two recent major mainstream projects he was involved in: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (2018), and the episode “The Witness” in the Netflix adult animation anthology Love Death + Robots (March 2019).

Mielgo started out as a 2D animator at 18, but turned to oil painting when he found studios wanted CGI/3D. His oils are mostly personal, erotic portraits; he also digitally paints graphic, vibrant environments. Thus he has a strong painting base, which shows in his style.

He is credited in Spider-verse as a Visual Consultant for his work in the visual development process, and was originally Production Designer / Art Director. He did explorations of the film’s iconic comic-book aesthetic, including integrating text (which he’d done in earlier work), and produced a tone/mood animation test. Though he was taken off the project, I think his contribution and influence can be clearly seen in the final film. More work he made for Spider-verse here.

spm02.jpg
There are many impact shots in Spider-verse that are similar to this one, where for a frame the background becomes flat colors and sound effect text.

I find his work very intriguing because of his strong design sense, and his ability to abstract shapes and light in highly descriptive, convincing ways. Which makes his style so fitting for animation. His animations draw from aesthetics and themes more used in fine art. In his own words, “I love animation over any art, because it has every art on it.” [Grammar mistake is his.]

His socials and websites:
https://www.instagram.com/albertomielgo/
http://www.albertomielgo.com
http://pinkman.tv (his brand/studio)

I hope you guys found something interesting in his work!

Pre Quarter Assignment

Posted on by kamenriderroad

My favorite animator of all time or at least one of my favorites would be the late great Yoshinori Kanada who’s bouncy, energetic, and wild animation style influenced animators for generations. My favorite of his works would probably be one of my top 10 ovas of all time simply titled “Birth”. Where this 80 minute movie lacks in plot cohesion it far makes up for this short coming thanks to Kanada’s energetic style and his amazing understanding of form and space. Truly a master at his craft who will be dearly missed.

Heres a link to a reel of some of his best cuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUnf_JqPH5k&list=FLXtrE40Q7dWMwKXf3-Mgt8A&index=68&t=0s

Pre-Quarter Assignment

Posted on by Chandi Marsh

Trying to decide who my favorite animator is challenging because there are so many talented animators out there! Because of this, I want to introduce you all to an artist that I currently am amazed with and following; Micah Buzan. Buzan’s style is very experimental and psychedelic. What fascinated me about his work was the bright colors he uses and how fluid he makes his animations. I believe that he is an underrated artist for sure because all of his animations are done traditionally on paper and is self taught! That’s talent!! You can tell that Buzan spends so much time on his projects. He makes animated music videos and sometimes will even make his own beats to go along with his work.

Buzan’s animations usually consists of various loops. I notice that he even uses the cut out method. If you enjoy trippy weird visuals, you should definitely check out Micah Buzan. You will not be disappointed.

Chandi Marsh

Pre Quarter Assignment

Posted on by marissatso

It is really hard to find an animator or illustrator I favour all time, instead, I am going to introduce an illustrator that impressed me a lot. Meteusz Kolek is an illustrator based in Poland. His work is heavily influenced by his trips around Asia and the culture there.
I first noticed his art when I saw how he illustrated Hong Kong. Living in Hong Kong are tough for most of the Hongkongers. Densely populated area brings so much pressure and stress. But In his art, Neon lights in Kowloon are staging an unique atmosphere, crowded streets and narrow roads bring interaction and communication that offer a funny perspective for creating art. Kolek sees how Hong Kong combines traditional and modern, and capture and narrate it with his visual style.
Kolek’s style is psychedelic and surreal, with high colour contrasts, impressed and astonished the viewers. I really like how he applies the colours, eye-catching but not jarring. I am also so much innovated by his habit, not using smartphone. Sometimes, things can only been seen when we put down our phones and focus on excavating the details around us.

Marissa Tso

Pre-quarter assignment

Posted on by Wendy Kong

My favorite illustrator is Claire Keane, who is also an animator and visual development artist. Her father Glen Keane is one of the most well-known animators that worked at many of the Disney classics such as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

Claire worked on the designed for Tangled, Frozen, and Enchanted for Disney. I fell in love with her drawings and style since I saw her works from The Art of Tangled. She always did some sketchy designs but it looks awesome and magical. She can also paint characters or background with tones of details and dynamic value. When she was working on tangled, she kept a journal of things she did at home and translated it into Rapunzel’s world . I love what she did with it because it made Rapunzel so much more believable and cute. I also admire how she makes use of colors to make everything so magical.

Here are some of her works:

Pre Quarter Assignment

Posted on by lilylai98

Shinji Kimura is a Japanese illustrator. He worked in many animated projects as art director and scene designer including Tekkonkinkreet(2006) and Steam Boy (2004). I was amazed by the detail of the scene design in Tekkonkinkreet(2006) when I was watching this animation for the first time. I like the use of color which is vintage and colorful. Everything is well-defined as if he created his world with his visual style and added so many creative elements.

In Tekkonkinkreet(2006), the story is about two boys called Shiro and Kuro they use their way to live in a crowded town where is full of gangster and kids who doesn’t have home and parents to take care of them. Shinji Kimura gave this animation a really strong visual impression, most of the scenes are bright and high saturated which creates childish and pleasure feeling. However, the story is all about how Shiro and Kuro fight against other children and adults to survive in this town. Shinji Kimura‘s illustrations and the story described even we are living in a world which seems prosperous and peaceful, there is still some of us is struggling with how do they survive in this world.

Last but not least, I would like to recommend others to watch this amazing animation. It is very different from other Japanese animates and I found that it is so inspiring.

Lily Lai

Pre-Quarter Assignment

Posted on by Thang Tsz Ching, Janelle

I used to play around in DeviantArt. There, I found one of my favourite illustration artist, NukeRooster. He is an artist who focused on painting creatures digitally. I am also a creature artist so I am fascinated on how he paints, the gestures and the textures on his creatures. He successfully caught every details that a creature should have, granting it a realistic kind of feeling. I am often inspired by his style of art and how he drew his creatures, not only the painting style but also helps me to learn on shapes of creatures. His creativity blew my mind when I saw his commission works at first sight. He would take commissions on designing creatures for the clients, at the end the creatures designed by him will be owned by the client. This commissions work like a pet shop. His creations are mind-blowing. He encouraged me to push even further to improve myself and someday, I hope to become someone as great as he is.
(He is inactive in dA now, I found that he is more active in Tumblr.)

https://www.deviantart.com/nukerooster/

https://nukerooster.tumblr.com/

These are my favourite drawings from him. 

^ My all-time favourite one ^