Free Comic Book Day!

Today is Free Comic Book Day! Remember to visit your local participating comic bookstore to get your free comic!

For those in Singapore, Kinnokuniya is giving away comics to anyone who has a membership card 😀

Animating Quadpeds

Gamasutra has a write-up by Cathy Feraday with some tips and tricks on animating 4-legged creatures/animals. She outlined her workflow and thought process in animating these creatures, I’ve insert an excerpt below-

In the course of my career, I’ve learned that there is a surprising similarity in how quadrupeds move, from species to species. Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic works may be a century old, but they are still relevant and extremely useful.

In his introduction to Animal Locomotion, he maintains that most quadrupeds — be they dogs, cats, horses or rhinoceroses — follow the same footfall pattern. This is the order in which the hooves or paws strike the ground while moving through the various gaits. Where they differ is in the flexibility of the spine. Visualize a rhino running, as opposed to a cheetah. The exceptions, according to Muybridge, are elephants, and animals like kangaroos.

The four speeds of movement, or the four “gaits”, are shared amongst most four-legged animals. Almost every quadruped walks, trots, canters and gallops, and their legs move in the same manner when they do it.

This came just time time for my creatures and animals masterclass! Very poignant insight from a very experienced animator.

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Jay Grace interview by Wired

Jay Grace is the Supervising Animator on Aardman/Sony’s THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS.

Wired has a short interview with him where they discusses his influences and the future of stop-motion features.

GeekDad: What led you to want to be an animator?

Grace: As a kid, I loved drawing and all things animation. I was a huge fan of Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, and Hanna Barbera and was always excited when a new Disney movie came out. I think it was really Star Wars that got me interested in stop-motion. I remember as a six-year-old boy, dragging my not so keen grandmother along to see it and being absolutely mesmerised by the special effects which were way beyond anything else I’d seen before and even at that age I really wanted to know how it was done. By the time Empire and Jedi came out there were some really great making of documentaries on TV which introduced me to the work of Phil Tippett and his contemporaries .

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Portal: Companionship

An animated Portal film by Alex Zemke

It’s not done yet, but this project is really going viral.
Animation + Portal = Instawin! Who knew?!

Alex Zemke seems to know what he’s doing, I just hope Valve don’t shut this down, it looks really good!

If this ever makes it to kickstarter I’m definitely backing this.