Animation Studio Setup

This is my animation work area. It's a combination of traditional animation board and computers for scanning my pencil art and importing into Toon Boom Studio. It's not glamorous, but it gets the job done.

Seen below is my animation drafting with my old Filmation disc. This can handle both 12 field and 16 field paper.

I've had this Acme Peg registration punch since 1987. I use it to punch cheap paper for my rough animation. I save the pre-punched Ingram Bond for my clean-ups.

Here are my 3 Computers: Moe, Larry, and Curly! Moe (on the left) is a Mac G3 I've had since 2001 (along with an Epson Scanner); Larry is a Mac Quadcore Tower (on the right) I've had since 2008; and Curly (in the center) is my iMac I bought in 2009.

My 15 year-old Epson Scanner...I call it Shemp (for those of you who know the Three Stooges and understand the inside gag)

 

Nelvana Seminar Notes (circa 1981): Part Three

These are the third and final set of notes from my Nelvana seminar. Please remember that I was asked to explain my personal method of animating (and the Frank and Ollie tomb "Illusion of Life" had not yet been published). We were all youngsters, experimenting on our own and trying to learn from each other.

The third seminar session consisted of answering questions that were handed in by animators a week after the first two sessions. I believe that the material covered in this series is as relevant today as it was 30+ years ago.
 

The following is how I rough out my full-size poses after working out my thumbnails.

Above is my first rough pass at a Quadhole key pose.

Above is my second rough pass at a Quadhole key pose...I mold the character's form over the forces I laid out on the first pass, making subtle changes as I feel the body reacts to those forces. This pose would be cleaned up on a third sheet of paper.

The next three sheets show how I filled out the basic posing and interpreted the timing of the previous examples shown in sessions one and two. Please refer to the exposure sheets in session one to see how I described the action with particularity. I find that writing it out in this manner forces me to analyze the movement in terms of "anticipation, action, and reaction".

If you have a mind to, you can cut out the poses (registering them by their leg placement and shifting of weight), then film them in sequence as a rough pose test, using the exposure sheet for timing.

Nelvana Seminar Notes (circa 1981): Part One

It's been a very long time since I last posted. I always promised myself that I wouldn't write just anything just for the sake of posting something on my blog. Now I have a topic that I believe will be of interest to those visiting here.

Recently in a communication with Ken Duncan (Owner/Executive Producer of Duncan Studio), Ken said "John, when I was in Paris in the 80's I thought I saw some 'how to' notes that you'd done during Rock 'n Rule.....
1- Am I delusional?
2- If not, are they available to see?"

Well, Ken is not delusional...and after searching through my files I found the original typed notes that were xeroxed and handed out at Nelvana during the production of Rock & Rule. Basically, it was an explanation of my approach and work-flow method, going from initial thumbnails through to tie-down drawings.

Originally, there were 20+ pages in my handout for the three session seminar, which took place over three afternoons, using poses of my character Quadhole the Policeman to illustrate my approach. Because of the amount of material covered, I've decided to post them all here as a series. I have also supplemented the examples with Cindy Schlepper development material I created months after this seminar was given.

(Note: At that time, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston's bible "The Illusion of Life" had not yet been published. Young animators such as ourselves were basically learning from our own experiments...studying the silent results on the studio's Lyon Lamb Video Animation System...not seeing if it worked with the dialog until it was shot on 35mm film and synced up on the flatbed.)

The following are my original typed notes from the first session. I'm including the exposure sheets and samples of my thumbnail analysis of a couple of Cindy Schlepper scenes.

 

These above poses were my very first exploratory sketches of Cindy Schlepper.

 

 

 

Above are my thumbnail analysis of the first time we see Cindy.

Cindy has arrived at Club 666 and is excited. "Oh, Boy! Mutants in the foyer!"

The following exposure sheets are for a Quadhole scene---the poses of which were originally handed out as a packet including the typed notes. I'll be posting those drawings in the next installment...and you can then cross-reference them with these sheets.

For those who are not familiar with the process, there's a lot to digest on these pages.
Hope you find it informative and useful.

Batman Semi-clean Rough Poses & X-Sheet: Clean-up and Inbetweening Exercise

Here are the drawings and X-sheet for one of my Batman commercial scenes.
Before making any drawings, it is absolutely important that you (as an assistant animator) familiarize yourself with what is happening on the X-sheets!


Note how drawings are being exposed. There are some drawings later in the scene that work in and out of poses used earlier in the scene. Understand what the animator has planned before you start on your phase of the process to complete the scene. Many an inexperienced assistant has ignored this, only to have to toss out very-good-but-useless drawings because they thought they knew it all. Think twice, draw once!

At the end of this post is the completed Batman / Catwoman commercial that has this scene. Study the following drawings, then run the commercial to see how the scene works within it. Also, check out the lip sync of Batman's dialoque: "Paws off the customers, Catwoman!"


If you are so inclined, feel free to download these drawings, repegging them using the cross-hairs on each for registration. Then clean them up yourself and complete the inbetween drawings, as you would be required to if you were my assistant animator.

Note the extreme aspect of the right arm in this breakdown drawing

The extreme positioning of the right arm may look wrong, but it will feel right in motion.

 

 

Click here for the Catwoman Commercial that contains this scene.