Animation and Video Life

One of my biggest stumbling blocks in moving forward with my own animation has been coming up with ideas that I can get excited about. Even with using time saving animation software like CrazyTalk Animator 3 creating animated shorts is still a lot of work that you need to stay motivated for. As much as I want to earn a living from creating my own animated shorts, the higher priority is to enjoy creating them... you know, if you enjoy what you're doing you'll never work a day in your life - that kind of thing. When I got back into creating animated shorts in 2008, after discovering GoAnimate , I was clearly having a lot of fun in the years before that site transitioned from allowing anyone to create animated stories to a business explainer video creation tool. I made somewhere around 180 animated shorts over the space of about 4 years - roughly 3 animations per month.

I recently purchased two online drawing courses created by former Disney Animator, Aaron Blaise , including How to Draw Human Anatomy , and Character Design . Both courses were included in Aaron's Figure Drawing and Character Design Bundle , pack deal. My own drawing style is heavily influenced by early Disney animated classics (think pre digital animation), which you can see in the more rounded lines of my characters - as opposed to the more angular character design lines you find in Marvel and DC comics etc. I wasn't sure how much I'd learn from either of these courses, baring in mind I've already studied both topics in detail in Art School, and have been designing my own characters since I was in primary school, but Aaron's a veteran and easily out classes my animation skills.

Star Wars, Forces of Destiny Episode 1, Sands of Jakku. Disney recently began releasing episodes of its animated shorts series, Star Wars Forces of Destiny , which focuses each short story around one of the female heroes from the Star Wars Universe. At the time of writing four episodes were available on the Disney Youtube channel and they're okay. The stories are fairly simple and likely targeted at a younger audience in the 7-12 range. The animation style is fairly typical of modern, Saturday morning cartoons, with the characters being fairly faithful cartoon versions of their live action counterparts. The reason I'm making a cross face is because the first two episodes feature Rey protecting BB-8 from various nasties on Jakku. Specifically with BB-8 and Rey being chased through the desert before she finally puts a plan into action.

TET Moho Avatar. It's nearly 2 months since I last posted to this blog so I thought it was way beyond time I made the obligatory 'I'm not dead, check in with anyone wondering where I've been and what I've been up to' post. Looking back at my two last update posts, the first from March 2016 and the second from July 2016 I'd like to say the reason for my lack of posting is different but no, still Animation 4 Business  client projects have been a factor.

The  Parblo Coast22 21.5" Graphic Drawing Tablet Monitor is the largest sub AU$1000.00 pen display monitor I could find that met all my other criteria. When it comes to drawing surfaces I believe the bigger the better, hence my choice. I know there are bigger displays but my budget didn't stretch that far. I also know WACOM pen display tablets are generally better quality products but I didn't want to settle for the 13.3" screen of the Cintiq 13HD , the only one of their tablets in my price range. It should be noted that this is my first Pen Display monitor. Prior to this I was using a WACOM Intuos 4 Drawing Tablet (which is no longer available but is similar to the Intuos Pro Tablets ). This was a factor in my choice not to stick with a smaller WACOM display tablet. I figure, what I don't know I won't miss. Even if a WACOM 13HD is better for drawing - I'm not going to know. That said, I can still compare the Parblo Coast22 to my WACOM Intuo...

As mobile phones become more powerful with bigger screens it just makes sense to utilize these devices as a sketchbook. Chances are, your mobile phone is nearly always within arms reach anyway so, instead of carrying a sketchbook everywhere, why not just use your phone? My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5, running Android 6. It's fairly powerful and has a relatively large screen. Prior to that I had a Nokia, Lumia 720 phone running Windows 8.1. It has a smaller screen but I used it a lot for sketching ideas and characters. Generally most modern phones with a capacitive touch screen (the kind that you can use your fingers with) should be fine for sketching.

So you've bought Smith Micro's Moho Pro 12 along with the Moho, 10 hour, 104 Video Tutorials Add On pack so you can get learning right away... only you can't. For whatever reason, the video tutorials aren't sorted into any logical order of progression making them hard to follow. Yeah, I've been there, only I've done what Smith Micro should have done and sorted all the video tutorials into a logical order of natural progression for you. That is, each tutorial builds upon what you learned in previous videos and you won't suddenly come up against some feature you've never used before, unless that feature is what the video tutorial is about.