A great little review of the 12 principles

I know everyone has shoved down your throats the 12 principles of animation at every turn, the truth is that you need to know these inside and out in order to become the most effective animator possible. SO if we need to have these points drilled into our skill set, why not find different way to keep reviewing the principles in different styles so that they remain entertaining and fresh. So I scour the Internet trying to find new ways to approach this, so here is one that I thought was entertaining and informational at the same time, enjoy.

Please feel free to leave a comment to let me know what your ideas are on these principles or if you think that there should be more, like a new expanded edition in order to explain modern up-to-date skill sets for 2D and 3D!

Don't Be Afraid of the Blank Sheet...

This is great insight to what becomes the greatest problem for not only 3D animators, but 2D and beyond. This is the dreaded blank piece of paper. You see a blank canvas that is in front of you and you freeze from the moment you start because as an artist you are always struggling to do your best so that when people see it, and they will, you don't want to suck.

     As they pointed out in the video, "pain is only momentarily, sucking is forever!" So automatically you have this fear of making the wrong stroke, the wrong style, the wrong look for your project, so you are setting yourself up to fail even before you put your first line on that blank piece of paper. This episode of Ricky Vega Nierva Art Director / Production Designer, Pixar Animation Studios
Video from TEDxAthens conference shows that it is just a state of mind that you can overcome by applying simple methods to regain focus over your project.

Watch it here :

You notice that his first stroke he made he did not even look at the sheet of paper. He applied his hand to the surface and proceeded to just make a random convergence of lines and forms with no real purpose!
"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like, Design is how it works"- Steve Jobs, co-founder of Pixar Animation.
Basics Shape represent design and why it works. Opposites can support and compliment each other unexpectedly.
Symbolism is applied throughout the project so that you don't see what they are trying to show you, but instead you feel it. That is what makes it so successful.
The whole process of making these stories and projects is to be simple, but being simple is not always as easy at it may seem.
Be like a kid, just dive in, simplify and just fill it up! Don't worry about the polished look, just get your ideas out and discover what makes your story work! Don't be afraid of making mistakes, make it your goal as well to draw as a child does.

New Project

A new 2D Fan Animated series that I am working on.
Based upon the hit game: Clash of Clans!
This is the first character design I came up with.
I do have the balloon bomber as well (not shown)
Exciting personal project. Will keep updated, maybe a fan page
in the near future, watch out for it!
This is one of the reasons I have not posted in a few weeks, takes more time than I realized, but it is fun and exciting!

Ouch!!

Here is a reprint of the news report regarding this travesty.

Disney, DreamWorks & Sony Hit with New, Consolidated Lawsuit

Three class-action lawsuits over anti-poaching and wage-fixing deals by Disney, DreamWorks Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks and other animation studios have been consolidated into a single complaint under the jurisdiction of antitrust federal judge Lucy Koh.

By Jennifer Wolfe | Thursday, December 4, 2014 at 11:30am

In Business, Films, Jobs & Recruiting, People | ANIMATIONWorld, Headline News, VFXWorld | Geographic Region: North America

Northern District of California federal judge Lucy Koh will oversee the consolidated antitrust suit.

Three separate class-action suits over alleged anti-poaching and wage-fixing deals by Disney, DreamWorks Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks and other animation studios have been consolidated into a single complaint, according to a report by Deadline. Lawyers for digital artists Georgia Cano, Robert Nitsch Jr. and David Wentworth submitted an amended filing in a San Jose, CA federal court on December 2 claiming that “the conspiracy deprived Plaintiffs and other class members of millions of dollars in compensation while the films they produced generated billions of dollars in revenues for Defendants.”
Also named as defendants in the suit are ImageMovers, Blue Sky Studios, Lucasfilm and Pixar. In addition to a jury trial, the consolidated suit seeks reclassification to a class action that could grow to thousands of members who worked at the companies from 2004 onward.
The suit contends that the roots of the anti-poaching agreements go back to the mid-1980s, when George Lucas and Ed Catmull, the president of Steve Jobs’ then newly-formed company Pixar, agreed not to raid each other’s employees. The lawsuit alleges that The Walt Disney Co.’s involvement deepened when it bought Pixar in 2006 and appointed Catmull to run Walt Disney Animation Studios. The complaint also names DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, asserting that Jobs and Katzenberg “personally discussed DreamWorks joining the conspiracy.”
The case has been assigned to Northern District of California federal judge Lucy Koh, who for the past several years has presided over a Silicon Valley employee antitrust litigation case where details of the studios’ anti-poaching deal were first made public.
That class action lawsuit involved Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe, and while Lucasfilm and other companies settled with a $9 million payment in October 2013, Koh rejected Apple and other tech companies’ $325 million settlement attempt to end the case -- a decision the tech giants are now fighting in the courts.
The consolidated amended class action complaint filing can be read in full here.