Nail Art

Here is an amazing compilation of photos of... Nails. Not only are these fun to look at, but they are great examples of how staging, lighting and line of action can tell a story visually. Note how the shapes of the nails can communicate emotion, intent, physical state, and even age. When two or more nails are present in the frame, you can deduce their relationship by the contrast and/or affinity of their poses, their relative sizes, and their spacial placement. Enjoy!

Mowgli animation by Milt Kahl

Milt Kahl (Mowgli) from Victor Ens on Vimeo.

I don't know if this has been posted around, but it's always inspirational to look at some well-drawn animation. And of course Milt Kahl is the king of well-drawn animation! Check out the weight, timing and solid draftsmanship in this clip! We are not worthy. While you're looking at that, I'll be busy trying to get together some photos from CG Overdrive to post. Stay tuned!

I'll be at CG Overdrive in Singapore next week

If you're planning on being in Singapore next week, why not swing by the annual CG Overdrive Conference? I'll be giving a couple of animation lectures there, along with fellow Pixar Animator John Collins. Alex Woo from Pixar's story department will also be speaking there, as will be plenty of other industry professionals, and it should be a good time. I'm looking forward to some BBQ stingray, myself!

Partly Cloudy on iTunes

If you've seen UP, then you've (hopefully) also seen the charming short film that precedes it, Partly Cloudy. Of course it looks best on the big screen - and it's pretty neat in 3D, too - but you can purchase and download it from the iTunes store right now!

One more thing...

Stocks down? Go see UP!

Pixar had the honor of ringing the bell to close the New York Stock Exchange today, while celebrating the opening of our latest feature, Up. You can see info and a clip of the event here (look for me near the back row - I'm one of the greenish pixels). You can't do any more trading, so why not go see the film? Right now. I'll wait.

Meet the Spy

Here's another brilliant cinematic sequence from the guys at Valve. It was about a year ago that I posted some other Team Fortress 2 Character Trailers, and I'm glad to see they're still making them! Great writing, design and animation, and a healthy dose of sex and violence.

And in case you missed this one (like I did) here's Meet the Sniper. Enjoy!

UPDATE: You can see all the character movies in high quality here.

Some old stuff

Enough of all this new stuff, let's jump in the Way-Back Machine! It's the summer of 1999, I've been hired as an animator at Pixar and I'm working on "Monsters, Inc." - the other Pete Docter film. I have no feature film animation experience (or much of any animation experience at all), I'm still getting the hang of Pixar's software and I'm worried that I'll get canned as soon as they find out I'm winging it! These are the memories that returned to me as I was thumbing through a stack of old planning drawings I did for Monsters. For posterity I've uploaded a few to my Animation Thumbs Gallery. It's nice to see that my drawing has gotten better, and I'm pretty confident that my animation has, too. They haven't fired my yet, so I must be doing something right!