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Always Animated

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OFF TO THE FESTIVAL

HEY!

This Saturday, I am off to Statesboro, GA. to the Art Fest (its 25th year). I am borrowing a shelter and some other stuff and I am taking my wares on the road. I call my work The Wandering Artist Salon (WAS) because most of it is done plein air (without a net). I really enjoy drawing and painting on location.
What makes me enthusiastic about this Festival is that this is the first time I am taking my oil paintings

I will have my normal inventory of cards, prints and watercolors. If you are in the area stop by- it is on the campus of Georgia Southern University - again, in Statesboro on Sweethearts Circle. There will be about 35 other artists with demonstrations (10:00 am - 7:00 pm) BBQ and musicians on two stages with entertainment all day -and a concert beginning at 7:00 pm...did I mention BBQ?

In Blogs: Always Animated

ANIMATION LESSON - CENTER OF GRAVITY (part two)

Character Movement:

In the first lesson on center of gravity we showed how when a character is standing still – an imaginary line runs vertically through to the feet. (fig. 1)

Because they are standing with their weight equal on their two feet, the character is centered or balanced on those two feet.

When a character moves they will try to stay balanced. If they lift a leg they will shift their weight over the center of gravity to compensate or counter-balance for the movement. Sometimes an arm or leg or both will be used to counter-balance the movement and weight shift. (fig. 2 and 3)

In Blogs: Always Animated

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WHAT A WEEK!!!

The Saint Patrick’s Day festival brought in over 400,000 “visitors” to Savannah. Included in their numbers were a niece and her three friends from Charlotte, NC. and a nephew and his girlfriend from Melbourne, FL. Our place was packed. Everyone had a great time and it is always was nice to see family!

Also, many former students flew in for the festivities. Among were three from Los Angeles and a bunch from Atlanta.

Nine of us had a perfect lunch at A.J.’s Dockside on Tybee Island – the day was pristine with clear sunny skies. The conversations were many and lively - they ranged from talk about curriculum to productions to art to just general ribbing and fun topics. It always makes me feel warm inside when former students do well. We talked about their past experiences at school and how determined they were as students – it is easily see why they are doing so well now.

In Blogs: Always Animated

mister bagley

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This is a pencil test from mister bagley - a blog based series I am playing with….

The premise is always the same…mister bagley is walking along and then he stops and takes something out of his bag…it could be an everyday item
or it might be totally outrageous. We will see…

In Blogs: Always Animated

MAQUETTES

First with drawing, we would explore very simple basic structure with basic shapes (although we really meant forms – more of a 3D approach) and then build upon these forms. Next, a drawn model sheet was created and from that the participants had to take their characters to 3D in the form of MAQUETTES.

The goal was to see what happened when 2D was translated into 3D.

Many students put a extraordinary amount of effort into their characters. They began with a base, built a wire armature, layered the supper sculpey around and there worked on the details and smoothing - before baking it in their ovens.

This endeavor was an excellent exercise for them since most were headed into 3D CG animation.

At a later time, I will show some layouts and model sheets.

Keep Animated!

In Blogs: Always Animated

ANIMATION LESSON - CENTER OF GRAVITY

When any character is standing – an imaginary line runs vertically through to the feet. (fig. 1)

Because they are standing with their weight

equally on their two feet, the character is

centered or balanced

on those two feet.

The CENTER OF GRAVITY is that point that is also the center of the character’s weight. Most of the time the hips (or pelvis area ) usually carries the greatest amount of weight. (fig. 2)

Obviously, that CENTER point can be located either higher or lower in the character- depending on the body type. (fig. 3)

Notice above the differing center points on the body types.

In Blogs: Always Animated

Blogs

The Most Talented, Animated New Member of the Family

I just received this by email today.

This the new music site of Michelle Armstrong Lauria aka MI, a singer/ songwriter with unlimited possibilities. Michelle is our daughter-in-law, she and our son Matt were married in Laguna Beach this summer (2006).

What an event! Forget that MTV reality TV show - the wedding was beautiful and we had a blast the entire week. Daily parties, beach volleyball and body surfing...and art, were the order of the day.

MI is an amazing singer/songwriter and a wonderful person!

Here is a link to some of her music and a few music videos.

http://myspace.com/miarmstrong

In Blogs: Always Animated

Blogs

Always Animated!

Okay!

Here we go!

I have waiting for this for a while- Now, I can do everything I have wanted to do for years. Somehow I have finally found a place to merge with technology.

The four areas I will concentrate on is: animation and artwork, commentary, animation lessons and workshops and last not but least a place reflect on my projects past an present.

I am playing around with a new banner for Larry's Toon Institute. The Institute is evolving as we speak and that in itself is pretty amazing...I will elaborate on that later...much later.

In the mean time, hereare few images from my next film CROSSING THE LINE

Always Animated!

In Blogs: Always Animated