Animation and Video Life

Watch Atlas: The Animated Movie on YouTube . W hile I'm not averse to Superhero content I must admit, what really piqued my interest in Austin McConnell's first animated feature film, Atlas: The Animated Movie , is that it was made with Reallusion's iClone. More on that later. The full movie is available right now on Youtube (just click the links) and follows the journey of a somewhat ineffective nobody, Jim Randall, as he becomes the superhero nobody was asking for. I gave the movie my full attention by watching it on my home digital projector which is about a 71" screen.  Despite the technical aspects of the film, the character design, cg animation etc. being not even close to modern standards, the story is quite engaging, with interesting characters, and is very watchable. It's not a particularly complex plot, with no big surprises or twists that are going to blow your mind, but it is fun, and truly inspiring that all this was made and produced by one person ov...

Emily Moxley announces Shorts Series at #MadeOnYouTube 2026 O ver the last few months, as a considerable number of YouTube Story Time Animator channels have fallen prey to YouTube's somewhat aggressive AI algorithm, demonetizing, content watchdog, something new has been announced that independent and solo animators should pay attention to.  At the recent #MadeOnYouTube 2026 event, where a host of new features for the platform were announced, one that really caught my attention was 'Shorts Series', which follows in the wake of another new feature, 'YouTube Shows'. Watch the announcement in the video below. Shorts Series, Ask YouTube, & Creator Protection - Made On YouTube YouTube itself has become the number one streaming platform in the world and is increasingly watched on large screens in people's living rooms. As such YouTube is pivoting more and more to features that improve the large screen experience. Short form, serialized dramas have become a thing o...

Cartoon Animator 5's Smooth Mode Face Setup. I t's taken some doing but I've finally finished rigging the front facing angle of my G3-360 Vector TET Avatar character for my 2D animated web series Resident Dragon . If you're new to this series I've been showing the behind the scenes development of the character for my animation software, Cartoon Animator 5 because it is a particularly advanced rig with challenges that I haven't seen solved anywhere else. If you would like to catch up here's links to Part 1 and Part 2 which cover the very beginnings of the character and series, and both include behind the scenes video as well. This post was a final push to get the character finished and animated. I should point out, it doesn't normally take this long to rig a vector character for Cartoon Animator. I've just had limited time and have been developing solutions for common challenges people have faced when rigging a character with outlines, so the outlin...

My TET Avatar character in Cartoon Animator 5. Smooth Mode Face Setup lets you map  face feature movements to the Face Key Detail Settings sliders for greater control.  S ince my previous post I have completely finished drawing the front facing angle of my TET Avatar in Inkscape , transferred all the sprites to a front facing human template in Affinity , and I am testing the rig so far in Cartoon Animator 5 . For the most part it's going well. The only challenges are the ones I'm creating for myself - as opposed to ones often faced from not knowing the software enough to know when you're doing something wrong. Resident Dragon cartoon by TET. If you're not familiar with this project, this is a behind the scenes on my 2D animated web series, Resident Dragon , which is all about an eight to nine foot tall fire dragon called Red, living in the suburbs with his former director and friend, TET, in TET's house. TET has a cat called Cool Froyd, and a dog known as Grrr Dog...

W hile generative AI has increasingly made inroads into the visual entertainment industry, puppetry, and puppet making has one thing that keeps it relevant, the human component, both in the creative choices of design, and how each puppet is brought to life, according to Daniel Byrne, Creative Director of  Puppets Magic Studio, who I had the opportunity to interview recently. ---o ---o--- o--- TET: Hi Daniel, tell me a little bit about Puppets Magic Studio? Where is it based and what does the studio do? We're a UK-based puppetry studio that designs and fabricates bespoke puppets for film, television and live performance. We work on everything from TV commercials and short films to stage productions.  Every project is different, so our work often combines traditional craftsmanship with modern design techniques to bring characters to life in the most effective way for the production. TET: When did you realize you could turn Puppet making into a career? Your website suggests you ...

Original Go!Animate Bat Storm scene (left). iClone AI reimagined Bat Storm scene. A s mentioned in my introductory post to Building My Two Cartoon Web Series , Resident Dragon and Bat Storm, I'm also going to document the behind the scenes process for Bat Storm - starting with this post. Click the Resident Dragon link for the first behind the scenes post in that series. My Bat Storm series is an existing four part animated series I created nearly two decades ago with a cartoon making website then known as Go!Animate (now known as Vyond ). It's a little cringe to watch now but the story was strong and there was some good humor too.  My goal is to recreate the series using the ultimate cartoon making tool for dummies - generative AI. (I use the term 'dummies' in the sense that, just like Go!Animate, anyone can use AI to make cartoons). The AI Animated Cartoon Workflow Generative AI is an evolving space with different AI models being updated or emerging all the time. Reg...