Live Stream - Animating a Cat Character in TVPaint

[Music] hey everybody Aaron blaze here it's Thursday so it must be YouTube we are here and we're gonna do some art today thinking maybe do some animation it'd be kind of fun I had a great morning this morning a really great morning I got on and I did a YouTube livestream with my new good friend Bobby Chu who approached me well he and I met at CTN out in Burbank two years ago and and we both have similar missions we both are into education online education art all of that and and it was just a matter of time before he and I finally got together so we met a couple years ago and then he contacted us a couple weeks ago wanting to do a YouTube livestream so we did this morning and I got to tell you it was great and I love I love the idea that Bobby's reaching out and is not afraid you know there's so many businesses that are so cutthroat and don't you know are so competitive and I did it's so refreshing to meet someone like Bobby that is kind of working in the same space we're all working in the same space but there's no reason why we can't do it with arms around each other and I love that about Bobby so I just want to say thank you Bobby if you're watching and to everyone else that showed up at that livestream this morning it was really great great questions I kind of spilled my guts a little bit about my life and it was a lot of fun but if you're interested in first of all you guys know my web site creature art teacher calm but there's also Bobby choose site school ism and it's just school ism calm here's the the web site on my screen right here you have that up Dustin alright you have the screen up okay pay attention right on do you have the you have the the website up yeah okay cool so it's his his his online teaching is really really great and you know I've always said you know if you can't find what we've I jump over to school ISM and odds are they'll have something there so you know go over check them out show them some love and but anyway today let's jump back to what we're doing today we are going to be doing some animation so first of all as usual I've got my trusty sidekick my son Dustin blaze here with me say hi Dustin everybody and and then we've got Nick birch my business partner over in Sarasota and he's gonna be helping the field questions as well but last Tuesday this past Tuesday we were over on Facebook and we I got together with my brother Travis who's in Seattle I'm in Florida and we did this Facebook live together where we challenged ourselves to come up with a character it was my job to design a little character and then he went away and animated it while I rendered the design my brother's an animator as well Travis blaze and and it was really cool these were this was the initial sketch there wasn't much to it this is a quick initial sketch that I did right here I started with this guy on the right I wasn't crazy about it the assignment was well first of all we left it up to the audience and so someone came up when they wanted us to design a little kitty a kitten and I liked that idea I wanted to do something soft small and soft and squishy so I started with this and it wasn't feeling very kitten like it was feeling more like forest creature or something and then I came up with this one right here that I liked and so I sent this went off to my brother he took this and and started animating it meanwhile I took it I took this little sketch and blew it up and created this and we also left the color up to the audience and someone asked it for it to be pink and I thought that was kind of cool I like sometimes putting colors in that are unnatural and so this is this little pink kitty that I created and I thought today it might be kind of fun to take this design and do maybe like a little walk a little run cycle with it in animation on TV paint it so I think that's what we're gonna do today how are we doing on the audience Dustin do we have a good audience out there that's okay how many people we got there because I want to start I'm gonna get started here we have 293 watching now right on good then that's a good ardent audience to start with I'm gonna jump over first of all I'm gonna take this and put it up on my upper monitor can you switch that over Dustin to show can you switch the camera to to see I want to show the audience kind of the setup that I have it's pretty cool does it show the upper monitor okay but I just want to show the setup it's for those of you that are looking for a cool setup this is my Cintiq I work in a Wacom 27 q HD Cintiq and pen display and it's it's nice and big I love it it's really cool and then a lot of times I keep my reference material up on this 4k monitor up above and it's great and if you can see I've got it on a on a rotating stand here this is a stand that I built I was kind of at a loss and so I thought I'll just build up and so I went out went out back and pulled out the saw and hammer and nails and put something together it works really well so um so this is this is my Cintiq am I set up here I just wanted to show that to you and let's go ahead and jump over we'll go ahead that's good we'll go ahead and jump over to TV paint TV pink TV paint there we go yeah so I thought maybe doing a little run cycle or something with this guy could be kind of fun and I want to do something you know really fun and squishy what do you think Dustin are doing or should we it should I animate something when you like a like an act like like in action some kind of action like does he jump up here probably seen seen the pouncing on Travis's version speaking of maybe just like a run cycle did to give some character yeah really quickly see I don't have it but maybe we can no I oh no I do have it yeah he sent it to me yeah oh that's right I'm sorry I forgot mm-hmm that's annoyed downloads I have my downloads there is kitty kitty pounce movie so keep in mind this is very rough pass first pass and and he did this and what like two hours not even two hours like an hour and a half but this is I'm going to set this to loop but oh it's already set to loop so what is doing this is him seeing this little ball of yarn come by and he gets a nice little bit of character in there very loose this is you know when we start our animation especially when we were at Disney we would start we would do what are called scribble passes like this just to get the action down the acting the attitude and then once that's down then we'd go out go in refine our drawings and fill in all those extra in-betweens and here I thought you know for not having ever seen this character in an hour and a half he created a nice little piece of personality and and I'd like to try to do the same thing so I didn't mean to do that Zee there we go one of those suggestions thus far as far as animation goes is a the kitten crawling into into a bottle crawling into a bottle that's a tough one I was thinking about just doing a cycle I'd like to do that if you guys don't mind yeah like a little runny like something but very very yeah very like specific to this cat so I'm wondering like a little prancing you know a little prancing you know like see how I'm prancing it's so pretty but uh I wanted but if I draw I'm gonna draw a first pose just to see whoops that's not the pencil I walked was there a certain part of your interview with Bobby - today you know that you enjoy most you know I just I really like I like I really like opening up to people it's something because I think I have there's something to be said there you know I really want because I it's so often I talked to young people that are so discouraged so easily and I in and it's I just don't want them to be so discouraged and and I want them to understand that we all you know we all go through tough times and and so I like to share I like to share some of those stories to get them to understand you know we've all gone through it and and you know and hopefully they get something from that so I'm just coming in here right now and I want what I'm trying to do so I'm trying to do the extreme up in the air pose got any more dustin what the heck people come on I'm right here I'm right here so I'm gonna have the eyes closed do you have a structure when you are a struck oh yeah there's always a structure you can see I always start with those circles and start with the big shapes and and and I always do that basically start bigger than you you are nailing it Dustin I love that you've been listening I love it so here I've got this little kitty and I'm gonna go nice straight I'm looking for a nice straight pose you've seen the new movie please no I want to see it so bad was that a question yeah I really want to see it so what I'm doing is I'm actually I think this should come back further this characters still new for me as well right into the chest a male lion or a bull hippo bull hippo hands down no doubt about it the hippo would destroy a lion exactly so what I'm trying to do right here is get a nice little a little bouncy look person I you know I'm an animal person obviously people know that I love I love all animals but I gotta say there's something about dogs I love cats too but you know what I just get so much more love and return from my from our dogs so I'm kind of bringing him up this way still finding that there we go I think that's gonna be a fun little pose I think the tail bring the tail up here could you explain layers on an oil painting yeah well um well as far as the way I layer in oil paint first of all I'm as far as layers go I don't layer a whole lot I paint fairly direct when I'm impasto is the term when I moil painting very thick and direct but that being said I do start as far as my layers go there's very similar to the way I do my digital painting which is I start with a rough drawing and then I work over the top of that and refine the drawing and then I seal it and then I'll tone it with turpentine and a bit of pigment usually a mid-tone and then I'll go in with a rag and I'll pull out the lights all the light areas to get some kind of value structure happening with the painting itself and I'll let that set and then I'll go in and add my darks all monochromatic and let that set and then I start layering color over the top of it working fairly direct and from that point I work towards the finished painting so that's how that's I do it now some people work a little differently they work more in glazes or your you're working thin but I tend to work very direct and thick what's the hardest thing to semester or that's a good that's a good question I think probably one of the hardest things is just letting go of the mechanics forgetting about the mechanics and feeling feeling what it is that you're trying to animate the emotion of what you're trying to animate I remember you know when I was first starting I get so hung up in the mechanics of what I was trying to do that I would lose the actual emotion what it is that I'm trying to say and that's easy to do it's easy to get caught up in that and so I would say that's probably that was the biggest thing I learned is to and it's not really learning it's something it's something that just eventually clicks you just finally get it I've got a question for for Dustin go Dustin have you ever tried to go into animation yourself I I never really go into the same route as as dad as far as like cartoon style animation because the way I was animating was through I was at depth artist W ever saw movie in 3d like with the glasses and everything I would create that through computer setup through a camera and I considered animation because he actually have to keyframe everything through through dad through a imaginary room so so I guess I would say me like a half yes half no like yes I was in animation but not in the in the cartoon sense absolutely so here I think I'm gonna come back I'm gonna go back I'm gonna go back let's go back to drawing one I'm gonna resize that again it's what I love about TV paint everything's so easy to do because I don't want her I just want her like prancing to do now it's gonna be in place so it's gonna look like she's hopping but if we had a background moving by you'd see her moving and that's pretty much what I wanted to to look like what character would you animate if you worked out snow white snow white what character would I animate if I worked on that's a really good question I've never had that question before I I would think I would have loved to have animated dopey I kind of yeah I like dopey and I like Doc I'm grumpy I mean yeah grumpy or dopey and I like those two and also sneezy sneezy yeah sneezy would have been fun yeah sneezy would have been a lot of fun okay so here I'm doing that's my first extreme I'm having her up and I'm going to come to the down the down pose which is I'm gonna have the ground right about here but I think that feels pretty good I think her cheeks are probably a little too whoops oh I gotta save this as kitty let's do Kitty prance Kitty prance all right let's bring her down bringing it down actually I'm gonna turn on it might be a little noisy grab it see if it's over there I got to turn my fan on getting a little warm in here gets warm in here with my with my computer equipment there it is thank you power power on bluetooth play let's see are you getting hot over there all right so let's bring it down here now this is where she's kind of up and there's she's kind of weightless and when she's get down gets down to the bottom obviously it's where that's where most of the weights gonna be so I'm gonna squash her a little bit bring her down but I want her still to feel light even though this is where the heaviest bits gonna be so I'm not gonna bring her head down too much do you do any well I don't I do not I haven't asked you I might yeah it all depends on schedule obviously have you ever wrestled a bear you know what I've I've wrestled the tiger they were little Tigers but I rest a little bit and they beat me I wrestled I wrestled three Tigers they were tiger cubs and they ripped me to shreds you know I've always loved Native American myths and legends and and all of that and I've just a nature itself and and I just really felt like this was a good story to tell and so that was that's that was it I am right yeah right now I'm just figuring out the two extreme poses that I'm gonna break it down my favorite project I've got a lot of them and for different reasons you know it's hard to say what any one project was that would be my favorite I love working on Beauty and the Beast I loved working on Brother Bear because it's the you know the first film I directed and it was very difficult I loved you know there was a small commercial project that I did back in 2013 called the bear in the hair for a company called John Lewis where I co-directed the animation and there we go and and animated and I loved working on that so you know it's it's hard to say Lion King was incredibly satisfying and fun how do you phase frames to create smooth animations and how do you polish line work in the final project well I have to you got to really put you know understand where it's gonna be where it's gonna go and as far as polishing your line work Mazur drawing structurally you know you can draw a loose but still draw with clarity that's important and here we go little pause he's got these little paws it's important that you draw if you draw loose you still draw with clarity and and if you do that then it's not hard to tie your drawings down at the end so there you can see there's a little squash in here and I break up the body into these quadrants of head neck shoulders and arms right here as you see here belly the bellies right here and then the hips and back legs and then tail the future could you do a whole course on drawing and animating folds and clothing that's a great idea yeah I like that idea so here I'm trying to get the volume of this tail consistent with what's up up top and make sure I'm hitting it in the right position for the animation I might have to come back in later and and change it a little bit but here actually I'm gonna bring the his eyeline down just a little bit but listen Leonard Leonar hi remember me sorry say it again don't I'm sorry I don't know now I'm embarrassed barren air so here I want everything to kind of drag down a little bit I'm dragging his chin down because the grab gravity is pulling everything down the cheeks the cheeks are dragging down and I'm gonna bring his eyes right here down down down just like so you have any source recommendations to work on emotion expression and in any study which I love you know what the sort of the best source is people around you that's where I that's where I gained all of my knowledge it's just looking at people around me you know it really comes to feel you got to feel the emotion when you're animating it when you're drawing it in order for it to come be conveyed and and be honest on the screen and I got to drop that ear down if you're not honest if you're if you're just kind of making something up if you're not feeling it then it's going to come across that way on the screen it really will and so you have to be honest with it in a lot of times it's got to come from you having experienced it it's got to come from you having seen people going through whatever that emotion is and and then and then you know drawing it getting in there feeling it you know I used to work with you know Glen Keane was my mentor and I used to watch Glenn draw and he would just you know you could see him feeling every emotion that he was he was animating and so that's my biggest recommendation is not so much exercises for emotion but just really disciplining yourself to feel it as you're drawing it can you do a video on correct body portions proportions like human proportions I mean there's all kinds of proportions so I'm assuming you're saying human proportions and yeah and there's I could do something like that I've also got it on my website creature art teacher calm if you head over there and I've got a whole course on human anatomy and proportions I cover proportions in there once again it's creature art teacher calm but I will do something like that so here I've got you know you can see the the dragon actually I'm going to pull that drag down even more let's get those cheeks really squishy they're dragging because they're it's the ears are dragging because he's he's hit the bottom of the pose this is the extreme bottom of the pose yes and then he's gonna push himself back up gravity gravity is pulling everything down I'm getting some distortion if you look at that look at the cheeks up here and look at the cheeks down here I'm getting squash and stretch the ears are being pulled down just like you saw you noticed the hair on top of his head is being pulled down the cheeks are being pulled down the whiskers like so who is your favorite colleague or art aesthetic to work with uh it's I sound like I almost sound like a broken record because I've been talking about him so much today but the Glen Keane was my favorite you know he was my great mentor but then again we had a lot of good people at the studio and you know there is Jim Jackson Jim Jackson one of the greatest artists to ever walk the earth Jim Jackson you got to look up Jim Jackson what's his name Dustin Jim Johnson no try again Johnny Cage Oh Jim Jackson sexy own uh now I've had lots of great colleagues lots of great friends there's Ronnie Williford who you should look up go over to his YouTube channel Ronnie's doing some great stuff he and I are great friends were actually neighbors now but we worked for years at Disney together and Ronnie is an amazing painter guitar player my friend Trey Finny look him up on Facebook incredible painter lots of great guys that are doing some incredible art but you got to look up Jim Jackson animator blue sky studios Jim Jackson have you ever surprised you some of the thing you were drawing uh no I'm not sure I understand the question maybe when I was younger when I was still learning to draw but you know I kind of I don't get a whole lot of surprises anymore just because I I know what to expect so that's an extreme down I'm not sure this is a great drawing I would probably come in and refine it a little bit but I'm liking the squishiness of it and notice you know everything's sitting on that ball keeping shapes simple shapes all very simple now it's time to do some breakdowns and in-betweens did you ever have to reanimate a scene while working for Disney oh my gosh there's a scene in Beauty and the Beast just one shot alone there's a scene in Beauty and the Beast i animated this whole sequence where Belle is trying to bandage his arm and she touches him that hurt yells not hurt and then and and just get into this big argument back and forth but when before she actually dabs him there's a scene where he's dodging what she's doing I did that shot 13 times before I got it to where I liked it because everything it felt like he was it felt like he knew where she was going and didn't feel right and I couldn't figure out the timing of it and I did it 13 times I remember there's another shot I always laugh about back on Lion King the directors rob minkoff and Roger Allers and I had this shot of Simba and Nala and they were talking to Zazu but it was supposed to be Ozzy's point of view and so they're talking and we're looking you know the camera is Zazou so we're look they're looking straight at us and I and it's I don't know it's a 5-10 second shot it's a fair amount of animation and I had it all kind of tied down and looking good and I remember Rob Minkoff saying ah Aaron the animations perfect acting is good we like it all can you just do it from about six inches lower what yeah that was pretty funny all right so I want to have a little he's dropping back down and so I don't want everything just to be even so what I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have him lead with this front first of all I'm gonna have the head hang a little bit right up here I'm gonna lead right here Oh what tablet would you recommend for a beginner digital you know what if you're if it's something that you are very if you're serious about it about your digital art and it's something you think you're gonna pursue then I say go right to the top you know that's your your tools are the most important excuse me are the most important part of your your repertoire if you have bad tools you're gonna create you know you can create bad art and I'm always an advocate for using the best tools you can find well that's the thing I mean if I don't know what's affordable when you consider affordable stretch these down just a little bit more but a Cintiq cent eeks are they yes they can be somewhat expensive but I I say you know stretch yourself as far as you can to get that piece of equipment because I use my Cintiq every single day every day without exaggeration I've got another question for me do you feel like it is a lot harder to get into animation industry now that when your dad became an animator I personally don't think there's really much of a change it's just the technology itself is has changed because all the studios are still around I mean I personally was never in the animation industry myself even though I did technically have was in a visual effective area boy I really think there's I don't think it's any different than it was before yeah I mean I actually do think it's a bit more saturated because you know back when I got into animation you know animation didn't have we you know buting the beast didn't exist Aladdin didn't exist the blanking didn't exist you know there wasn't a big drive for animation so I got into it you know with a little bit less competition now the competition is really hot and heavy but you know the the artistic requirements I think are still just as valid and strong and I think it all depends on what you really want to pursue because like if you because there's plenty of new ways to expand like you can go to the top with with the big movie companies like blue sky or or Disney or any of those other companies or you can go into more independent stuff where 2d animation is still a thing or you can even just become part of a really small of studio that does YouTube stuff like there's actually a lot more variety to work with because back then it was strictly 2d animation but now there's two D there's CGI there's visual factors all these sources of animation now so I say the competition is still there but there it's a lot more spread out so here I decided to have that head hang a little longer and you'll see all these all this will make sense I'm I'm anticipating that the momentum of him come having jumped up in the air is pulling his cheeks are gonna drag up here a little bit more I'm always sorry I'm always thinking about the fleshiness the form so I want these cheeks to really drag go ahead Dustin sorry no worries how do you avoid your drawings looking traced when oh yeah I've Airy the weight of my line that's a big one very that weight and and try to treat it as if it's the first drawing that you've done as far as you know in the shot what degrees do you have I don't I never got my degree I am Ringling I went to the Ringling College of Art and Design it was a three year school back then and I actually never got my degree I I got my three year certificate and just bring this down just a little bit I got my three year certificate and and then I started at Disney and so I just never went back and got my degree and I never even went to college no you went to the College of hard knocks alright nice yeah so you can see he's got momentum so everything is getting squished up including those eyebrows like so there we go and he's reaching down this might be a little broad but we'll see between Anatomy and drawing flow which do you think is the most important and what do you think about first before starting the drawing between say it one more time sorry between Anatomy and drawing flow which do you think is the most important and which do you think about first before starting the draw flow for sure flow for sure always looking for the gesture and then I get the anatomy right so here the tail is continuing up there we go they wrote see people you don't need to grieve you really don't you know technically especially in our industry if you can if you can draw and do the job if you've got the experience now that being said getting the degree is you know some people need to go through that to mature to understand you know what it is that they're doing you know to get the art education that they need but yes I agree you don't necessarily have to have a degree yes so I'm gonna add another drawing coming down I know so here I'm looking at the shape of that head notice I'm always going I'm starting I'm always starting with that ball that becomes my anchor and then I go to that eye line where is the eye line I'm gonna let those cheeks drag some more I want them really squishy Squishy's my favorite word squishy say it with me Dustin squishy all right okay that's not good creepy let's not get creepy where any of you two interested in animating for the videogames world Judy traditional animation is coming back in a big way game developer by the way uh no I've never I've never it's not anything I've ever thought about because it's always been digital stuff to be honestly I'm not a gamer dustin is a major gamer yes and so it's not something I've ever really aspired to do for me I was interested in getting into the game industry in fact I wanted to I was planning to try to find a college like I was considering wrangling and going to a major in a video game Art and Design but then I ended up going a completely opposite direction and got accepted into the boot camp training course for digital domains visual effects crew in which later on turning to 3d groans so I ended up having a career in a 3d industry instead but before that I was really interested in industry so here I'm thinking about these shoulders as it comes into the ground I'm thinking about that coming around as a unit you can see it starting to come down the drag on the cheeks notice how I don't mean I make sure everything happens at different timings that's how you get something to look like it has a little bit more lifelike here I'm gonna let this drag a little bit more before I bring his butt down maybe that might not be right but let's just let's just see how it comes out one of these days can you drop Dante from cocoa Dante from cocoa yeah the silly dog actually let's do this I'm gonna start bringing do either of you have suggestions for practicing backgrounds in perspective background some perspective you know perspective is kind of a very academic to understand perspective you got to hit it a lot of times from an academic standpoint of view you know I wouldn't recommend you know reading up on your perspective exercises as much as possible wait up here real quick and you know think about your backgrounds is you know they're all that everything has to work together but that might be a little too much I don't know because I wanted to have a little prancy thing but I like having I don't know I'm just gonna go with it because I'm changing the attitude a little bit but we'll see how it goes what's that yeah well there's a certain there was a certain attitude that I wanted to have but I'm while I'm it's change the attitude is changing as I'm trying to break up timing to to make a point what else we got what else we got people boot camp I have heard you talk about so much well there was a program at Digital Domain Media Group when dad was working there there was a program they were putting together where basically anybody that had computer skills at some some form of artistic background they'll bring in and they would train train them to use the visual effects software nuke and it was like a - was it - yeah it was like a two or three-month program and and we were complete novices individual effects it's at least a good amount of us work and they would bring us in and they would it was pretty much a paid job but we were learning as we were going going on and our and once we quote unquote graduated from from the boot camp classes we would be sent onto the floor and about two three weeks in like right after Thanksgiving we had news that they got the company bought a 3d business and the crew of that was coming into the building from California and not that many of the original crew came so they needed to bring back up their numbers so they converted our visual effects crew class into a 3d conversion class and so that's when so that's what the boot camp originally was here we go once again dragging I'm thinking about everything kind of dragging there we go do you have any advice for getting more smooth animations you know think you're thinking about fluidity is one of the most important parts of your animation you know fluidity is incredibly important I'm also if you look at here I'm thinking about how different parts of the body are going to react according to the physics of this fall as a cat as the cat comes down so if I come back here and scroll you can see everything kind of happens at a slightly different timing as I fill in this will all be on ones by the way nice squishy cheeks now I'm gonna do I'm gonna copy this that's first drawing and plant it here and then I'm gonna open this up and add a drawing there so that we can then start to get a little bit more of the cycle so here once again stretching them out you ever get pain in your wrist from drawing on the Cintiq I don't have to stretch because if I dodge about pain what do you do to prevent it from happening I draw from the shoulder I don't I never get any pain ever and but I draw from my shoulder quite a bit so here I'm trying to get a nice straight from this bend to a straight see there how can you answer in the chat wall animating it's called my superpower so here I'm pushing trying to get that straight even though sorry got an itchy foot even though I'm thinking I'm still thinking about the shoulders shoulders come around in here I'm getting a nice straight through here you can feel that can you feel it is TV paint worth this price or do you think it should be cheaper to reach more people it's absolutely worth its price they put a lot into that program and I think it's you know you first of all when you when you get TV paint you own it and it's very robust so yes I think it's worth the price I'm gonna let this squash just a little bit more just like that with that fur kind of squash underneath I'm actually gonna bring that I line up now maybe not so much maybe in here there we go I'm gonna let those cheeks drag why don't you hand me through Photoshop Photoshop is really complex fo the shops not made for animation so TV paint is made for animation and I don't even have to think about it and therefore I love it and that's why I don't use Photoshop there's so much more I can do with TV paint camera moves and and here we go let me get this down here that tails gonna flatten right out on the ground come to think of it what happens when you animate when he animated in a half and a half way to finish the project and then suddenly they rewrite the scripts and they made you animate seems to be easy what happened just that they got deleted it happens that's just that's the way the cookie crumbles I've got I've got a lot of deleted scenes in movies so here you can start to see the bounce now now the key is going to be in the timing getting it to hang in the air I want it to be bait be me you know that kind of timing really drag these cheeks TV paint and Photoshop use different I don't know if you can track I don't think you can pull Photoshop brushes in yet I know they're working on it they might be able to I'm not sure my brother Travis blaze would be a good one to ask or actually TV paint would be a good one to ask TV paint one of the things I love about TV paint is how good they are with their customers they're really great and actually on my website you know we have a deal not that I know it sounds like I'm I've got this deal thoughts where I'm promoting them but I really truly love the software but I've also got this if you sign up for our membership on our website you get a 30 a little over 30% discount on TV paint and the the discount actually pays for the membership it's pretty cool so that's my my shameless marketing but your recommendation for comic book developers you know I don't know enough about it I'm the wrong guy to ask I've never done a comic book so that's just outside my my area of expertise so I'm sorry but yeah I just don't know I don't know that industry but obviously you know story is I think in all of these disciplines story is always number one so if you got a great story then that's half the battle right there yeah if you like it's best to try to think of it as like a TV show because like each episode needs to have like the whole season needs its own story then you need to divide that story and do like small sections or work in each of those sections ends up being where'd that come from huh where'd that come from but that's just what you're saying that's pretty cool figure because that just Europe that's what you were thinking yes so so you need so you need that kind of mentality going towards a comic book especially if you're trying to make a comic book series so like you just figure out what the overall story you want it to be and how you want the story to continue what kind of and make the characters believable and I'm actually making the drawings make sure they have a lot of them oh good emotion to it like almost like like a good Act so here now you can start to see the action and you can see by having everything happen at different timings it gives it a little bit more it just feels a little more real and we're getting some nice weight you can see how he come leads with the front comes up now what we need is a good in between in here breeze pushing off with those back legs squishy squishy cheeks that's the key oops there we go oh I gotta do that there we go alright so I'm gonna start in-betweening back into my big pose up in here oh I just I loved it everything about it was really great and excuse me I think your biggest food was great yeah I made him last night you know I it's funny I didn't know what to expect when I went to China specifically just because we were fed so much information through the media I expected it to be a lot more oppressive and it wasn't that at all and I was really I was really happy about that it was really great I really had a great time have you been to the secret sir I have not I called them actually a while back because I'm I'm getting ready to create a wolf course or I'm creating a wolf course and they I wanted to go in and photograph but they wouldn't allow me to photograph because it was the wrong time of year the coat the the wolves the coats are a little rough because they're shedding a lot of their coat and so they wouldn't let me come in and photograph so so I have it's gonna be a while before I get to go go there just because of that there we go actually I want to push this up a little more so I'm going to stretch the legs for comes stretch down I know it looks weird thinking about that Anatomy you've been on a cartoony cat I'm trying to you know squash and stretch so there's the squash you know really squashed and here it is coming up and it's getting skinny because of the stretch there's that tail dragging what is the feature or skill you think new animation students are lacking these days that perhaps they should well I don't know that it's these days I think this is something that all animation students need to put effort into and that is well there's two things one one is just the acting you know the acting is something that you just it comes to you over time and you know many arts animation students get caught up in the action trying to move something rather than trying to get something to to emote and that's just that's just you know that's just early that that's its rookie it's a rookie thing and then that's just something you want you have to go through I went through it so I know I know the the feeling oh I'm sorry I'm so so sorry Dustin and so there's that and then there's also patience just know that you're not going to be a great animator right off the bat and it takes time and it takes nurturing and it takes persistence and it takes hard work I get a lot of questions about hey what's it take to you know what can what can I do to become a director and what can I do to become a supervisor and all that kind of stuff well it just it takes time and hard work that's the best thing I can tell you from the bottom now we're here yeah go ahead does Dobie enemy a I don't know I've never used it so I'm sorry I've never used Adobe animate so here I'm still dragging the cheeks right up this YouTube of videos being saved afterward yes so yes it will come up or ma'am so here so here if I scroll back and forth how can you force yourself to go off model to stretch and manipulate things my stuff looks very stiff and lifeless nothing is really exaggerated even just drawing well that's the thing you got to force yourself to do it look how much I'm forcing look at that face you got to really force yourself to hit that even if it goes off model I would rather see something go off model and have nice dynamics than to stay on model and be stiff okay always remember that it's always better to go off model and be dynamic than to stay on model and be stiff stiffness will kill your animation yes I don't know I imagine it as a female actually a girl I think so because of the pink fur yeah funny see I'm starting to work my way up into that pose so the 12 principles of animation be always used in animation and do you use them in every image yes I do no nobody's oh my gosh you're putting me on the spot squash and stretch its appeal its follow-through overlap there's a whole bunch of them there's 12 they are actually I go over every principle of animation in my animation course on creature art teacher comm my entire animation course is there anything they don't like to draw no I don't like to draw mechanical stuff I really struggle with it we talked about that today on Bobby choose live stream I really struggle with drawing hard certain like cars and stuff like that I'm just terrible at it I actually remember my favorite movie I was part of the Deaf group or was yeah yeah hey we need a drawing in-between here go ahead Dustin sorry no no worries but shading out but all those cars in 3d was just was just so much fun I bet and I think my favorite card my death towel in there was was the Koenigsegg Agera oh yeah because just the curves on the car is just beautiful and it's so don't round it out and yet there was just enough complexity to it to make it interesting uh-huh that's cool I'll start checking the darkness is a solid setting so here what I'm doing is I got to get this tail to drag do you usually work with the onion skinning off I do just to see where I'm coming from and that's and they'll follow my proportions what's the that's when you can see through we're going to do that with the with the animation yep you could see through it well I never use my light but just the paper itself was translucent enough I could see through it but most of us as animators we didn't we didn't use our like well is that paper made out of because I remember the animation paper feeling normal paper yeah it's a little thicker it's a little heavier it flips easier because of the weight yeah I mean if fat crinkles although you know we'd work it so hard we would crinkle it yeah well that's the thing it becomes like tissue paper here the belly is the fur on the belly is fluffing out blitz-2 animals do you think are the most fun job fairs or big cats like lions and tigers yes yes I don't know I you guys you know you're picking the wrong you're asking the wrong question for me because you know you know those are two of my favorite animals to draw but uh oh I love them both I love lions I got to admit I just if I sit down to start doodling I'm always doodling lions oh no I knew he was Iron Giant during the movie it was uh he was I know but you're telling me he was a voice and something that I didn't realize oh there's a galaxy yes he was I didn't know he's group that's right I am Groot pick your favorite child Sophie's Choice obviously is me of course where's your sister so here we're having a little bit of fun animating for you guys thinking about weight always thinking about weight thinking about drag that adds the fluidity I was talking about and I want to keep make sure my shapes are simple so here you can see why Boing Boing it's getting there and we're gonna need another drawing in between here and here does the flippy help with keeping the volumes the same yes because I can see the volumes when I flip so here you can see it bounce up and down and because I'm breaking up the timing on everything it just gives it a bit more of an organic feel so I'm gonna come back and finish this drawing why aren't you in a 2d animations so expensive does most of the money go to white going wages yes most of the money goes to wages it's a very labor-intensive endeavor and most of the money spent is on man-hours wages very good good observation you know back when you guys were doing paper like how much like how much do you think the cost was for all the supplies of paper for the overhead for supplies then I don't know I never got I was never I never got that specific but I know like certain departments you know like the cleanup department the people that go in behind the animators and clean up all the drawings do the nice pretty drawings that was our most expensive department most of the money was spent there do you use reference photos often if so at what moment do you look at them the most preparation while sketching or fixing details of drawing for example I it's usually in the beginning yes I do use fret reference photos and it's there usually as a starting point let me show you an example of a recent piece that I did I don't know if I still have the oh I don't know if I have the reference photo um yeah I do I do so if we go to lion and crocodile I got to go to the screenshot here's let me open this up not that one I'm looking for file open sorry guys I'm looking for this shot and I'm gonna open this one so these two this is a documentary that I was watching and I really loved this moment this is from Disney's African Cats and I love this moment right here between this line and this crocodile so I freeze framed it it took a frame grab and I used that as inspiration for this final painting so you can see you know even though I'm using reference I'm pushing things I'm you know I wanted to push the attitude if you look at the expression on the lion I wanted to push it almost like he's screaming it back at him I pushed I pushed how close they were I pushed the size of the crocodile I changed the lighting they changed the grasses there's all kind I dropped the horizon down lots of different things that I did but I was inspired by that initial photo and I used that as my initial inspiration and then that I move forward that's how I usually use any kind of reference that I might use so there you go guys is bringing 2d animation I have no idea that I have not heard if that's true then that would be really awesome now I know blue sky uses 2d animation to test a lot of their characters after they've been designed a lot of the guys will animate them animate the characters before they take all the time to model them my good friend Jim Jackson Jim Jackson is one of the is one of those guys at blue sky that uh that does that he he's one those guys that'll take a character and animate it and his animation is brilliant he's actually one of the greatest artists to ever walk the earth just uh if you ever see him tell him that Jim Jackson James Young Jackson you know I never saw it and I got to see it all done an oil paint oh yeah it was up for an Academy Award really yeah okay so here you can see everything dragging bodies coming down squishy cheeks like those cheeks go up and down Moin Moin Moin now where do we need this is what we needed one between here and here so I'm going to open that up put a drawing in there I notice the enemy pretty neat and you kind of put details for each drawing as you are animating is there any reason why you don't animate roughly like put details later if it depends on the action like this action is fairly contained and I know I know where I want it to go and I'm and I'm fairly confident with the character so I'm not I so I tend to so I just tend to animate a little more cleanly there we go and the shapes are fairly simple it really depends on the action and turns on the character you know yeah it's just it's just how I think and remember I've been animating for 30 years so that part of it helps I'll pull that shoulder down a little bit having like line work gives more detail and depth of character right adding more what say that again line work gives more detail and depth to the character not necessarily adding more deep adding more line work line work yeah it doesn't not always adding more line work sometimes just adds more line work just makes it more busy so I depends on the emotion yeah so here I've got the ears popping up into place she's popping into place so I go ahead Justin we would take about three two or three breaks a day and in an eight-hour day you know if we're working 12 hours or 16 hours because we were known to do that we'd obviously take more breaks Disney was really good about you know when we had our really big our really big Crunch's where we were working you know 14 12 14 hour days they would they'd actually provide us with a masseuse in the last company I was in they gave us a masseuse once yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and our our breaks averaged every two hours yeah every two are like a 15-minute break a 15-minute break and then it was like two hours 15 minute break two hours that lunch and then after I was known 15-minute break but if we worked past hour eight or nine hour days during our overtime seasons that would have a dinner time I think our dinner was at around 7 or 8 o'clock gotcha and then would have got it it's also I'm really stretching this back leg they exhibit wrecker off to you yeah I am I love the commercial for me I know that is going has gone everywhere is not that one little snippet has gone viral Oh how's it yeah the the girls scream screaming yeah yeah so once I get this drawing done it will be able to go in and I want to try messing around with some of the timing of our little prancy kitty ear tufts I just I just felt like it if you look at my I put them in on the on the original design right here you can see the Tufts on there so I just I thought it would might be in May can make for a nice little piece to overlap in the animation at some point baby I would love to yeah yeah that's definitely on our list I just I would love to go all right so if I you know if I play this just straight ahead on ones you can see it's too fast so we got to find ways that we can get this to we got to find places to extend the drawing and I'll show you extend some of the timing I know that I want him hanging up in the air so I'm gonna put that on twos I might put that I'm gonna buy one put this on four and then maybe this one on two maybe this one right here on to leave the other ones and see what happens see I like that timing like he's just prancing along now like I said it's not quite the the thing that's very kind of stiff prints that I was looking for because I was trying to accentuate the overlap in the body but I think there's something there that can be kind of fun so let's go in now and add the in-betweens so here I'm going to add it in between here have you ever been to Norway I've been to Denmark does Denmark count of Scandinavia I don't think it does no I've never been to Norway the closest I've ever got was Denmark and I loved I would love to by the way for the European tour any chances on visiting Slovakia I don't know I'm not to be honest with you you know what - yeah you're probably right I just not something I would have thought of but if there's if there's a demand for us I would love to go to Slovakia because I know there's some beautiful places there and you know if we get if we get enough reason to go there's no reason why we wouldn't go can you explain about saying off model base what you've mentioned earlier animating this game off model means it not looking like the original model the original drawing oh no I know I know what you're talking about when it goes off model I'm when I'm distorting when I'm distorting the character you know squashing it and stretching it sometimes you can distort it so much that it goes off model it doesn't look like that character anymore and so that's what that means but I'm a firm believer that you can get away with a lot more squashing and stretching and distorting your character then people realize and it will still feel like it's on model question for me but did you ever like how often do you distorting the characters on Roger Rabbit on Roger Rabbit I did it a lot I really distorted Roger Rabbit but I was the one he did the most yeah but I mean I would distort our characters a lot you know as far as you know moving him quickly I'd stretch the heck out of them nice nice one got a little bit right here on my face I covered Dustin has the best sneezes I love Dustin sneezes no I do whoo I think you've got the best ones I have to make some adjustments on the tail but we'll see this is where I really want the kitten the cat to be kind of floating yes and between errs are not necessarily animators although some of them can but in between errs are mainly there to fill in you know they fill in the drawings that that need to be filled in to smooth out the action now obviously it helps to understand animation as an in-betweener but um I've had in in-between his work with me before that that didn't know how the enemy but there are really great in-between errs do you think Walt Disney would be proud of the direction his company has taken all Disney was a businessman Walt Disney has been elevated to this godlike status but at the end of the day he was still a businessman and did some pretty shrewd business practices I think he would agree now whether or not you agree with what Disney is doing I don't know that he would be completely out of it but I can't I can't say i mean i never knew Walt I don't know but I know he's he's uh let me play that there now you can see he now you can see a little squishiness in that face and see what I mean when you get them up in the air I can get her to hang a little bit longer you see a dustin yeah i'll actually like having that that but kind of going out of different timing you look how fast that tail gets whipped but you can see by having those ears drag and the cheeks drag it becomes much more pliable and squishy and kind of fun you know she is just kind of prancing I got to get those whiskers in there but I know I'm gonna add I'm gonna finish these drawings I want to add some more drawings here I'm gonna put one I'm gonna bring this back and I'm gonna add let me copy this put it here I'm gonna add another drawing here going into that drawing into that pose how we doing Dustin well drawing on ones and twos if you can you can see here here I've got drawings that are held on for two frames just because I want that a little bit more impact right here and right in here and what you'll notice that when I play it you don't really see the twos because we can get away with doing twos and the I doesn't really pick it up putting everything on ones will give it a bit more smoother give it smoother action and that's what I'm gonna end up doing on this but if I want something that - if the action is a little bit slower like where the cat is at it's at the top of its jump I can get away with putting twos in there and the eye doesn't pick it up and that's a way to do a little bit less drawing and save a little bit of money in time by putting things on twos when you can get away with it come on man I was born in 1968 Walt died in what 1966 yeah but I know Roy Disney yeah Roy yeah actually Roy Disney and I knew each other well pretty well he used to come out to the studio and he would hang out with Bob and Chuck and myself in our story room he would kind of escape from everybody when we're making brother bear and we would trade stories about you know his you know he did a lot of the Disney nature films and I grew on those plus I loved I did a lot of camping and crazy places and and so we would just trade stories about all of that and first time I ever saw Cirque de Soleil it was with Roy Disney yep he was really cool he was a great guy we had fun we I mean we weren't like buddies but you hung out with us quite a bit yeah that knew Bob and Roy Walt's nephew yeah he's Roy jr. is for me that's not really appreciate you repeating our questions thank you so much do you feel bored sitting there for that long to just read our messages actually no I actually rather rather appreciate being being helpful I love it I really enjoy having him here and hopefully you're learning stuff and you're getting to hear stories from you know that maybe you hadn't heard before oh absolutely there we go if plus I figured this would be a major major help her for a doubt because he's so focused on the drawing and that he won't be able to focus on the questions which whatever I do my live streams I try to multitask with both interacting with the audience and dude that's probably for Honor's would be very helpful it's super helpful you kidding me so here you can see the front end is this of the cats is kind of floating while the back end catches up and then here I'm gonna have the tail come way up here but also stretch way down here to cover the distance between the two earlier they were mighty you did animate the lightning and a lot of Genesis games oh yeah I always forget about ten forgot about that I animated on the lion king and alladin Genesis games way back in the in the 90s and from the question further back about Snow White which characters you would hit enemy they says you look like Doc or grumpy but definitely act like Dobby yes yes Thank You Nick I love it okay so here I'm putting everything out I'm putting the rest of the drawings on one so you can see there's not a huge difference in the drawings but I want all to be nice and super smooth and on ones so that's what I'm gonna do and in the future in future livestream can you do a demo in Corel Painter sure yeah I will definitely do that so here I'm really just going through the motions because you guys have seen the animation you saw that it's it's basically there it's all there but now I'm just smoothing out the action I'm minutes away from finishing and it look it only took us an hour and a half only an hour and a half to do a nice little cycle of this bouncy kitty was there her character that you really wanted to marahute a yep marahute a do you remember who marahute a is the eagle from the rescuers down under oh yeah I haven't seen yeah I really wanted to animate the eagle that was just I don't think Glen knew how much I loved Eagle or Birds and how much knowledge I had for that I should say knowledge but how much Drive I had for something like that Glen and I worked on Beauty and the Beast together but um he was doing marahute a and oh my god I was just I was drooling because I wanted to anime Eagles so bad and so I wish I could have done that so once again here what I'm doing is it's all about attitude right you know we're trying to remember the mechanics you know to get the physics right on this jump up and down but rather than getting caught up in all of that its attitude I really wanted her to have this little prancy attitude this kit this cat this kitten cat kitten cat kitten hey my grandson's here eight of this year how are you Aaden you want to come over and say hi to everybody in the world come on over here come around be careful over here look at the camera right up here look at the camera over here come up see everybody is in there the whole world is right in that camera right there what do you think of that can you say hi everybody hi buddy yeah this is my grandson Aaden he came over to visit today and so what I'm doing right here Aaden as I'm making this cat and he's jumping up and down see that Kitty up there I'm making him I'm animating them right here or her not together get the tail right here you have to go okay well hold on I got to show you this you're not leaving until I show you this you can't go right you ready to see enemy boy what do you think he's so excited he's so excited all right well I love you no I can't have the pink I got to do that later and I got to go back to drawing the world awaits okay I'll see you later all right careful don't hit the camera all right we're getting close we're getting close all right let's see here where are my hairy here no I stopped it right on the frame that I want to add it in between on there we go all right so that was my grandson Aiden all right he just got home from school I love I love having my family living so close it's really cool Dustin just lives down the street my daughter and my grandkids live ten houses away right around the corner it's a pretty cool way to live with family so close family is important to me you're awfully quiet over there dust but it's mainly could you do a video where you give advice on animation from your viewers I could use some advice on my animations say it one more time could you do a video where you give advice on animations Oh from other viewers from other viewers yeah yeah that's something we're trying to figure out how to do but um once we get it worked out we will definitely be doing it and we're getting close we are I would say in the next hour we'll have that right don't say that all right what there we go I never have I'd love to try it see this see here's an example of the drawing got kind of getting away from me but it looks a little set on that drawing just looks a little funky but I'm just gonna leave it because it's on ones and it doesn't it stays within the arcs so I'm not gonna worry about it I think I know P dr. I think he's awesome and yes I saw Coco I loved Coco but um Pete docter didn't direct Coco did he no I don't think he'll think he did if he did awesome but I didn't think he directed Coco but maybe I'm wrong no no no Pete doctors one of the founders of Pixar he directed up and Monsters Inc yeah Pizza and he's a really cool dude a very nice man how do you get the most work done in a short animation session you know I just you got to really know where you want it to go and and don't noodle it meaning don't don't do that with it just get in there and draw it and make some brushes with your ponytail no he made one super large brush yeah there we go all right one more drawing watch here one more drawing actually I might leave that on twos that's not the one that's what where to go there it is there we go last work was inside out right oh yeah inside that's where it is Toy Story 4 that's right I forgot you did inside out no I forgot that but ok so whoops that's not what I wanted stop I got to get those whiskers did you ever work on some combination stop-motion and drawn animation that was the bear and the hair yes but I really didn't do any of the stop-motion but you were part of the animation I was I'd co-directed the animation isn't it is it okay to mix animating one in both ones and twos combined oh yeah do it all the time yep it's okay to mix the two and notice how quickly I'm doing these whiskers don't worry about being so tight when animating do use the fill-in tool or just color it in that naturally if my drawings are clean enough then I'll use the fill-in tool otherwise I have to color them by hand have you personally ever done a stop motion never done stop motion I would love to alright let's see how our whiskers look I handle dinosaurs and I use dinosaurs so I can get the angles right is that why you guys at Disney had clay figures of the characters yeah we had just for reference for different angles and difficult angles and things like that so that's why we know they're called maquettes but anyway I wanted to just review this again real quick I want you guys to see now that we got all the drawings in there you know I started with that that those two poses the top pose at the bottom pose you know knowing that I was going to break up the timing as I as I added more drawings and so here you can see there's different timings that the back hips have different timing than than the front shoulders but it was and you know the creating the squishiness and the cheeks and the dragon the ears and all of that those are all key to creating up healing smooshy tactile whole fluid animation and and it's just something that you just need to keep working at and practicing remember we were talking about you know it's more important to push a character off model and have something be dynamic than to keep it on model and have it be stiff you don't want it to be stiff so I want something that feels squishy and fun and something you want to pick up and and pet you know and and the other things too you know the overlap of the tail you know I'd like that a little swim though the whipping motion on there the the fur the belly fur how it overlaps so you're always thinking about the physics the momentum where is the momentum coming from and how does the fur or the fat or the whatever it might be how does that react look at the you know the whiskers the whiskers reacting to the motion of the head so anyway I've got to hit it I've got to get going but I just wanted to I thought this was a lot of fun you know to create this little prancy cat in less than two hours so I just wanted you to see that you can do something like this as long as you kind of practice and you know put your mind thinking about you know the attitude and don't get hung up on the actions because that that'll just come inside in theory but thanks a lot you guys I'm gonna take the next two weeks off I'm trying to get this wolf coyote and Fox course finished and I'm having a look a very difficult time doing the live streams and staying focused on the course so I'm gonna take a little break from the from the live streams for the next two weeks while I work on this course and get that out to you guys and when I do get it done I'll be sharing one of the videos on YouTube just to give you a little sense of what it is that we're doing but thanks a lot you guys for watching I hope you enjoyed this remember you can go over to my website creature art teacher calm and I've got all kinds of courses there and lessons and all kinds of cool stuff and Thank You Dustin for all of the great questions and helping me out today Dustin's been an absolute genius by the way for the last few days helping me out technically and working in the room yes yeah I know it's been great and so anyway I just want to say thanks you guys for for hanging out with me for the last two hours it really made my day and I'll see you guys in a couple of weeks go out and try some animation try some of the techniques I showed you today and and put some beauty back into the world that's my catchphrase put some beauty back into the world where artists and and you know that's what we we should do and go out and be nice to somebody and put some kindness back into the world too because you know we need it so anyway I'll talk to you guys in a couple of weeks and thank you so much for watching and I will talk to you later Dustin take it away Cowboy Bebop

Channel: The Art of Aaron Blaise

Views: 62,599

Rating: 4.9674921 out of 5

Keywords: Animation, Photoshop, TVpaint

Id: JMgoTDDCbSc

Length: 106min 57sec (6417 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 19 2018