Animation Critique on 11SecondClub.com

Last month I had the honor of recording a video critique for the winner of the 11 Second Club's March 2012 competition.  The winning clip was by Flavio Santana do Nascimento of Brazil, which you can see here, and you can see my critique of his very entertaining clip here:

Footage Loose

Dreamworks Animators, I feel your pain. Your delicious, dance-tastic pain.

Ralph McQuarrie, 1929-2012

This past Sunday, one of my personal icons passed away.  Ralph McQuarrie was a fantastic artist, and among other things, he was a concept artist and matte painter on the original Star Wars trilogy.  Of course I loved these films as a kid, but even more so, I loved the Art of Star Wars books and the Star Wars Sketchbooks, among which his art was featured heavily.  He and Joe Johnston really defined the look of the Star Wars universe.  His designs and rendering were hugely influential on my own work as well, and he fired my imagination like no one else.  He had fantastic design sensibilities, great composition and color, and his work always had a real sense of "place", of existing somehow.  I spent hours staring into the worlds he created, and was inspired to copy them and try to build on his vision.  I'm deeply saddened at this loss, and I would have loved to have met him in person, if only to thank him for him impact on my life and career.  I still have my old Star Wars portfolio (somewhere), and the cover features what is probably my favorite of his paintings.

 

 

Thank you, Ralph.

The Story of Animation

Just in case you were wondering how we do this stuff, check out this cute new video from former Pixarian, Dave Tart:

 

This just kills me!

 "It's funny 'cause it's true."

UPDATE: looks like the link to YouTube is down, so check out the clip "Playground" on the BirdBox Studio site.