Getting to Know You - Film Studio Life

 

One of the surprising and fun things about being in a room of animators from all over the world is all of the nerdy things you can learn.

Within the first hour of meeting we were discussing the hip alignment on a passing pose, bottom or top teeth showing on a 'n' phenom and what secret hot keys we use to speed up our workflow.

My favourite new thing I learnt , and I'm sure everyone already knows this but just in case.... is a shortcut for Maya. If you want to scroll your timeline without touching it you can press 'k' and hold down the left mouse key. There you can scroll the time line without touching it. Mind blown! An animator is easily pleased.

We discussed using only I.K verses switching from F.K to I.K when needed and many other things. It was like a nerdy conference of the minds and in just one day I feel like I learnt so much.

I really love a studio that is collaborative. I've worked places before where hot keys and scripts are closely held secrets. People would keep them to themselves so that they had a upper hand to everyone else. It's great to feel that as a team we want everyone to be equip with all the info.

I'm almost jealous of all the juniors in the room. They are gaining such  level of insight that it took me years to cobble together.

In case you were wondering here are my favourite scripts that make my life a ton easier, but I'm sure I'll be discovering a lot more soon:
Tween machine

A machine that allows you to easily create inbetweens


ZV Parent

I hate constraints but this program makes using them a lot less painful

Animschool picker -

This free picker can be placed on any rig and allows you to easily select all your controllers. I mainly use this for the face but it's really useful



But people in work have recently been recommending Animbot


It seems insanely intuitive and helpful. I'm just looking into it and you do have to pay for it but I'm going to research a little more and let you know if it's worth it.


What shortcuts and scripts do you guys use? What do you find helpful?

First Day At A Film Studio

When I was younger I use to get up at 5am on Saturday mornings because they would show 'making of' documentaries. I'd record them on VHS and then re-watch them until the video would break. I'd watch the fresh faced animators of Pixar scoot around a crazy studio and dream that one day I'd work in a place like that.

As I got older I realised that it wasn't the studio I nessasarily wanted to work in (although that would be great), but it was the feeling those studios had that I was chasing. I wanted to be a part of something creative. I wanted to work on a movie that would make people happy and work with people who are excited to collaborate.

Skip ahead to 2019 as I make the long journey to take a tour of my potential new office.  A new company in Brisbane asked if I would join them to help make a feature film. It was an overwhelming offer that I had to carefully consider.  I was already working at a company I loved with friends that I was excited to see everyday.  After a few pep talks from some good people I realised that it was a big step that I was ready to take. I am now waiting on paperwork before I can jump in with two feet but yesterday I got my first tour. Since I've always been stupidly curious as to how studios work and how these things move I thought I'd take you along for the ride. I'm not going to be able to give you any details but I'll be able to give you a break down on the animation tricks I pick up and the ins and outs of a movie studio.

The Tour -

The studio isn't exactly in the centre of the world. It's two trains and an hours walk for me each way, which will show you how much I want to work on a film. This sounds insane and may mean I have to move house to stay sane (or learn to drive!) but it means I can do a ton of drawing on the commute and finally read again.

When I arrived I didn't know what to expect. The outside of the building looked like a brick factory but inside it was magical. Every inch has been designed to make you want to create. Clean white desks, black walls and iconic movie posters on every wall. It felt like the room was alive. Lots of smiling faces looked up (and luckily a few of them were familiar). All the animators stood nervously in one room and timidly introduced themselves. There are about ten of us from all corners of the globe. Luckily animators are a friendly bunch so it was easy to meet some nice people.

We had an introduction with the CEO and instantly it felt like we were part of something. The air was electric. Sat in the studio theater and listening to the leaders of the company talk made me feel like I was sat in one of those 'making of' videos. So far I have definitely made the right decision.

I really don't know what is going to happen on this project from here but sat in that room today made it feel like we wanted to create something special and surely that's the best building block for any project.

Let's Draw at the Ekka - Brisbane Drawing Day Video

Motivational Tips for Animators and Artists

Art and animation can be tough and there are times when all artists have gotten in a rut and don't know how to get out. So I thought I'd share some tips with you all on how I keep motivated and keep creating things.

Do you guys have any other tips for me? The more the better :)

Animal Facts - Comic

Recently I have been combining my two loves. Animal facts and drawing.

Here are a few for you:

My Favourite Copic Colours

I love art supplies but I hate buying things and then not using them or finding out that they are the wrong colours. I thought I'd make a video of all of my favourite Copic shades for you. Think of it as window shopping for art supplies :)

Blind Drawing - Doodles and Things - Cartoon Characters

I live far away from my family and that can really suck so recently my sister and I decided to do something fun together and record a drawing session. Since we are both artists (not that you would be able to tell from this video...haha) we thought it would be fun to draw some classic cartoon characters from memory.
We had a fantastic time and I can't wait to do it again with her.

A Few Things About Me...

Hello lovely people.

I love Youtube. I love watching illustrators and animators talk about art and the way they work. I enjoy it so much that I thought I would contribute something to the 'illustuber' community. I have tried a few times to get into the world of Youtube but with a full time job and an addiction to animating and drawing at home it has always felt quite hard to add in editing and making videos. Then I had an epiphany and thought of a way to make videos that would be a little less time consuming (and involve less of my face....very important to me). This is just a little intro video but I am hoping to start releasing a video every two weeks and then once a week if it goes well. Let's see how what we can make :)

Have a lovely day everyone and happy doodling.

Art Supplies Galore

I got an amazing gift from the fabulous Kakibot so I thought I'd make a video and test out some art supplies:

Things I Can't Draw

This Feb I started drawing my travel Zine. I had the notes and the ideas, but I had one major problem. I didn't like the drawings. I draw a lot these days but I draw very similar things. I never push myself so I thought I'd use March as a warm up month before I start drawing the zine. That is how I came up with the 'Things I Can't Draw' challenge. I made a list of all the things I hate drawing or never draw and set myself the challenge of doing one a day. 

So far it has been going well. I have found that most drawings go into one of three categories; 'This is more fun to draw than I thought', 'I can draw this if I spend time thinking about it' and 'I need lots of practice'.

Hands are something I draw every day but I always rush them and pig-headedly draw them without getting some reference. When I spent some time on them I was happy with the results. 

Scenery turned out to be really fun. I love how scenery drawings always come together when you ink them. The colours can be really expressionist and then the inked lines and details add life to the sketch. I'll definitely be doing more of them. 

Feet. I hate feet. I hate my feet. I don't like drawing feet. I will practice them more and hopefully grow to like drawing these weird mechanical yet organic objects. 

I'm only 10 days into the challenge but it has been fun so far. I have some hard days coming up but the results are pushing me through. 

What would be on your list of things you hate to draw? 

Getting back my Mojo at Anim Dojo

At the start of this year I decided that 2018's mission was to be a better animator. This August will be a milestone for me. It will be a decade since I became an animator. While I am relatively happy with my skills, I feel that it's easy to get comfy and I want to push myself to the next level. Another factor of pushing myself is that as an animation supervisor and lead in both 2d and CG I feel it's my job to help my junior animators and my team as much as possible. I want to be a good mentor to them. I feel I owe it to them to get my butt into gear. All of these reasons pushed me to join an online animation school called 'Anim Dojo'. Anim Dojo is a online animation site that is aiming to teach people who can already animate, how to animate better. 

When you've been an animator for many years , someone asking you to explain/ teach your process of working can sometimes feel like a golfer trying to explain their swing. They can use the tech speak but don't really know what they are technically doing to make it different from anyone else...they just do it and can't explain the nuisances, which is where Anim Dojo is coming in. 

We all know the tech speak of key poses and inbetweens but sometimes just saying 'work in a pose' can be daunting to Junior animators.  Animdojo is forcing me to breakdown (animation pun intended) my process. It's amazing to really feel like I'm working out the basics again and it's helping me deconstruct my work. 

Fingers crossed I can know all my bad habits out and build back up stronger. I've done it for two weeks and I already notice a HUGE difference. 

It's been stupidly fun so far and because I am paying for it each month it is pushing me to work in my own time. I have allocated three week nights to it so far but I'm so eager that I may do more. 

It is the cheapest online anim program I've found (which is a huge plus because I'm a horrid cheapskate) at only $30 (aud) a month. This is starting to sound like a paid advert and it definitely isn't. I just think it's something the animation industry has been missing and everyone should jump on it. It also helps that the company running it is called Blue Zoo where I use to work. I know they are an amazingly forward thinking company who are enthusiastic about their animators becoming better and not just worrying about their deadlines. 

To sum up...DO IT! 

I'll keep you up to date and post animations that I do from scratch. There are a lot of tasks that involve Maya scenes with your keys already given to you. This is to help practice timing (such a great idea) or scenes with the start and end keys in place so that you create your breakdowns (another genius idea). I won't post them because I don't want to show other peoples poses but I'll show you some work soon. 

p.s their rigs are to die for! 

New Year - New Creative Challenges

Happy New Year everyone!

It was a crazy 2017.

I started drawing like a loon and posting my drawings daily to Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/doodlezilla_/

and excitingly I have started a podcast that I absolutely love recording with my oldest friend of 23 years (and boyfriend) about Science Fiction. The basic concept is we have some drinks and I propose a fundamental change to the world and then we build a new world around that rule. How would it influence science , population, art and culture?


http://drinksanddystopia.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/ep-08-i-punch-lined-all-over-it-lee.html

It's just some silly fun but over 2000 people have listened so far (what?!).  It's exciting and I can't wait to carry on in 2018.

Other exciting adventures and missions are:

* Learn more Toonboom
* Paint more

What are your creative plans?

Getting Ready For Inktober

Hello guys. 

It's Inktober. We are in it. How is your drawing going? 

I made a video last week about the lead-up to Inktober and the prompts list I'll be following:

The funny thing about Inktober to me is how stressed everyone gets. It's interesting to see the pressures people put on themselves to be creative. I saw a fantastic talk given by Elizabeth Gilbert about the pressures of being creative and how we tie it into our personality. As if doing a bad drawing makes you a bad person or untalented in all ways. This is such a hard hurdle to jump over. I only found a way over it by throwing all my drawings out there and realising that the world didn't disown me because I wasn't the worlds greatest artist. Here is the video ...it's really inspiring: 

I love Iinktober because it takes the pressure off and gives you the chance to put art out there without people judging you. People know you only had an hour or two to get it done and everyone is also putting work out there so everyone knows and feels how difficult it can be. 

I love Inktober as an idea. I think it is encouraging people not only to be creative but to be compassionate and enthusiastic artists. I also selfishly love looking at all the art that is around. So much to see!!!! 

Enjoy it, only do it if you want to or can and enjoy it. Enjoying creating things is really the only part of this that matters. If you do one drawing or 31...or even just get inspired by looking at the #inktober #intober2017 or #pinktobertime hashtags...that's all that matters.

Enjoy guys and happy doodling x

How to Refill a Copic Marker Pen...Or At Least Try Too!

I love marker pens. I don't know why I only started using them a few months ago but I feel they are really helping me improve my art skills. You can't 'ctrl Z' a piece of art work that's really on the page. 

I love them so much that I used up all the ink in one of them. It's taken using it every day for about 5 months for this to happen so it's still impressive that it lasted so long but it was either time to learn to refill or to cop out and just buy another pen. 

I watched some great videos on YouTube on how to refill my pens and gave it a go. Links can be found in the video description if you want to watch the pro's that taught me to do it :) 

My steps summarised are: 

1. buy the correct refill

2. Take both lids off of your pen

3. Lay down a material you don't mind getting destroyed (just in case of spillage)

4. Slowly drip the ink onto the nib of the pen (I do it on the driest end) 

5. I'm still not sure the real amount of drips but it can be anywhere between 17 - 25...depending on how empty it is. 

6. When you think it's full drip one or two drops on the other end of the pen to wet it. 

7. Leave lids off for about 20 seconds to let the air circulate and the air pressure to normalise (not sure if this helps but it seems to stop blobbing...be warned...this is made up Tania science) 

8. Test on a piece of paper you don't care about

9. Use pen and be proud that you refilled it like a boss

I hope this works for you guys x

What I've Learnt - Drawing Vlog

I love drawing. I always have but I also suffer from artists burn out. I wanted to see if I could change my way of thinking and get more creative.

In work, I work so hard that by the time I come home I'm so tired that I only have enough energy to watch some telly. This was getting me nowhere both creativity wise and it meant I always had a lot of washing today at once. I got annoyed by this. I have mentioned on here before that I have started drawing more over the last few months so it seemed about time that I threw myself at a drawing challenge. It was a month long challenge where I tried to draw every day. It's funny how something can seem impossible before you do it and afterwards it seems impossible that you could think it was ever going to be that hard. It was great fun. I got a drawing out each day and although I wasn't happy with the level of skill they showed, I learnt a lot.

Here is a video talking about the lessons I learnt while sketching. Hopefully, they can help someone like me to not be afraid to pick up a pencil and scribble something:

Pink Hair - The Lazy Vlog

Hi there ,
Last weekend I took the plunge and dyed my hair pink (and a little purple hidden underneath).
I really love it. I did it last year but chickened out after a week and washed all the colour out. This time I'm really enjoying it. Hurray to being a big kid.
I have some art videos coming out soon. I'm excited to start my next big art challenge. The next one is one I've devised myself. I'm calling it 'A Copic a Day'. It's going to be a different copic colour every day. I can only use the one colour. I'm excited to practice (and a little embarrassed that I have over 30 Copic colours).
I'm getting ready for Inktober and trying to practice as much as possible. It will be the first one I've done and I'm really excited. Inktober feels like the exciting illustration event of the year. It's when artists do an ink drawing every day for a month under the hashtag #Inktober. I'm happy that I'll get to be part of it. Hopefully I'll also be good enough at making videos to attempt Vlogmas this year...we will see. :D

What did you all get up to this weekend?What colour would you love to dye your hair?

Have a great day guys,
Tania xx

The Lazy Vlog - A Bookfest & Brisbane Weekend

Happy People's Day!
Peoples day is when everyone in Brisbane gets a day off because there is a famous county fair type event that happens. It's weird to have a day off for this but ...hey...I'm not going to complain.

I managed to find a little time to edit this together. Here is a little mini Lazy Vlog for you to watch. This is what we got up to recently.

How did you guys spend your Wednesday?

My Art Haul - or Why I Love Etsy

About 5 months ago I was living a very minimal life . We'd moved to Australia with just two suitcases and I felt great not having 'stuff'. Then I decided, for reasons I'm sure I'll bug you with another day, to start getting back into non-digital art. This, it turns out, is an expensive hobby.

Why are markers so expensive?!?!?

Anyway , this one hobby has gotten out of control.

Of course this lead to me getting to know other illustrators, which lead to me discovering Etsy.
Oh jeez! So many things I want to own. So I started off by buying just one enamel badge. This lead to another and before I knew it I'd signed up to Patreon because I'd buy these people a coffee so why wouldn't I help out their art. It was dangerous rabbit hole.

I have it under control right now (not that you'd know it from this video). So I thought I'd show you guys all the things I got from the talented people I know and have discovered.

And yes....that is the Gilmore girls on in the background at the end.

The Lazy Vlog - Us Attempting To Taste Wine

Hello Lovely People! 

Last Friday Lee and I got home from work. We had no plans and decided to go a little crazy and get some nice wine for our dinner. We tried to buy a nice bottle but quickly realised we still knew nothing about wine, even after two wine tours that we recently went on in New Zealand and in Western Australia.
So we did what all good people who can't decide on one bottle do...we bought two. We wanted to test our knowledge and see if we had learnt ANYTHING.....just a heads up....the answer is: no ...no we didn't. 

What we drank: 
*Oyster Bay - Sauvignon blanc - $20
* Wahu - Sauvignon blanc - $7

Travel Doodle Journal - New Zealand Edition

I've always loved to scribble down doodles, normally based on weird things that happen through the day. So a travel journal was the next step. Here are the sketches from our recent trip. All were drawn in my handy Kmart A5 sketch book , which is surprisingly the BEST sketch book and only $2 ...yes it's shocking! I took a ton of Copic pens with me, my Copic multi liners in 0.4 and 0.05 , as well as my prisma colour pencils (which have no rubbers on the ends any more from over use...opphs)
If you have any questions about the certain colours I used, please just ask. I've bought all my colours by seeing other people use them and then needing to get it to complete my weird colour obsession: