The
Blog
Is Performance Capture "Live-Action" or "Animation?"
Actors in green suits with ping-pong balls. That’s the idea most people have when you say “motion capture” but we are way past that visual at this point. Technology moves (seemingly) so much faster now than it ever has… so much so that it’s hard to keep up with the terminology, let alone the techniques. I try to solve the question of where “performance capture” falls on the landscape of visual storytelling.
How to Animate Faster - 5 Efficiency Tips
My 5 efficiency tips on how to animate faster
How to Keep Your Freelance Animation Business Growing
The final entry in my 4-part series on how to start a Freelance Animation business. This week we talk about growing your business, hiring some help, setting up collaborations and putting it all together by adjusting quotes to allow for expansion.
Making More Money - Getting Through Your Freelance "Plateau"
Part 3 in my 4-part series on how to start a Freelance Animation business. This week we talk about making more money, why you might be hesitant to quote more, what a plateau is how to make lateral moves which benefit you!
Building Your Brand for Freelance Animation
This is part 2 in my 4-part series on how to start a Freelance Animation business. This week we discuss deciding what you want your brand to be, how to package it, and ultimately best practices for self-promotion.
What to Expect in Your First Year as a Freelance Animator
I've made being a Freelance Animator my full-time job since 2006; and on this 10-year anniversary I've decided to pass on what I've learned about making a real living out of freelancing. This is the first in a four-part series.
What to Do When Technology Lets You Down as an Artist - how to plan for, troubleshoot and fix crashes
Technology is great. And yes, even in (and maybe even especially for) art. Technology can make your work more accurate, it can make you faster, and both of those things are helpful in keeping up with the content demands of today.But one of the worst things as an artist is when that technology suddenly fails you and you don't know what to do! It's especially annoying if you knowingly relented into using a new piece of tech because of the promise of efficiency - when that fails, it seems like a cosmic joke. Here's some things I've learned over the years that help me avoid or deal with those problems...
How to be Productive When You're Lazy - A Guide for Artists
As an artist, there's a good chance you've been called "lazy." You've probably also felt like you're not as productive or prolific as you could be. Let these two factors mingle around in your brain long enough and you'll start believing that you're the exact type of stereotypical "lazy artist" that people might say you are. There's a lot of ups-and-downs in the life of an artist - some of this is due to the nature of being a creative and some of it is just life. Let me show you some of the things I've learned and give you 5 steps to getting back to a productive lifestyle when you feel lazy.
Copyright and What Animators Need To Know About It - Parody, Fair Use, Fan Art
As an animator, it's important to me to be able to pull from collectively known culture (sometimes "pop," sometimes old) in order to tell a visual story. Culture is a language that we can use to communicate and connect with others and the wider that particular culture is (meaning that of music, stories, and now film) the more people you, as an artist, can reach. But then there's Copyright, which stands in the way of using certain types of culture because it's protected. That can feel unnecessary until it's YOUR work that you don't want appropriated for another use than what you intended. Having something fall out of your hands like that feels like stealing, but is it? I've taken the last couple months reading and compiling information in order to distill it down for you, the animator, whether you're concerned about your use of copyrighted material in parody, fan art or question why it even exists in the first place. Why is the copyright term so long anyway? All (relatively speaking) will be revealed!