Pencil Test Depot is a blog for the people who love pencil tests. Jamaal Bradley has amassed a collection of pencil tests from classic Disney films plus interesting pencil tests from other sources. A recent addition is a series of pencil tests from Disney’s Princess and the Frog that were animated by Matt Williames. Read the rest of this entry »

Highlights of British animation 1985
The Year of Animation was officially launched on 24th January 1985 at the National Film Theatre in London with a special showing of Highlights of British Animation 1899 – 1974. David Jefferson reports on the proceedings.

Disney Animator Ollie Johnston
Ollie Johnston is one of the legendary Nine Old Men of the Disney studios. He has worked on all the Disney feature films from Snow White to Fox and the Hound. Father Robert Murphy conducted this interview with him in 1981 at the Disney studios.

Harold Whitaker : A professional animator
John Halas writes about the work of Harold Whitaker and records some of his experiences in working with him. Read the rest of this entry »

Ray Harryhausen with Serpent Woman from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

A special contest celebrating the life and works of Ray Harryhausen, who turns 90 on June 29th, 2010, has been announced by Stop Motion Magic.

Ray Harryhausen is regarded by many as one of the greatest stop motion animators and special effects wizards of all time. During his long career Ray Harryhausen has taken movie goers on adventures through mythical lands with heroes like Jason and Sinbad, and has shown the monsters that lurk beneath the sea. Read the rest of this entry »

The 11 Second Club holds a monthly character animation competition in which animators from all over the world can participate. The challenge is to animate a character speaking a line of dialogue provided by the club. During the competition participants can share their progress with each other and evaluate each other’s work. At the end of the month, everyone votes for the submission they consider the best for that month. The idea is to give animators a chance to practice their skills in a fun, challenging environment. Read the rest of this entry »

Animator Issue 11. Winter 1984.

Animated Comment – Ken Clark chats with Richard Williams
Richard Williams talks about his animated feature “The Thief” and other projects.

Animated cartoons televised in the USA 1946-1981
George W. Woolery gives a brief history of Animated cartoons as televised programming in the United States 1946-1981.

Pop goes Hierographics trace and paint service
David Jefferson talks to Steve Flack about the exciting new projects his company are getting involved in.

The kitchen as an puppet animation studio
The Burglar was voted the most popular film at the Animator’s Association (ANIMA) Festival held in September 1984. Film maker Tina Fletcher tells how she progressed from puppet shows to puppet films and the production of The Burglar. Read the rest of this entry »

Realistic Eye Motion

A technology section covering many aspects of computer animation has been added at the Walt Disney Animation website.

The publications section features papers and talks on subjects ranging from CASE STUDY – Beauty and the Beast 3D Benefits of 3D Viewing for 2D to 3D Conversion to Realistic Eye Motion Using Procedural Geometric Methods.

Animator Issue 10. Autmn 1984.

The Art Babbitt Classical Animation Course
Art Babbitt’s course outline contains lots of helpful advice to the budding animator and much food for thought. The notes could also be used as a guide to self study

Art Babbitt by Richard Williams
One of the great artist-animators from the golden years of the Disney Studios, Art Babbitt, was at the Richard Williams Studio in London running an animation course.

Siriol and SuperTed
In just three years Siriol Animation has grew into one of Britain’s largest animation studios. Frank Baker looks at their background.

The Shadows Move – the 1970s
Ken Clark concludes his history of British animation. Read the rest of this entry »

Animator Issue 9. Summer 1984.

TVC Animation Studio from the Beatles to the Snowman
TV Cartoons Limited are better known by their initials TVC. Formed in the summer of 1957 by George Dunning and John Coates.

The Shadows Move – Part Six – the rise of TV animation
The feverish activity that went into the making of Britain’s first entertainment cartoon feature ANIMAL FARM ended, leaving in its wake the pertinent question: What now?

Walk-Run Cycles for Cartoon Animation
Sheila Graber, well known professional animator, gives us some tips on getting our characters moving.

Feature Films at the Cambridge animation Festival 1983
A strong bunch of films were chosen for the feature section of the Cambridge Festival. Read the rest of this entry »

A Matter of Loaf and Death

The Wallace and Gromit TV short “A Matter of Loaf and Death” has been nominated for an Oscar for best animated short film in the 82nd Academy Awards. It was made at the Aardman animation studio and directed by Nick Park. Nick has previously been Oscar nominated five times and won four times (the fifth nomination was against another of his own films).

A Matter of Loaf and Death was the big TV hit of Christmas 2008 and features the voices of Geraldine McEwan, Peter Sallis and Sally Lindsay. Read the rest of this entry »

MonkeyJam is a free digital pencil test program that runs on the Windows operating system. It lets you capture images from a webcam, camcorder, or scanner and assemble the separate frames into an animation. You can also import existing images and sound files from your computer. Although it is designed for pencil and paper, MonkeyJam can also be used for stop-motion animation. Once you have created your movie it can be exported as an AVI file.

MonkeyJam information panel (click pic to enlarge)

The MonkeyJam software downloaded and installed on my PC without problems. The program starts with a window containing an information panel and a frame list. There is a help file with a quick start section to give the basics.

The first step is to select a folder to store your image files. The nest step is to select a method of adding your images to the frame list. This can be from a video source such as webcam or from a scanner. Alternatively you can import existing image files that you already have on you computer.

For the purposed of this test I decided to use the stills that I had created for my bouncing ball demonstration. It was simply a matter of selecting the images from the computer and clicking the import button. To view the animation you select Preview from the Tools menu and the software builds your movie and opens another window to play it back. It is as simple as that. You can then export your movie to an AVI file for sharing with others, such as uploading to YouTube. Read the rest of this entry »