Another Academy of Art animation blog - Spungella

My fellow teacher at The Academy of Art ,  Jean-Denis Haas, reminds me that he also has a blog for animation students at the Academy : 

Spungella - Soak Up the Animation

Head over there for more animation art and inspiration.

Michael Sporn DVD's Marzipan Pig and Abel's Island

Check out Michael Sporn's always interesting blog where he notes that several of his animated shorts are receiving new DVD releases.  These are delightful films so definitely worth picking up:

Michael Sporn's  "The Marzipan Pig" and "Abel's Island" . 

I hope Michael doesn't mind me lifting a few images from his blog to peak your interest here.  Click on the link to Michael's Blog to read more about it.

(click images to view them larger)

Here’s a character from The Marzipan Pig. Tissa David animated the entire film, herself, and did a caricature of herself with this woman whose purse is stolen by an owl.

This shows Tissa's rough and the final drawing as it was hand-colored and mounted on a cel. 

Stephan MacQuignon colored the drawing and Robert Marianetti added shading. Christine O’Neill did the cut and paste on the drawing to cel operation.

Princess and the Frog teaser trailer- so it begins !

First look at Disney's return to hand-drawn animation:

Teaser Trailer for The Princess & The Frog

(You'll have to click on the link . Couldn't embed it.

On the Disney site you have the option to watch it as a high-quality Quicktime movie)

New online classes at Academy of Art

Have you checked the  Academy of Art Online Course Catalog lately ?

We have three new online traditional animation classes launching  for the Fall '08 semester. (not too late to sign up) 

ANM 380 Stop Motion Animation 1 - taught by stop-motion animator and author Ken Priebe. Ken is the author of the noted book The Art of Stop Motion Animation . This is a unique course in that is one of the few classes in traditional stop-motion puppet animation offered online by an accredited university. Ken will be following up this class with Stop Motion Animation 2 . (The Academy of Art also has several other Stop-Motion and Puppet Making classes in development for launch online in the near future.)

ANM 261 Introduction to Effects Animation - taught by Kathleen Quaife . Kathleen is a veteran effects animator having worked for Don Bluth, Disney, Warner Bros. Feature Animation , and many other places. She is one of the most skilled and knowledgeable effects animators in the business and has been very successful in applying her traditional effects skills to digital production using Flash and ToonBoom. See examples of Kathleen's work here: Kathleen Quaife reels


ANM 375 Maquette Sculpting - taught by former Disney artist and sculptor Jason Peltz. Examples of Jason's work may be seen on his website: Jason Peltz maquette examples

Master Rough Animation Drawings

The always interesting blog of animator/director Michael Sporn is featuring some great screen grabs, storyboards, and rough animation drawings from the Disney feature "Sleeping Beauty" .

Michael's blog is a daily stop for me and if it's not in your bookmarks it probably should be.

This coincides with Danish animator/director/Disney historian Hans Perk's posting of the sequence and scene drafts from Sleeping Beauty. Hans's blog is another must-read for me. The scene drafts are studio documents which give a scene-by-scene breakdown of the films and shows who animated which scenes. This is fascinating behind-the-scenes material.

These great roughs and much more inspiring artwork is currently on Michael Sporn's site. Check it out.

(click any image to see it larger)

King Stefan rough animation drawing by John Lounsbery:

The unnamed comedy-relief "Lackey" character , rough animation drawing by John Sibley :

Another great rough animation drawing by John Lounsbery, this one of King Hubert :

A sample of a Disney scene draft . Many more like this on Hans Perk's invaluable blog :

Kung Fu Panda - 2D Sequences

UPDATE: High-Res. HD Quicktime videos of the opening Dream sequence and the End Credit sequence of KFP have been posted here: The Art of the Title: Kung Fu Panda



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Amazing 2D animated sequences which bookend the CG feature "Kung Fu Panda" .

The opening dream sequence was animated by James Baxter Animation. It's been posted as a special preview clip at MSN Movies :

Kung Fu Panda Opening Dream Sequence



Dream Sequence Production -

Storyboard and Direction by Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Animation Director - James Baxter
Asst. Animation Director- Chris Sonnenburg

Producer - Hameed Shaukat
General Manager - Kendra Baxter

Key Clean-Up Artist - Helen Michael
Rough In-Betweener/Asst. Clean-Up - Raymond Flores Fabular

Compositors - Jason Brubaker , Erik Tillmans
Color Models - Claire Williams
Ink & Paint - Tina Staples
Line Art Scanner - Marisa Ledina

Accounting- Lauren Matthews-Hill

Enjoy the clip, but if you haven't seen this in the theater you should really go see it : the artwork is very rich and detailed and can best be appreciated on a big screen.

Then in a reprise of the 2D opening sequence the end-credits were designed by Shine Studios , in collaboration with James Baxter Animation and Dreamworks Animation. The character animation in the end-credits was done in-house by Dreamworks animators -

Panda: Gabriele Pennacchioli
Shifu: William Salazar
Tigress: Rodolphe Guenoden
Tai Lung: Philippe Le Brun
Mantis: Ken Morrissey
Viper: Rodolphe Guenoden
Crane: Simon Otto
Oogway: Ken Morrissey
Dad (Duck): Alessandro Carloni
Messenger Goose and Rhino: Pierre Perifel
Monkey: Gabe Hordos

Animation drawing by Gabriele Pennacchioli -




View the end-credit sequence here:

Kung Fu Panda End Credits

HOKUSAI - Animated Sketchbook

A marvelous film based on the drawings of the master Hokusai , written/directed by Tony White.

Tony writes:

"The film itself was inspired by the wonderful sketchbooks of Hokusai. When I saw them I realized that this artist was indeed a true animator at heart... he just didn't have the knowledge or the technology to be one in his lifetime. I therefore sought to bring his drawings to life for him, as homage to his genius."

Also, check out Tony's other films posted on YouTube, in particular "Endangered Species" a love letter to hand-drawn animation and an impassioned vision for how hand-drawn can continue to exist in the "digital age" .

Here is Tony's introduction to "Endangered Species" telling how and why he came to make the film :



Very important observation about the apprenticeship system and how traditional animation skills were "traditioned" (which literally means: "passing down to") from one animator to another :

Milt Kahl - Jungle Book roughs

[click on image to see it larger]


Michael Sporn has uploaded a series of rough drawings of King Louis by Milt "King" Kahl on his blog :

Kahl's Jungle Book Roughs

Check out the whole series of roughs on the link above (click on each image to see it larger) .


Here's a video of these key poses strung together with the timing based on the drawing numbers. Keep in mind that these are widely spaced Key drawings, so a lot of the drawings from this scene are missing :


The final version of the scene is here:

A visit with Animator Patrick Smith

A visit to the studio of traditional animator Pat Smith ---

Animation Backgrounds Inspiration

Here is another blog site which ought to be in your bookmarks:

ANIMATION BACKGROUNDS - Discovering the Art Behind the Art

This site by Rob Richards takes up and continues the work that Hans Bacher was doing with his Animation Treasures background art blogs before Hans decided to stop blogging and pulled his sites off the internet . 

The backgrounds are digitally recreated from multiple screen grabs , digitally removing the character animation on top , so that a facsimile of the original Background painting is reproduced. 

Go take a look at  Animation Backgrounds 

Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea"

Here is a link to an interesting interview with Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki on the upcoming animated feature film
"Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea" directed by Hayao Miyazaki :

Producer Suzuki's Interview about Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo on the Cliff"

This is Hayao Miyazaki's 10th animated feature film which he has directed (along with television series, many short films , and commercials) .  He is approaching 68 years old.  But his enthusiasm for animation is still intact.  This part of the interview was especially interesting to me: 

You would think after 37 years of directing animation, Miyazaki would've reached a peak and discovered the best ways to represent any and everything with animation. But if you've ever seen a Miyazaki film, you know that isn't the case - each and everyone is as visually stunning as the last. 

Suzuki goes on to talk about the animation in Ponyo, explaining that Miyazaki is still intricately involved in the process, even hand drawing most of it. Apparently "80% of [Ponyo on a Cliff] is sea," and Suzuki talks about how Miyazaki tackled the idea of "expressing" the water.

"The waves are an important theme. He never makes others draw the waves. He draws them all by himself. He is devising to find a better way on how to express waves and sea. He is enjoying it.  The appearance of the movie is different. Usual audiences might say 'Aha… this is a different Miyazaki from what I'm used to…' The backgrounds are also different. Not so many handed. I think those are going very well…"

Another important aspect of animation nowadays surrounds using CG to create even 2D animated movies. Although Pixar is incredible in its own right, hand drawn 2D animation is a beloved style that still lives on today. Suzuki recalls an experience making Howl's Moving Castle where they converted some of their animation to CG initially, but later went back to hand drawing the remainder mid-way through because "it didn't seem very natural."

"If a movie at one point is made by the highest tech, it will become outdated soon.  There is one more point. We tried CG on Howl's. For example, the legs of the castle were made by CG. However, it didn't seem very natural to me and I told Miyazaki that his skill was better than that of a computer. He accepted it and quit using CG after that. Hence the latter half of Howl's doesn't include any CG. We now know CG has both its plus and minus sides. So the theme of this movie is as the story: simple. The visual effects are simple as well, while on the other hand it needs very hard working because of the drawing all it by hand."

The rest of the interview can be found at the above link. 

Ken Duncan - Jane rough animation from "Tarzan"

Good example of how an animator approaches a scene in the first rough pass, then tie-down pass before turning the scene over to the Clean-Up dept.

This animation is by Ken Duncan who was the supervising animator on Jane in Disney's "Tarzan" .

(click on the links to see the scenes. I could not embed the movies here)

Ken Duncan First Rough Pass

Ken Duncan Tie-Down Pass

Oskar Fischinger - "Komposition in Blau" (1935)

An astoundingly beautiful piece by Oskar Fischinger which recently surfaced on YouTube. If you ever have a chance to see Fischinger's work on a big-screen in 35mm film it's worth it . This YouTube clip is only a pale reflection of how intense this is .

*Update: OH, too bad ... such is the transitory nature of YouTube. The Fischinger "Kompostion in Blau" link has been removed from YouTube. That was fast :- (

It was nice while it lasted. Maybe it'll be reposted someday. In the meantime check out the link to the Oskar Fischinger archives I posted above and if this sort of work interests you then order the DVD they sell from that site.

Fantasia 2000 "Firebird" - Ted Kierscey Animation

Animator Pat Smith has a great post on "The Firebird" segment from Disney's Fantasia 2000 which I recommend to you :

Ted Kierscey's Animation of "The Firebird"

Very inspirational . We need to see this sort of thing to be reminded of what 2D animation is capable of and how really we only have just scratched the surface . Be sure to check out the progression clip that he posts from the Fantasia 2000 DVD :

Firebird Progression Reel

Inspiration: Eric Goldberg's Animation for Drew Carey's Green Screen

A post I made on my personal blog a while back, but I'm reposting here for your viewing pleasure . This is really masterful work.

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Here is a beautifully animated piece by Eric Goldberg, recently posted on YouTube, so if you missed it when it was broadcast here's your opportunity to see it.)

There was a clever show on for a while called "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show". It featured Drew Carey as the host , and an ensemble cast of improv actors doing skits in front of a "green screen" . After the live actors had done their stuff , the footage was handed over to various animators (coordinated by Acme Film Works) to embellish the skit with animation. The show never really took off , and like all improv sketches there were hits and misses . One of the hits, in fact probably the strongest piece that came out of this show, was a sequence called "Racetrack" animated by master animator Eric Goldberg.






In an article on Animation World Network there is a bit about the production process they used on the piece . I was interested to note that they used Mirage for the ink & paint. Notice how the drawings have a beautiful, organic hand-colored look , like watercolor washes or markers.

According to the article :

Without pre-sketching or testing, Goldberg animated with ink directly on paper, working in a style he was comfortable with, allowing for a certain amount of boil and spontaneity. He wanted the game's horse character to have the same scratchy, rubber-hose freedom of the Fleischer and Krazy Kat cartoons.

His wife, Susan Goldberg , assisted as art director, and his two daughters helped with mattes. Using Shake for compositing and Mirage for ink-and-paint, Scott Johnston helped achieve the animation's watercolor look.

Goldberg was committed to putting in as much technical detail as possible, such as the secondary action of the horse's reigns (animated by Todd Jacobson), because it makes the piece more convincing and compelling to watch. Goldberg feels this added effort adds a quality and touch that really sells the whole illusion.

There's more in the linked article from AWN , so take a look . I think that the Racetrack segment from Green Screen is as fine and funny a piece of animation as you're likely to see , so just for the pure enjoyment factor I wanted to share this . Someone was kind enough to post it on YouTube , so here 'tis :

(Note: the application called "Mirage" is no longer available as such . The company that used to sell Mirage , Bauhaus Software, no longer sells it . However the software development company that originally developed Mirage has taken over and is now marketing a much improved version of Mirage as TVP Animation. Check it out. I have also posted an entire blog with links to examples of work done with TVP Animation :
TVP Animation Blog.

Mike Nguyen

Jerry Beck at CartoonBrew.com reminds me that I should post a link to Mike Nguyen's blog , Rainplace .

If you don't know who Mike Nguyen is you really should .

His company July Films , is making an independent animated feature "My Little World" . I first met Mike back on The Little Mermaid .
He has gone on to be a supervising animator on such modern classics as "The Iron Giant" . For the past 5 or 6 years he's been working on his personal feature film "My Little World" , while taking on contract work from other studios to pay the bills .

You will definitely find some things worth reading and watching on either of Mike's two websites, the blog Rainplace or the My Little World site.


[click on image to see it larger]



(images copyright Mike Nguyen and July Films © 2008)

Maximal minimalism

A good example about how character animation is all about timing , not fancy graphics or camera moves. This gets a lot of mileage from pure charm and keen observation of real life , with a very simple art style.

James Baxter !

If you haven't heard the interviews with master animator James Baxter on The Animation Podcast , then get yourself over there to the Animation Podcast website right NOW and listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of the James Baxter Interview. Both interviews bear repeated listening. (and lots of other good stuff there on The Animation Podcast: interviews with Nik Ranieri, Dale Baer, Andreas Deja, and others ) .


Also of interest, Kevin Koch (one of James Baxter's assistants at Dreamworks) has posted several pencil tests that James did for the movie "Sinbad" .

James Baxter Animation Tests - CLICK HERE !