Animation and Video Life

I discovered Plastic Animation Paper (PAP) Pro 4.0 for Windows quite some time ago and even had it installed on my computer for well over a year - unused. The full pro version of the software has been given away for free, no strings attached but with no tech support, since July of 2010. Not to be sneezed at since prior to that date this version sold for 695 Euro (roughly US$900.00). When I discovered it I was still finding my way back into my love for animation and the bug to animate my characters more traditionally via classical, hand drawn 2D animation techniques had yet to take hold. I didn't really understand what PAP did or why you couldn't make complete, finished animations with it. After finding some really great, very affordable, digital storyboarding software , PAP is the next tool in your digital production workflow for those of you on a budget creating traditional 2D animation. Depending upon how finished your storyboard panels are you could even impor...

GoAnimator Enjoyinglifeinseoul (ELIS) is the February winner of my GoAnimate, Get Featured in TET's Blog contest . ELIS has had his account with GoAnimate since March of 2011 and in that time has had eight staff picks and created 40 animations. ELIS decided to feature his latest animation, Lucky Coin! Lucky Day! , for a number of reasons as he explains below; First, I wanted to feature something new on your blog. If I had not finished this on time, I have no idea which one of my old ones I would have selected.  Second, I chose it because this might have been the best time I ever had making an animation. It was a blast making fun of myself and I was laughing the whole time.  Lastly I chose it, because I made it for Commedus , (Without him and our friendship this animation would never have come to be and I will go into that more in a moment.) I also pay tribute to several other animators in the animation, which I like to do from time to time. Lucky Coin! Luc...

Animation from Pencils to Pixels: Classical Techniques for the Digital Animator by Tony White is not the kind of book you buy your aspiring animator child who wants to learn more about how to animate. Rather it's the kind of book best suited to animators heading into their first year in 'animation' college or anyone who has had the animation bug for a few years and really wants to dive into deeper waters. I say this because, right from the get go, Tony delves into the idea stage of animation. Not so much with the 'how do you get ideas' approach as the 'why you probably shouldn't steal other people's ideas' approach - and the consequences of that legally if you don't take his warnings on board. It's not difficult reading by any means, despite touching on copyrighting, contracts and licensing, however if you were expecting a book on just the actual drawing and creating aspect of animation then it's quite a lot to take in right off th...

Storyboarding an animation is one of my least favorite parts of the creative process and yet it's also one of the most important after writing the script. It's where the planning of the visual representation of the script takes place. The Problem.... I've struggled with storyboarding because I knew there had to be a better way than drawing tiny thumbnails on a sheet of paper with script and camera direction notes crammed underneath - an example of which can be found in my post for my music video animation, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots . This method isn't exactly client friendly as my handwriting scrawls can become unreadable even to me over time. The other technique I employed was using the storyboarding features of Celtx Script Writing Software . Celtx allows you to import your scanned thumbnails (or any digital image) into its storyboard where you can add text and camera direction into scrollable text boxes below each image - and never run out of room. I em...