Watch Max Winston Animate Uncle Grandpa

Time-lapse footage of the animation process of the short film Max Winston made for Cartoon Network’s Uncle Grandpa, titled “Total Reality”.

Oswald Iten’s Paddington Acting Analysis

An excellent analysis of what makes Paddington’s animation so special. Both films are real gems, and I highly recommended them if you haven’t seen them.

The Art and Making of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the most visually ground breaking film of the year.  The artists and technicians on this project were specifically tasked with pushing the boundaries and setting new bars for what’s possible in animated features, and their work deserves to be celebrated. I was an Animator on this film, and with a platform like this at my fingertips, I felt obligated to reach out to all the artists, gather as much material as I could find, and share it with you here.

Borja Montoro Shares Beautiful Rough Animation for ‘There’s a Rang-tan In My Bedroom’

We’re giving Passion Animation Studios a lot of (much deserved) love today. Veteran Animator, Borja Montoro, has recently uploaded this gem to his Vimeo account, and shares insight with us on the project. He animated the entire short himself over five weeks. Borja writes:

I did a first hyper rough pass on everything to have an idea of how it’d work and once I got the ok from the guys at Salon Alpin and Passion Pictures, I did most of the touch ups as well. And also a lots of in-betweens too.

I must say I had a lot of freedom given from Lip and Simon, who shared theirs ideas with me, and were open to listen to whatever I could add to the narrative of the short from the very beginning. It was pretty much about removing one shot, and adding some more footage to another to extend the length of it and get more entertainment. Great team to work with.

‘Bird Karma’ Shot Progressions

William Salazar shares a progression reel of two key shots from his award season contending short film, Bird Karma. Some wonderful character and effects animation on display, and only an animator would classify those as “storyboards.”

Raf Anzovin is Making CG Animation Fun

CG Animation can often drown artists in technical limitations both in terms of software (Maya) and methodology. Things are getting better, as studios have begun pushing new boundaries in rigging, design aesthetic, and limited animation with films like The Lego Movie, Captain Underpants, and Into the Spider-Verse. But things can always be better, and after reading Raf Anzovin’s latest post, you can plainly see just how much better they can be, and just how limited we are by heavy and outdated software like Maya.

His post is a compilation of sorts, a culmination of many months of work trying to figure out a better way to animate, keeping animators focused on their craft and not distracted by these aforementioned limitations. As a CG Animator, it’s exciting to see his progress and I for one would be quick to adopt these tools and forget the status quo work flow. Raf writes:

I’m not trying to come up with algorithmic methods to take more of the burden of defining motion on the software, using simulation or procedural animation. I am, in fact, moving in the exact opposite direction. I’m attempting to remove all the red tape from the process, so that the animator is left with only the most direct methods of interacting with the character possible. This is essential for the fast/high production value animation process that is my long-term goal.

You can see some of his results below, but I encourage you to check out his blog to see the full effect of what he’s trying to accomplish and share and support this if you’re on board. 🙂

Minor Jose Gaytan Shares Disney Animation Progression Reels

Animator, Minor Jose Gaytan, has recently been sharing a wealth of shot progression reels from his work on Big Hero 6, Frozen, Zootopia, Tangled, Moana, and Wreck It Ralph at Disney Animation. You might want to subscribe to his vimeo page to catch any future updates as he doesn’t look to be finished.

Spungella is Making Excellent Animation Videos on YouTube

YouTube seems over-saturated with video essays on film analysis (You may have noticed we’ve stopped posting them as often as we were). Animation has been largely overlooked save for a few great videos, like this one about Chuck Jones. I’ve often thought about starting up a YouTube channel, to alter the direction of this blog and evolve with the times. Luckily I’m not the only one with an animation blog and this idea.

The Making of BBC’s ‘The Supporting Act’ Holiday Ad

The characters were animated using stop-motion but the facial expressions were created and mapped on the puppets using CGI to bring them to life. The dance routine was choreographed first in live action and then a team of Blinkink animators recreated the moves one frame at a time.

Eduardo Quintana Brings a Famous Richard Williams Drawing to Life in ‘UNPLUG!’

Eduardo Quintana is currently animating on Sergio Pablos’ forthcoming feature, Klaus, at SPA Studios.  In his spare time he created this personal test to pay tribute to master Animator, Richard Williams. Eduardo writes:

“UNPLUG!” is the first lesson in Richard Williams’ book: “The Animator’s Survival Kit”. Richard added some drawings to the lesson, illustrating what happened one day he went to see Milt Kahl.  I’ve always found those drawings very inspiring and the story was just screaming to be animated. The audio is taken from a Richard Williams’ masterclass video where, luckily for me, he re-enacted the story!