BJ and the Blog

Rough Animation

2011-07-29T17:54:00.005-06:00

I've been drawing and animating more than I ever have in my entire career, but you wouldn't know it but following this blog.

I've been producing a lot of work, but since it's all work for projects that haven't been released yet, I officially have nothing to talk about.

But I did take the day to work on something entirely my own, which is a rare thing. Something simple and fun, which is harder than you'd think it would be.

This is a first pass at rough animation. In this video, you'll see me working off my thumbnails and getting everything out there to see. Some of the ideas I like, some I know I'm going to abandon. I'm looking for clarity and over all pacing, not so much the perfectly drawn pose, that will come in later tests.

So what you're seeing is pretty unvarnished stuff, there's a lot I dislike about this test, but I see a few parts that I like. Those few things are what will make me go forward with the test and hopefully finish it.

CellPhone from bj crawford on Vimeo.

Thumbnailing

2011-04-06T20:10:00.008-06:00

Jamaal Bradley posted a couple of pages of his thinking and planning for a great shot he did in Tangled. I usually thumbnail before I do anything else. Video reference is helpful, but thumbnailing always comes first. Part of my workflow used to include an animated thumbnail pass before doing the animation at full size. It's all about thinking through your ideas and working towards a visualization of the scene before you commit to going in and doing the actual motion that the audience ends up seeing. These pages certainly fit the bill. They show thought and exploration. It's great to compare his initial thoughts with the final product (which you can see here). A lot can change from a first thumbnail pass to a final animation, but in my experience and as seen in Jamaal's sketches, there is always a strong connection between my final animation and the first burst of ideas and problem solving in a small series of doodles.

Here is a small sheet of thumbnails that I did. I never animated it, but I still see all the ideas I wanted to hit in the animation. Usually when I get into the weeds of planning all the movement, my thumbnails get a lot more scribbly and off model. But as long as it shows the ups and downs, and the rhythm of the motion, it provides a perfect road map for diving into the animation.

And here is a random sketch I did. Don't ask me what it has to do with this post.

The Illusionist and Mr. O

2011-01-15T21:36:00.005-06:00

It's always interesting to me where fellow animators draw their inspiration from. After talking to a colleague of mine, I found out that he became interested in animation after being enthralled by the clay animation video game, 'The Neverhood Chronicles'. Another colleague saw "The Rescuers" at the age of six and wanted to do animation from that point on.

Cats Don't Dance had a pretty big impact on me. Seeing Sylvain Chomet's 'Triplets of Belleville' partly convince me to finish my film. 'The Monk and the Fish' and 'Father and Daughter' also shaped the way I think about animation. After seeing 'The Illusionist' today, I'm almost positive this will be added to the list as another landmark. I admit I loved the movie even before I saw it, but the leap in the sophistication of the character animation is palpable and is something to be experienced. Even when the trailers came out, a friend remarked that it looked like a film full of new Milt Kahl animation. I agree.

Here's some commercial work I did awhile back. I worked with the director Aaron Sorenson (he did the original layout drawings), to help complete this campaign for Honda. I learned a lot working with him on this animation. You can really grow a lot as an artist by animating and drawing in styles that aren't naturally your own.

I will swap out this pencil test with a non-commercial character animation when I carve out some free time to do it. After seeing the Illusionist, I can really say that I'm inspired to do just that.

Blue Pastures

2010-05-31T11:25:00.004-06:00

The very talented Bobby Pontillas asked me on several occasions when I'd be doing my "Blue Sky" post. He keeps checking the blog (probably not any more) to see if it's up. Here it is Bobby..

I've been at Blue Sky for a couple months now and it's been an awesome experience. It's hard to describe what it's like to be surrounded by so much talent. Everyone there knows there stuff and sets very high standards for themselves. It's made me push harder as an animator than I ever have. Producing animation that has character, personality and appeal is tough and this studio does it the best.

Having said that, here is some animation that shouldn't be over analyzed or scrutinized. It was done entirely for fun.

Norma Desmond

2010-03-03T11:49:00.002-06:00

Glenn Close has a fantastic voice. Her over-the-top role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's over-the-top musical adaptation of Sunset Boulevard is a goldmine for an animator. I heard the broadway recording of the musical 8-9 years ago and my friend and I knew from the start that it would be great to experiment with animating even a small sliver of her performance as Norma Desmond. I found a 30 second clip and blocked out the action. It's been good for me to explore animating an extended scene of a female character. Here's just a taste of the scene I'm chipping away at:

"A Time for All Seasonings" on Vimeo

2010-01-20T15:39:00.006-06:00

For those of you who didn't know I made an animated short film, well...I made an animated short film. I uploaded the video to Vimeo and it's a bit larger than the video posted to the film's website.

So here it is. As a film, it contains some very beautiful and cheerful animation, a great(improvised) piano score. It also has all the short comings of a first film by a first-time filmmaker.

To this day, I'm grateful to everyone who worked on it (all the animation drawings and mattes were individually scanned, cleaned and painted). That's why the list of assistant artists is so long. Even if someone just worked on the project for a day, I put their name up there.

A chunk of my animation on the film is from back in college (ten years ago) along with some great animation by professionals Mike Owens and Joe Merideth who came in and matched my style of animation extremely well.

A Time for All Seasonings from bj crawford on Vimeo.

Subway animation inbetweened

2010-01-08T03:18:00.002-06:00

This piece was roughed out for an in-class demo at Columbia College. And it sat there.

Then I cleaned the keys up. And it sat there.

Then I added an ending to it in rough storyboard form. And it sat there.

This week I finally inbetweened and scanned it. And now it sits here:

Subway from bj crawford on Vimeo.

RUN!!!

2009-12-29T18:38:00.002-06:00

Hello all. This is a run I did a few years back. I like it because it's in perspective. It feels a bit all over the place, but it undeniably has an energy to it.

SO, SO, SO Close

2009-12-21T14:18:00.004-06:00

I am one step away from calling the Panda animation DONE. I started this piece a year and a half ago after being inspired by Jon J Muth's work. I've tirelessly chipped away at painting each frame level by level until this week, when I finish the final section and exported the movie with a bit of sound added to make it feel complete. The only additional task is to add some movement to the foreground branches. I wanted to add them in this time, just to show the overall composition.

Almost Complete ZEN PANDA from bj crawford on Vimeo.

The very first test I did of the project looked like THIS:

It's come along way since May 2008. I enjoyed combining animation and watercolor but I can't say that I'd do it again. It's very time consuming and only a fraction of the time was devoted to the character animation.

Again, thanks to the inspiring work of Jon J Muth and since this is more or less a holiday post here's the cover art from his lastest book "The Christmas Magic":

Meltdown

2009-12-04T09:13:00.008-06:00

***UPDATE*** This piece of animation got added to a Vimeo channel called MOTION FARM. Anyone who is a fan of animation should check this channel out.

The sound clip for November's 11 Second Club contest was too good to pass up. I laugh every time I listen to it. The folks that run the website are always offering up interesting and different tracks to work with. Plus, I work best under deadlines, so there you have it.

Meltdown from bj crawford on Vimeo.

My first impluse after hearing the track was to go and look at all of my Norman Rockwell books. He's the best artist to draw inspiration from because every piece he creates is teeming with rich narrative. I try and start every animation with an idea, not a specific piece of acting, but a narrative idea, and then the acting flows out of that. Here is one of the many images of Santa created by Rockwell:

I didn't get the idea of using Santa from Rockwell, but I thought of the idea while looking through his books, so I thought I'd just focus in on using his version of Santa as a starting point.

Here is the very, very first pass I did of the animation. This test is at 50% of the size I ended up animating the actual drawings at.

Thanks again to everyone who stops by to read my blog.

A Day For Hand Drawn Animation - 2009

2009-11-18T12:42:00.002-06:00

Today I'll be enthusiastically celebrating the hand-drawn holiday, here:

WALKIN'

2009-11-07T17:57:00.009-06:00

Here are a few great videos for you to enjoy:

The first one is a robot walking like a human. Uh, WOW.

And here is my great friend Joe Merideth teaching a class at Columbia College Chicago on the mechanics of a walk.

Walk Demo Prt 1 from Joseph Merideth on Vimeo.

And finally, here is Joe's key test of his walk cycle.

Rough Key Test from Joseph Merideth on Vimeo.

Process PART 2: Researching

2009-10-21T11:12:00.006-06:00

Coming up with an idea and dreaming about the endless possibilities of that idea is, in most ways, the easiest part.

I think of the "idea" as something located on the opposite side of a dark room. If you just start walking forward through the room, you'll trip and stumble over furniture because you don't know the layout as well as you thought. But if you take time to illuminate it before walking to the other side, the likelihood that you'll be tripped up by obstacles is diminished somewhat.

I built my character out of clay, and in addition I've built up my confidence in drawing her. I've done this before with other characters and it always helps.

Process PART 1

2009-10-15T13:18:00.007-06:00

First things first. To start animating on a piece, you gotta order the paper. Here is my box of 12 Fld Ingram from Cartoon Color. This is the scariest part, a big box of blank white paper......

Zen Panda update

2009-10-09T22:51:00.003-06:00

I thought I might be able to complete all of the painting on the panda by the end of the week, but I didn't quite get there. I need to shelve it right now to move onto other things, but it WILL get done. It's just a matter of time...

Here is another section of the colored version.

Zen Panda Animation part 1 from bj crawford on Vimeo.

Subway Animation, next step

2009-09-21T11:50:00.004-06:00

Here is the next step I took in finishing up the SUBWAY piece.

My feeling was that if I wanted to show a woman taking a seat in a subway car, that I should contrast it with another character sitting down beside her. A wobbly drunk was a good contrast, and showed proof that the woman came prepared and could defend herself.

This is just a very rough pass that I edited in with the woman's animation. The drawings were done in Photohop and timed in DigiCel Flipbook.

August Entry

2009-09-05T13:35:00.008-06:00

Thief from bj crawford on Vimeo.

This month was a struggle. The idea, for which I had some help, was difficult to come by. The posing and blocking could have been better. I received excellent feedback, and I wish I had more time to incorporate it.

I probably spent too much time preparing to animate. (Weird, I know). I looked at a lot of Milt Kahl, Glene Keane and Will Eisner. I spent time photographing hand/body reference. But then I just did a lot of sitting around thinking and worrying.

Here is the first blocking I did:

And then the final blocking:

A lot of the best feedback I received picked up on problems that are noticable in these two blocking tests. But I sorta refused any hardcore critique at this stage - bad move on my part!
Anyways, it came together in the end, but there is still work to be done in his performance.
Oh, and the phone cord is missing... gotta remember to add that in.

11 Second Club June Entry

2009-07-04T14:36:00.007-06:00

***UPDATE*** Thank you to all of the members at the 11 Second Club for voting and commenting on this piece of animation. I take all of the feedback seriously, so the time taken to rate and then write something means a lot.

After a busy first part of June, I put everthing else aside and deticated the last two weeks of June to the 11 Second Club. After hearing the track it only took a couple minutes before I starting doodling a clown in the entrance of a fancy restaurant. I sat on the idea for a couple days and then began work on the animation. below are a bunch of sketches that included designs for the clown and thumbnails for the animation. Enjoy!

Color Test for PANDA

2009-05-31T12:17:00.009-06:00

As someone who loves animation so much, whenever I see an illustration that I'm really drawn to, I'm always thinking about how it would look if it were animated.

I posted a pencil test awhile back of a panda bear jumping around on a roof, based on a beautiful children's book called Zen Shorts. But it needs to be colored in the original watercolor style to have the full effect. Between commercial projects, I've been slowly coloring every frame of the animation. Here is a quick color test of the middle section of the piece. The body tones have yet to be added to most of these frames.

Key Animation

2009-04-11T10:30:00.003-06:00

Here is a Key test for a woman sitting down in a subway car. It's the first half of a larger piece of animation. The test is mostly on fours. I'm trying to work harder on controlling my slow ins and slow outs. This key test is not quite finished. I want to get it to the point where I'd feel comfortable handing it to an inbetweener (which will end up being ME). But separtating the KEYS from the INBETWEENS will be a good exercise for me.

2009-01-20T23:57:00.000-06:00

"SPY" (thanks ronald searle!)

2009-01-09T01:58:00.000-06:00

2009-01-07T02:46:00.000-06:00

Jackalope of sorts.....

2009-01-06T01:58:00.000-06:00

2009-01-05T00:28:00.000-06:00

2009-01-04T00:18:00.000-06:00

SKETCHBOOK DUMP #1

2008-12-10T14:16:00.002-06:00

Thank You to Cartoon Brew!!!

2008-11-23T10:33:00.001-06:00

I woke up this morning and checked my usual animation-related websites, and saw that Cartoon Brew linked to the film!

Since the film was completed, it's been in a few film festivals, and then it got way too expensive to continue entering "A Time for All Seasonings" into fest after fest.

Because the project was something produced out of a love for animation, it was more important to put it online for free, so anyone could enjoy it.

As for ChewBone, the animation collective that produced the film, Joe Merideth has started in on a new film project that I am very excited to be a part of. He has even started posting a few storyboard concepts on his blog. www.joesdrawings.blogspot.com

With SO MUCH animation being produced by talented artists these days, I was more excited and honored to see that Jerry noticed the film and wanted to help other animation lovers see the finished product. So THANKS AGAIN CARTOON BREW!

A Time for All Seasonings has a WEBSITE

2008-11-19T10:34:00.002-06:00

A Time for All Seasonings is now online

You can watch the entire 6 minute film!

Designs for TRIX commercial

2008-11-18T10:15:00.001-06:00

2008-11-07T13:49:00.001-06:00

2008-10-29T09:14:00.000-06:00

2008-10-28T12:10:00.001-06:00

2008-10-27T12:38:00.001-06:00

Panda pencil test frames 1 through 500

2008-08-21T06:45:00.002-06:00

Panda frames 146-347

2008-08-17T19:37:00.000-06:00

Panda Animation Frames 208-345

2008-08-16T23:09:00.000-06:00

key test, all frames

2008-08-16T11:59:00.001-06:00

Ollie the Ox

2008-05-29T11:47:00.003-06:00

I HAVE been drawing and animating, a little.

2008-05-20T14:58:00.007-06:00

2008-03-23T18:34:00.000-06:00

Final round of BEAR posts

2007-12-07T14:11:00.000-06:00

This will be that last of the bear drawings for awhile. I've had an idea floating around in my head that I wanted to explore, so I've been doing designs and thinking through the concept. I really like the concept, but the story hasn't quite come together so I'm mentally placing it on the back burner and moving on. Maybe I'll come back to it at some point in the future....

2007-11-10T01:53:00.002-06:00

2007-11-08T01:13:00.000-06:00

2007-10-19T07:13:00.000-06:00

A Bear!!!

2007-09-22T17:59:00.000-06:00

Autumn in Chicago

2007-09-15T23:47:00.000-06:00

2007-09-11T22:49:00.000-06:00

more me, more to come.

2007-09-02T09:20:00.000-06:00

These are a couple of older sketches that I recently found in a pile of drawings.

A bunch of self portraits

2007-08-01T13:48:00.001-06:00

All these drawings are the same basic idea: a portrait of my dog and I. I tried to start out more detailed and end up with a nice short-hand caricature. I'm not there yet on any of them, but I'll post more as I do them...

Katie and Jeff's wedding invitation

2007-06-22T14:27:00.001-06:00

My sister, Katie, is getting married to her wonderful fiance, Jeff Dutina, this July!!! I had the honor of designing their wedding invitation. They requested an invitation with a design that was light and fun, so I threw in the two cats they own.

animation test

2007-06-02T17:54:00.000-06:00

Wow. Major break from the blog. Sorry.

Here is a key test from a commercial I worked on. I thumbnailed it and keyed it out in a couple days. It's really a first pass... a lot of stuff wobbling around, but oh well.

life drawings

2007-05-14T15:02:00.000-06:00

Some form of Acting...

2007-05-03T10:04:00.000-06:00

New Ipod AD

2007-05-01T11:20:00.000-06:00

Dude on a Skateboard

2007-04-28T11:59:00.000-06:00

New Venue

2007-04-26T15:06:00.000-06:00

This is a sketch of a rejected Lucky Charms kid.