“Where do you get your ideas?”
After showing someone some character animation I have been working on, I was asked “Where do you get your ideas?”
My answer was “all over the place”.
Jillian Tamaki had a recent post where she talks a bit about the process she goes through in regards to idea generation. I thought it might be worthwhile to talk a bit about what goes through my head when approaching a character for the first time.
When I get a character to work on that has no animation done before hand, it’s exciting and scary all at the same time. You are defining this character, and making it appear that he/she/it is living for themselves. My process is basically the same as Ollie Johnston’s “What is the character thinking, and why does he feel that way?” Also, “Would anyone other than your mother want to watch it?”
While many animators tend to draw from literary sources, either comic, [Read more…]
