Traditional Animation - Head Turn

[Music] you hey everybody Aaron Blais here and sorry we're a little bit late we were trying to experiment with an extra camera and it didn't work out but we're gonna get that resolved and we'll have it next week but we were talking last week I was doing some work at my animation desk and Here I am back at my animation desk again and we were talking last week about me doing some animations some traditional animation retro old-school drawing on paper and so I thought that would be kind of fun today I've been working on a brand new course for my website creature art teacher calm on acting for animation and so I've been working on this shot and created this character he's this big burly kind of guy and I thought it might be even kind of fun just to do a simple like head turn or something like that something that um you know if you guys are you beginners and things like that that are watching it might be kind of fun to follow along if you want to try it on paper so I thought we would do that today and you'll play with the expression and you know I can talk about what I think about there as usual I've got dusted with me my son say hi Dustin hey guys and I don't think we're gonna have Nick this time around but we will try to answer as many questions as we can and and we'll just have some fun today you wanted to go ahead and dive in Dustin do we have a deal you have a good crew watching oh yeah we do hmm you got to stay hydrated water is your best for water you know all that drawing or it takes it out of you all right so let me become addicted to water here to put my spectacles on all right let's go ahead and switch cameras Dustin already oh he doesn't all right so this is my animation disc this is where we're gonna do the magic and I'm drawing on 16 filled animation paper and I've got this graphite pencil holder it's just a big chunk of graphite that I have in here I think it's about a to be or not to be but anyway it's a nice I think you like that I think it's to be and I like I like drawing with big thick pencils Glen Keane who was my mentor who many of you might know many of you may not know Glen Keane is a great contemporary animator he just got the Oscar for deer basketball for best animated short and when he was teaching me animation he he got me started using these big thick pencils and I've always I've always loved you because you could go really fat on one edge and you can get really detailed at the same time but I've got this character he's this big burly guy I think I want to do like a close-up head and shoulders kind of shot and I want to start from behind I started doing some thumbnails earlier let me show you [Applause] there's some quick sketches that I did earlier I don't know if you can see these are not very well but I want to kind of have him here he is with his head turned away from us now I have to slowly turn his head around you know 1 2 3 4 slowly turned his head around and I thought that might be kind of an interesting thing to do and we might not go this far we might stop before we get that far because I don't quite turn the whole body I just want let me I can you switch cameras Dustin back to me I want to I want to turn so his shoulders are here and he just turns and looks like this and maybe looks maybe the little toward camera so the shoulders are not going to move a little not too much I want that twist in the body so that's what we're going to go for today so I'm going to go ahead and start drawing and then Dustin if you want to man the questions we'll just go ahead and dive in where do you get the animation paper this paper I got from a friend of mine actually who gets it from a company that I can't remember the name of right now so that's a completely wasted question sorry but there's a lot of different places online where you can get animation paper and turn this way I want him to have big trapezius muscles here how old is that desk this desk is oh my gosh well 1989 so almost 30 years I'm gonna put a little tilt in the head and this desperate in particular I've had I've been using this desk for 25 years I animated The Lion King on this best beating the Beast Aladdin a whole bunch did anyone ever use the desk before you yes there was there is a few people that used it before me but then once I got a hold of it at one point that we just started keeping our desks and so if we moved offices we would move our desk as well although you know in the beginning we um we if we moved offices or areas we would just leave the desk and pick up the desk that was in the new place but after a while we started customizing our desks and like I've got some carvings on my desk and things like that and so they just decided you know what let's just let them keep their desk from office to office and so when I left Disney I bought this desk and I have kept it with me so here we are starting pose we get this hair in here looking at them from behind I want that big burly look - can you make your own light box you could make your own light box sure I never have but you could make your own white box do you have any experience with pixel art and pixel animation pixel yeah well I mean I do hand-drawn animation if that's what you mean on digitally using the software I uses TV paint well it means my pixel heart is that is making it look like 8-bit where you know short squares oh no no I don't do that how do you make your own light hogs oh that's that's a whole other that's a whole other video sorry but that's a that's a big video so here do it yourself I want him to start turning his head does a desk come with the light table and disk it does right here so you can see there's my light table underneath I don't use the light table I like to see I like to flip I can see through the paper a little bit already so I kind of want him to kind of lift his head how do you decide how many sketches are necessary you know that just comes with experience it depends on how fast you want an action to to happen in and then once you know the speed that you want that it just comes with experience as far as knowing how long it's gonna take how did you get the inspiration to draw this guy I was just sitting around I wanted like I said I'm doing this course on acting for animation and say I'm starting to turn his shoulder and I'm doing this course on acting for animation and so I just I wanted to do a shot of anger I wanted to show what it's like to enemy anger and so so many people will get in there and just start thrashing stuff and throwing it around and you know anger for me when to make it really intimidating especially with a big character like this it's it's the slow burn it's watching the fuse burn and waiting for the explosion not knowing when the explosion is going to happen and so I wanted to create a character that would be intimidating from that and so I created this guy and so I'm animating this shot now where he's just he's just sitting there and it's a full body shot and he's it's a slow burn and he's just don't mean to make the underwire cord behind you but uh your your head was kind of in the way the of the drawing okay gotcha this as long as it's not too foreshortened thank this so I try to go fairly quickly to you'll see I'm going pretty rough so I'm probably going to turn his head quite a bit on this next one just because I want and then I'll do in between but they're any scenes that you animated wallet Disney that you think you could do better now I think there's a lot of scenes I can really probably do better now but you know it's at the time I did the best I could there's there's shots of meeting the beast that you know I was a young animator at the time and I know that I wish I wish I meant to say is I wish I could go back and you know maybe reduce some of those but you can't you do the best you can when you're doing it all right how much time did it take for you to stop drawing skeletons or the base body or you still use them oh I don't I don't draw skeletons no I just I think I'm I think of my basic shapes of what I think of a skeleton underneath you know for this guy you'll see here are you animating in keys first or is it straight ahead this is pretty much straight ahead I mean there's gonna be something between us in there but you can see I'm starting to turn his head and somebody mentioned it kinda looks like John Henry with the big upper body and that's interesting who said that was that Tim Timothy is animation who's that ideas animation Oh gotcha okay I don't know if that was Tim pod is Tim pods worked on John Henry I know he watches here every once in a while so here I'm just going in and throwing a few details so I don't get too lost I tried to draw rough but I trying to also draw clean enough that I don't get lost in the line work and that chin is too rounded it feels too fast I want some strength to it so I'm gonna square it off so when is that thing for an animation expected to come on the website that was gonna take a while it's gonna be a few months so it's just there's a lot of animation that I'm going to be doing for it and I need to get that done and then I'm gonna break each scene down than I animate and explain my thinking and the whole process behind it so that's just gonna take some time so you don't have to do a timing sheet before you start how do you know I usually do my timing sheet after because I'm feeling it as I go I'm thinking I'm feeling it in my head as I go and how do you make sure that the the timing is facing is what you want well that's what I'll usually shoot it for something as simple as this I can time that out right but usually for something that's more complex I'll shoot it and then I can adjust timing after I shoot it so we got three drawings but actually haven't seen before and maybe ideal I saw you do that sometimes sometimes I'll especially for something that's mechanically complex I will shoot it I'll act it out shoot it on video and then I'll keep that as reference I'll never draw over the video I'll never rotoscope but I'll use it as a reference there's a royal stuffing it'll it Stepan's the animation go can you see that okay is it coming up all right and the other thing too is you'll notice because I'm using this big fat pencil I don't have to sharpen my pencil sharpener why is the guy so angry he's had a rough life dad a rough time would you rather abandon your drawing or fix it now I never fall in love my drawings if I'm struggling with the drawing I'll dump it and start over what's your fondest memory of your time at Disney I've got a lot of great memories I get that question a lot and I think my greatest memories are just just the work that I was able to do with so many great people so I'm trying to twist the shoulders but not twist that I'm twist the shoulders but not as much as I'm twisting the head could you eventually do a video on how to animate camera movement that's that's tough I very rarely ever had to animate actually animate camera movement that's just that's really tough so here I want to get really specific with his eyes and that's not quite working what do you think about cross-hatching what do I think about cross that to catching is fine it works great for you know for whatever you need to use it for shading or whatever a case might be for the late comers in here what is your what's the pencil that you're using this is a it's just a graphite holder you know you can put all kinds of stuff in there you just push the button here and it opens up and then here I've got a to be graphite land in there are you a fan of don bluth oh yeah I think one of my favorites from my childhood of his was secretly mem Seger nameless girl I rarely enjoyed a 5-volt goes west oh yeah so here pretend as his head turns we're gonna see more and more of the nose is it necessary to develop your own style to become successful working artist well yeah I mean to a certain degree but your your style I get this question a lot too how do I kind of develop my style your style will evolve automatically your style will just evolve automatically is it necessary to create your own it's necessary to have I mean you know you're gonna have a style automatically and people which if you as a successful illustrator or animator people will hire you for your style because of your style I'm drawing that I if you look we didn't kind of pick you like to look the eye is gone up with a little too high so what I want to do is I want to drop that right down and what that Brown to be I want to make sure that the anatomy is right so the bridge of the eye the bridge of the nose should be right about the top of the eye do you know for animation services to small projects no I don't not perfect I I haven't done that in quite a while not since we've started our business and right now I'm just more focused on education and creating courses look here characters name I don't know he doesn't have a name and drop that here down to probably call him on Jerry hon Jerry hi Jerry is that what somebody said no I just made that 100 so this year here feels too high as well even though I was trying to get it to feel like he was turning his head up a little bit turning it sideways but I'm gonna pull that ear down and quite often this is what we'll do as well as the animation progresses we'll make adjustments as we go what is your favorite 3d animated feature oh wow I don't know I mean I love up I love anything that Pete docter is done I'm a huge fantasy doctors work I love his sense of emotion the way he tells you know gets across emotion and his storytelling but you know I love I loved kokum too so yeah I feel better here see that head turning but I want that eyebrow to be more angry it's lifting a little bit I want to be lifting but I want that would you ever do a series critiquing people's animation you know we we've been talking about it we just need to find the right venue the way great way to do it because we have a lot we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of requests to do that and so we just need to find the right way that's something that we've been we've we get questioned about it every week every time I do this every time I do a live stream I get asked to review portfolios and we really do want to do it we just have to find the right way to do it what's your favorite version of the Beauty the Beast the live-action or they animated well come on I worked on the enemy I loved the animated version we've got a lot of great memories working on that was working with brothers for the very year best moment you know I don't know that it was my best moment although it's up there directing was such a huge responsibility and it was really really difficult but I've had some you know working on Lion King was great working on beating the beast was great there's there was great times in there but the whole project of brother bear was it was a huge learning experience for me so it was it was great so what I'm gonna try to do now is I want to jump to them for what the last drawing is gonna be I want to get that last we're looking forward to Glenn Keens over the moon Phil yes very much so do you scan the individual frames to get them on the computer yes this is how it we won't be able to do that here today we're just not set up to do it for you but yes that's how we would do this as I would scan these and then this then they'd be on the computer how many drawings are sketches we do per day oh it could I don't know depends on what I'm doing if I'm animating I'll do a lot obviously you're right they can go from like one big one do like two to three hundred animated ones yeah how many bit really depends how many pages are gonna be doing for this maybe ten this would be a fairly short live stream today just to get you guys just to see how we did it old school way back in the day way back in my day I was an animation late what kind of deeper exact is that exactly like this is it's a certain thickness that we use that Disney that it it's not too light it's not too heavy it's just right yeah that's best way I can describe it have you ever done prehistoric drawings and if if not would you be interested in doing it oh of course I've done a little bit it's something I'm very interested in I love bringing things to life that that haven't you know that we haven't seen in millions of years what happened with all the 2d animators when Disney stopped making 2d films that's a good question a lot of them are just doing whatever some of them transitioned into the 3d world there's a lot of you know they they win a lot of different ways here what I'm trying to do I want to keep you know the shape of his head is very blocky there's a side there's a front big heavy forehead with a heavy brow like so do you think there are jobs for 2d animators nowadays I really like the run to the animation but I've been told that it has no feature and I should have learned 3d instead well I think it's a good idea to learn 3d but you can learn to be as well yeah I don't I don't think it's dead I think it's you know there's opportunity out there there's still commercials that are being done in 2d so here what I'm trying to do is bring that jaw around you got this big heavy jaw you think you'll make a huge combat to the animation I think someday it will commit come back I think someday someone's gonna have the hood Spa to make it a 2d animated film I think it's gonna be a streaming company I think it's gonna be somebody like Netflix or Amazon that's who I think is going to do it at some point that's why is that talking about all this 2d animations make me think of there's a you small YouTube group and I can't I can't remember their names but they make this main series like it's a trilogy so far bus called that metal uh-huh and they take these songs from this made-up ban on Dethklok from this show Metalocalypse and they animate a comedic version of Batman singing this hardcore metal and they call it pet metal it's absolutely hilarious and it's all 2d animated I think they use TPP for it oh and the animation for it is flawless it's absolutely amazing that's I'm gonna do a question here a lot of times I like the throwing a little shadow just really want to get these eyes to pop what's your favorite character they ever worked on PS brother bears my favorite movie ever probably my favorite character that I've ever worked on was the Beast animating the beast was awesome so you'll see that I really worked my T's this is a key drawing right here have you tried VR especially for there so do you think it'll become mainstream for some heart jobs I think it's I think it's in its infancy I think VR has a huge future obviously I just don't oh yeah and I have tried I've only tried it very briefly and I love it and I'd love to do more of it and I think it's awesome we have it has everyone seen ready player one I honestly think that's gonna be our future in the next 5-10 years very angry yes let's see training his shoulders as well not quite as much so now break that down I'll do the in betweens he kind of has that look like somebody excellent Throop I read the back of his head is a stirs I think he's really angry what's your favorite Arachne my favorite arachnid unique question it is a unique person I like I actually like all flavors I like scorpion I think they're all interesting probably a birdie nice later I think is probably my favorite bird-eating spider yeah finding that first of all a awesomely cool name and a spider that can eat birds and catch birds is pretty awesome it's such a simple name like why does it call it a bird eating spider like it's birds okay I think what kinds of spiders my personal favorites different tarantula yeah a bird eating spider isn't transformed oh it is it's just the biggest of them yeah oh it's the biggest I won't touch it so here if you watch the path of the nose see how these nose is coming up and then it settles down so it comes up to a feet up here it's up and then it comes down so I want to follow that arc so that nose you say that I erased it I want that nose to be up here can you tell the soul of your character easily when you're trying to be clear with lines I try I really try I'm so it's in my soul this turnarounds the look of my father gave me when it was time to bring home my report card yeah I think I gave Dustin this look a few times more more than a few but look at me now how do you make your animations feel so lifelike that you know what you just have to I do a lot of like drawing I do a lot of study of expression you know the the simpler you make your expressions the clear they are so that's really important I try to think spatially like my drawing even though it's flat art I'm thinking about a three dimensional that looks a bit like Dwayne the rock Johnson maybe the last frame he needs a kind eyebrow let's try it let's try it whoever said that let's push this one down what was your favorite comic you know I was never a big comic kid I know it's weird but I never was how tough was their journey to learning digital painting it wasn't tough at all I really took to I started on a Cintiq you know pen display so that helped a lot and so to me it's just like drawing on an easel they'll push that eyebrow a little bit how's that Dustin yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah looks great babies dewd scream tasty it's been hard to a good animation College where Van arts VA and a RTS I've never heard of their nerves let's go to the table for drawing animation what's the name of the table yeah an animation desk this is a disc if you're talking about this this is an animation disc you might be talking about that so here notice how I'm bringing the eyebrow down just slightly I don't know if your debug aside the eyebrow is coming down slightly and then that's gonna go up X I'm gonna bring it down even more and then we'll bring it up at the end this my own question but do you know um they still if any companies still manufacture animation desks like these these days or not like these these are Disney these are made custom for our studio in Orlando these these particular desks oh really so there's only of why I found are made yeah and they just made them for us they were designed specifically for us and that's why they're so rare there's only a certain number of them and so they can probably sell that for for a good price if you want pleasures as I do it was used on the movie I'm just never gonna sell it yeah after I kick the bucket you need to do calories need and then you'll sell it you know it'll go down from generation to generation still eventually for a billion dollars what character did you animate in the film the one I did yeah the little guy that likes to fight all the time I did yeah and all of the ancestors the ghosts in the backyard Oh [Music] this guy as I've been designing him this week and drawing him I really come to like this guy he's he's actually a lot of fun to draw and I'm going to I'm not actually gonna bring the side round down as well so I really liked whoever gave me that suggestion to bring his eyebrow up at the end I like that that'll give him a nice little action which of Disney scene did you enjoy animating the most oh man probably my my favorite shot I've ever done is a scene of beast and Belle in front of the fireplace where they're arguing he's been injured by the wolves and she's trying to bandage him and and they get an argue about you know whose fault it is and all of that and you know if you had to run away then this wouldn't have happened and all that kind of stuff there was a big banter back and forth and Mark Ken and I animated that I animated the Beast and Mark and made it Belle and I remember just taking I remember it took about a month to figure out the thumbnails the the actual choreography it took a long time to figure out how I was gonna handle turning his head there what were the challenges on correcting brother bear the biggest challenge is story the biggest challenge is always story production isn't too bad I mean there aren't so you know there's certain times we have to compromise in order to stay on budget but really the biggest the hardest part of the entire process is figuring out that story and that's the part that I was weak at and so it really took me a long time to hone my story skills and fortunately I had a really great patient ahead of story his name's Steve Anderson he directed meet the Robinsons and gone on to do a few other things I think did the Winnie the Pooh movie and he's just a really great guy and and he was a great head of story how many movies did did you animate on on that particular desk Oh probably four I know I did I think I did beating the I know I did Aladdin Lion King Pocahontas Mulan brother bear on this desk there Dino and Disney stopped hand-painting cells yes they stopped after really push that have you ever worked with Butch Hartman I've never worked with Butch Hartman let's do another air between the pigs of the bottom birth where the papers liked it doesn't that all of you while you're animating not at all in fact like I wouldn't be able to get by without them no they don't bother me at all so they don't get away your wrists or anything no so exactly does see is the background light used for it from some people some people in the cleanup department will use them for tracing not Tracy but you know cleaning up line some animators do we like to use the white paper I just personally don't like to use it I'd rather see the movement this way and try to draw according to the animation it's just that you don't like it because the background light kind of blows out the lines yeah yeah I just I see too many lines I want to see the drawing that I'm drawing I'm gonna bring I'm gonna bring the eyebrow down even more I don't answer this earlier but for this play comer what's your favorite Don Bluth movie secret of them Anastasia was made by dumpling yeah I like that so here you see he's turning around I'm doing a slow burn eyebrow coming down Genie and Aladdin had acted by parroting different personalities is a character like that harder to enemy oh yeah the genie was super hard to have a there's so many so much going on with the genie like so many different personalities all in one oh yeah you know it really there's a lot of action you know that you can cure and that boys too if people are wondering yes it is currently raining outside it's going oh yeah sorry yeah it's pouring actually we've been getting a lot of rain here in Florida we're right at the height of our summer rainy season so sorry about the on the rain coming down each rating I had a little bit on my house my house is a hundred years old yeah so metal roofing squint those eyes squint like Clint how many scenes did you have to draw per day well a scene is a shot and so a shot could take his belong as a week two weeks sometimes three weeks if it's a huge shot so we never did a show but sometimes it was a short shot like this like a character is turning around like this I could do a scene in a day like this but otherwise you know it would take like I said them to a few several weeks to get a shot them but our scene I should say because if you could come up over but we would do lots of drawings for them you can see kind of cranking through the drawings now what's your favorite for in an animated movie oh wow I like a lot of what Miyazaki does yes Princess Mononoke I really like yes yes I totally agree no Dustin's a huge fan huge Miyazaki just anime in general but when it comes to other other animations around the world I'll have to say another favorite would be Triplets of Belleville coffee that French animated yeah we were up against triple' to build oh very office her brother bear I love that movie two such unique design tits and no single word of dialogue yeah and great music yeah right here see the slow burn can you maybe to remain just a little later duster - just a little bit later bring it up a little bit there you go like that a little bit just don't forget you terrible mr. tally from South Park all right so let's see I have him turning around and you can see that squint getting really tight but then what's going to happen is as he settles that I is going to come up that I ground as a last action see that I pop up but I want to finish this throwing first there's this time we do our in-betweens I look at there's my drawing that goes in front of my in between there's the drawing that comes after the in between and there's the in between so we have to flip in the right order and so so it's constantly flipping back and forth so you can see that action have you ever seen any animated series have I seen in the animated series yeah I don't know what that means like any animated shows or how I see mini yeah like have you watched any yeah good favorite uh I don't know hey now I like Rick and Morty yes that's a good one Morty I just think it's fun what do you think a movie spirit on a stallion of the smart I love spirit love that movie I wish I could have worked on that movie that was DreamWorks I was at Disney yeah my good friend press Roma Neal's who isn't with us anymore he passed away a few years ago press work on that movie did a great job where like how the characters voice by May Day me Matt Damon do you like to dear 3d in which would you know would you like to do if you ever went back to him to innovation well I mean I like him both I like obviously I love to t I mean yeah 2d just because I like the hand crawl the handcrafted quality over how did you get into the animation business in the first place I needed a job really I was graduating college and I wanted to work for National Geographic but the only freelance and I wanted a staff position and so I found out that Disney was coming to recruit I had never thought about working for Disney before but I thought it could be kind of interesting maybe I'd be a background finger that was the 1988 so I put together my portfolio and I ended up getting in to this intern program where they wanted to see if they could teach non animation people people that haven't been taught animation but having taught how to draw on paint they wanted to see if they could teach some animation so I got matched up with Glen Keane and and he really got me put right away and he really showed me the possibilities of animation how do you like the How to Train Your Dragon 2 oh I love how I like the whole series first of all I'm a huge fan the deemed too blind Chris Sanders who directed they both directed the first one than the Dean directed the second one you know they directed lilo and Stitch and I'm just a huge fan of theirs I'm Dean Dean is one of the best story guys out there you know when we were when we were writing our movies who we would call Dean and ask him to have a look at our scripts and give us notice he's so good at what he does and he such a great person and artist and so I love those movies Dean and Chris they right from the heart and that's some of things I love about those guys for portfolio work is it important to put a lot of time on presentation or does that even matter well of course you want a decent presentation because if it's a bad presentation you're not going to be able to enjoy the good quality of work hopefully that you have in there so yeah presentation is part of it but obviously the work is that what's most important so you want that work design and so you just got to make sure that it's in the best possible venue to be seen and presented so here I'm being because my in-betweens are starting to get really kind of close getting very careful I don't want any wobbly lines especially in the expression you can see this eyebrow start to come up so as I start to get to this position I get tighter and tighter that's why I spend a little bit extra time on that last key because I know I'm going to get tightened into it especially if it's a slowing like I'm doing now a slowing me the pose I slow into that pose it slows down as I get closer and closer to that pose we did your favorite of modern Disney Princess favorite modern Disney Princess like Rapunzel the either the sister for frozen mallanna it was a king remember her name from Princess and the Frog I really liked her I liked her her spunk please she had she had she had a backbone what was her name I can't remember someone's gonna write it yeah so he's got a princess in the frog what was her name I liked Rapunzel too it has the same mine is a tie between Moana and Penelope from wreck-it Ralph oh yeah I forgot we got about her hello Sara so woman there's a head-turning Tiana Tiana thank you thank you guys those are the cheque blowing up with everybody go it's Tiana Tiana so it's Tiana the family how does Glen Keane do so much great animation he's a great artist doing it I think he's been animating since 1977 or 76 so he's got experience I noticed that some of the seats are getting reco'nize wrong was that ever an issue while animating at Disney no it's never an issue that the camera doesn't pick that up and when the when the paper is being photographed it's being put under a piece of glass so the wrinkles get smoothed out yeah the wrinkles are just part of the process that's what's one of the things I love about seeing old animation drawings is seeing those wrinkles that's the mark of the animator you know or the whoever the artist is at the time it's almost like their own fingerprint yeah I love that hello this is a 2d Disney animated movie take to complete usually it takes about 18 months to animate him probably four years probably in total to make the whole thing a brother bear took six years we took a lot we took a long time and story so the mostest other sheets are getting wrinkled as you draw with now you can see that eyebrow got to rise up as he turns around slowly you see that but they were custom so I've got how many groans one two three four five six seven eight eight drawings you get that head turn so that's kind of fun I'm going to do one more just one more last little flow and drawing just to ease into that eyebrow and you'll see it at this point a lot of its just lying over line very subtle slowly so I got to be very careful where you put my lines by the way is this straight-ahead animation or opposed to pose it's both I did straight ahead as he as I hit some of the poses and now with the in-betweens as opposed to pose what was it like working with Eric Goldberg great we would Eric and I didn't cross paths a whole lot we work on the same project probably the closest I got with Eric was when he was directing Pocahontas and I was a animated character Pocahontas with me give us some tips from nineteen everything I tell you is from Glen Keane everything I know Glen taught me so if you get a tip for me they're getting tips from Glen Keane but it'd be better to go to a school to learn about animation or take courses such as yours for time and money you know it's really it's really what's most comfortable for you and I I do I do have to say that I think colleges have gotten obscenely expensive and I think you know you can get some really good education online from really accomplished animators I'm not just talking about using eyesight there's there's a lot of guys out there that are teaching animation that are great as you can find online the thing that you don't get when you go online obviously is camaraderie you know working when you're at school in college you're working with other people a lot have you seen incredible - that's another movie I I am no we have not seen it and taking myself to them I really want to see you if you go see how I would love to go with you I would love to see that movie as well go is Disney still hiring 2d animators panel no no Disney is not doing any 2d animation at all in the studio anywhere in the studio that's Lee yeah but you favorite a Ghibli movie or Hayao Miyazaki film I just wanna know ki and my friend Totoro business-minded okay in castle in the sky for me look up in the sky so at this stage I'm getting really tight trying to make sure my lines are hitting the right place how many sheets of paper does it usually take to animate one character well it just depends on how much side characters in the movie right so the characters in the movie a lot like the beasts and beating the beasts then take a lot of paper so it really depends on how much of that character is how do you flip the pages like this practice baby practice I've been doing it for 30 years but it's really you know we want to be able to reason one of the reasons we peg down on the bottom is so that we could take five sheets of paper at a time and we can put those drawings and how do you flip them like with the I try to roll them on one you watch my fingers they say oh yeah just rolling like I'm rolling my fingers back and forth like this what I do is I can see my head in the way I like to get up over the top I can see down inside the in between the paper that way I can see more of the drawing animating so also I just want to mention on my website we just finished up a brand new course on storyboarding I know there's a lot of people out there interested in storyboarding and it's by my good friend that Linden ruddy who has worked at Disney and Sony and he's currently on blue sky and he's just one of the best story artists storyboard artists I've ever seen and so that's why we we brought him in to do this course for us and and it's really been popular so if you're interested in storyboarding head on over to creature art teacher calm and you'll find these ports there also if you are interested in animation I've got an animation fork on my website where I talk about a lot of these principles and I'm shows you guys take you through you know all 12 principles of animation what I think about what I made will be dialogue all that kind of stuff and also if you heard me say in the beginning of the broadcast that I'm also currently doing a course specifically on acting for animation you get paper cuts between your fingers flipping like that yes and I hurt that's a funny that was a funny question yeah yeah we did you just gotta be really careful I know how much you can see this or not this is really close that's as much as I'm gonna do on that how how painful is the paper cuts between the fingers think about how much it would hurt and it's [Music] really trying to think about you know a character like this when I design a character like this I'm really thinking structurally so let's um I'm just gonna take a little break from the animation and talk about expression what I think about when I'm doing a character like this first of all when I constructed character like this I'm thinking about proportion so I know I want the top of his head to be small I want a big heavy brow I've got this nose that's got a curve on it then fights that I think complements not fights complements all of the other squared off parts of the of the head bring that in like this but I like because of that big chin I tried to get this kind of angle to the head so I bring them mouths out here that that chin follows that wine so overall there's this this wedge sheep to the head and then just to add a little bit more to bounce the the all the edges of the hard edges they've got this hairline that goes like that so it just it just balances things out a little bit more and then this big neck the shoulders so who do you think would win in an animal fight the Bengal tiger or saltwater crocodile it depends on the size of each doesn't it all right so let's stay focused on instruction so now that I've got that and I know I've got a plane on this side of the head I've got the cheekbones i still think i think i still think anatomy so if I'm thinking anatomy now I can go okay well I want him to be maybe down this way now and so I know i4i forehead comes up like this here's that front plane on the forehead there well there's a front plane on the forehead there this is how we think about our characters at Disney so we can draw them consistently the same way every time I know I've got this shape at the nose and there's that curve coming down I'm gonna come in like that there's that same curve right there for there the eye is going to be set way under the brow because I wanted to be set back in inside the sockets once again I'm thinking about Anatomy cheekbones are going to come out like so but not super far I'm going to put the ear up here there's that jaw remember I want that wedge seat how busy Cameron said look look like when you're a family know traditional drawing videos the camera setup the camera angle over go ahead and switch to the other switch to the other camera so you can see I've got camera right here the top of the actual camera is out at the top of the frame but it's shooting down on me right here there's a gamer I think oh yeah there it is switchback yeah so there so there's that wedge shape again but just from a different angle right so now I can also draw and get rid of these and distracting underneath I can also draw thinking about the anatomy different expressions so there's that brow I'm going to be looking up laughter grab another drink okay yep so here we got an upshot I got that curved nose eyebrow coming down this way and I want to make sure I'm paying attention to my perspective so here my perspective is going like this and it makes that means I want my the corner of the mouth to match up the bottom of the mouth to match that same perspective so there you go and then what happens well you get the cheekbones will come out here we've got a big chin right and that chin is hinged like that just like any other jaw it's hinged right we're basically where the ear is well the ear really determined is determined where the location of the year is determined by the angle of the head so since we have an up side like this that ears back here this here's our cheekbone coming forward our teeth this is how you work out your angles put an eye up right there syrota the chin or Maitreya Mufasa Mufasa Mufasa Mufasa yeah the thing is you know you want to keep your now to be simple right and so actually that head I got out of proportion it should be smaller so I'm going to drop it down just a little bit and then that comes back like this and then right back into that big neck if National Geographic asks you to work for them at his employee what do you do it I would definitely think about it that was always my lifelong dream speaking of blue-sky from earlier have you seen the Ice Age franchise of course yeah yeah so there is you could push the expression like so maybe a little piece of the eye over there but you can see once you understand that structure that's the important thing when you're doing your character design whoops I gotta get that perspective right once you understand your structure then you could really enough you have to keep that structure simple you can build it a seemingly complex character on a simple structure that's what kind of what we're trying to do here so here here's a character that's you know being an open open mouth at the same time I can draw that character very quickly same way what's this this is for the late comers again there's a few more folks asking to know what kind of pencil that is this is just a graphite piece of graphite in a pencil holder so here's that curved nose again now he's our he's gritting his teeth look how loose I can make this when you're working on Pocahontas did you get to meet Mel Gibson no I didn't meet Mel Gibson he was a little hard to work with on that phone too so there is the same character but now with just a few lines where can I find a drawing desk you won't find one like if you find one like this every once in a while they come up you just gotta you gotta search all over I don't know where you would find one like this but you know just google animation desks it's the best advice I can give you there's that big neck so you give that big neck that also this becomes is signature left right there so that's how we kind of you know when I think when I'm creating a character I try to keep it simple keep the proportions simple here's our other one here and then you know it enables you to animate that character draw it a lot more easily so here's here's our character turning around let's see if I can flip it or not see you're gonna be able to see it I'm not flipping thank you bring this just a little lower right there there it is just a few drawings by the way did you ever get to meet Jeremy Suarez yeah you were there yeah I know they don't know yes I met Jeremy Suarez I recorded him or directed the movie then I got to hang out with him and boy is he a chatterbox so where's that head turn so and you know we got a little shot animated in about an hour and 15 minutes so that's how I do a simple head turn with expression pushing the expressions and traditional animation we could do something a little bit more complex next time maybe but I love doing this kind of stuff you know going back to the old school way of doing things you can't beat paper papers awesome you know I really like working in TV paint working digitally but there's just something about going back and hitting those hitting those drawings and having something physical something physical that I can hold like this and I've got I've got a shot in my hands that actually moves slowly his head it may be really interesting from the YouTube channel just make like a short 10 minute how to do the proper flip flip yeah how the how to lay out your fingers and how they motion them sure I think a lot of people would be that's gonna probably be it for today do you have any last-minute questions we used to my twitch sometime in the future yes yes we get that question every I'm I've been trying to talk them into it do you prefer drawing on paper or sentence you know I like them both I really do there's certain things you can do on a Cintiq that you can't do on paper and vice versa now one of the things I love about paper like I was just saying is that I have something physical in my hand at the end and but Cintiq on enables me to not I could be more experimental this the difference between finding our drawing in animation drawing there isn't if you're doing fine art drawing that sequential then you're doing animation right so I don't think there is oh you know I'm doing my animation drawing I'm doing all the same thing that I think about if I'm doing anything like fine art or it's stuffing something that's supposed to go on the wall I'm still thinking the same way structurally still thinking in 3d or if he were in a boy band which archetype would you be I've no you be the artistic like God John in the corner yeah anyway I think I'm gonna call you guys so I hope you guys enjoyed that was a lot of fun so so that was great I was a lot of fun and I'd love to do more of that I think we're gonna do some actual animated scenes for some of the courses that I'm doing and as I get further down the road and have some more animation done on paper when I meant was actually I may be scenes I mean we're gonna actually animate them on paper and so as we get down the room I get those on paper and I'll share them with you and I don't you know go over some of the processes that I think about what I'm doing it but I hope you guys enjoyed it thank you so much go out and try some animation on paper and put some beauty back in the world because we need it go out and be nice to somebody help someone else just make the world a little bit better place each day if you can and I'm gonna keep drawing I've got a lot of drawing left to do so I got to get back to work on my digital stuff but I hope you guys enjoyed it and remember check out my website creature art teacher calm I've got character animation there I've got animal drawing courses I've got digital painting courses we've got color courses story courses storyboarding courses all kinds of stuff on there that we've been building up over the years so we're just gonna keep building it up so check that out also I'll be back here next Thursday same time 1 o'clock what's up not Tuesday oh that Thursday Thursday's you too but then yeah then Tuesday I'll be on Facebook right so so check it if you want to catch up with me on either place I'll be there and hopefully we'll see you so thank you thanks a lot for joining me today and I will talk to you later bye

Channel: The Art of Aaron Blaise

Views: 164,814

Keywords: Animation, tradtional animation, 2Danimation, hand drawn animation, character animation, demo

Id: WKDBOw780Ww

Length: 80min 33sec (4833 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 19 2018