Floyd Bishop

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…]

Many times when you’re an animator, you’ll get a script or some notes with a very vague description of the action you need to create. In the above clip (which wasn’t scripted), you can see lots of great little moments that could help you out on a shot or scene later on. Observation is very important in animation, so let’s look at this clip a bit to see why it is entertaining.

The description of the clip could have been something like: “Two brothers, one older and one younger, are sitting in a chair. The younger brother bites the older brother.” Many times, it’s up to the animator to make that entertaining.

•  Watch how the older brother offers his finger to Charlie. Surely he cannot be hurt by his baby brother.
• As Charlie (the baby) starts to bite, watch the older brother’s face as he starts to realize that putting his finger in [Read more…]