2D Animation dead? I don't think so.

I'm writing this in response to reading Nik Ranieri's post regarding being let go from Disney Feature Animation after almost 25 years. This is after he created this beautiful performance:Over the years, there has been a lot of talk in the animation industry regarding the death of 2D animation. While many U.S. based feature animation studios have turned away from it, I don't see it dying. This is the same industry that is also throwing out 3D animation jobs or making them so miserable that one must choose between misery in employment or stressful unemployment. Yet I see a lot of the most innovative work in 2D or 3D being done well outside of these companies. Visual Effects aside, I really don't think the most creative and innovative work is being done at larger studios.Below are just a few examples of 2D animation that is excitingly inventive and fresh with innovation.

Good Books - Metamorphosis from Buck on Vimeo.

KAIROS Trailer from Studio La Cachette on Vimeo.

Cartoon Network - Summer Ident FULL from eamonn o neill on Vimeo.

So no, 2D is not dead. Unfortunately, that does not make it any less frightening or difficult for skilled artists who have devoted their lives to this craft to find work that can compensate them.

Ray Harryhausen Tribute

Tribute to an animation and cinema pioneer, Ray Harryhausen. In remembrance, a video compilation of his work. 

Art of Music Night 3: Pakistan

Two weeks after the last Art of Music event, we held our third night time event in the series at the Levantine Cultural Center. This time, I focused on Pakistan. The story turned from traveling in countries and connecting to cultures I had never met before, to going home. I shared my short animated film Gul, featuring the music of the Girnari Jogi Group as well as the story behind both. I felt very grateful to have an opportunity to share the story of these fantastic Sindhi musicians across the globe for an audience that respected what they do and supported my efforts to benefit them. Once again, I met with many new faces and enjoyed the warm company of many old friends as well.My good friend Robin Sukhadia, Tablapusher kept the crowd going with his DJing and a live tabla performance in which he share the story of this beautiful instrument.

2D Animation Lesson 3 – Animating your Character

Animating your character.Now that you have a finished model sheet and construction drawings (character broken down into basic shapes) as well as some personality drawings, you are ready to plan your first animation with the character.Walk cycles are a good thing to start with, but I find that people usually copy walk cycles instead of really animating it for themselves. Instead, let's animate our characters walking, avoiding an obstacle and continuing to walk.Your obstacle could be a box, a giant circle in the path, or hanging from above. Just keep the object as a simple shape, so it is easy to draw.Class Work1. Put down the computer or pencil and act out some ideas. Walk, and then avoid objects by ducking, or stepping to the side. Keep doing this until you get something you like.2. Act out the sequence you like. Stop at key poses and draw thumbnail sketches (small, stick figures or simple sketches) to plan out the poses you want to animate.3. Start drawing your keyframes based off the thumbnail sketches you drew.Homework1. Finish drawing your rough keyframes and draw half of your in betweens. These drawings should be simple shapes that represent your character. No need to draw in completed bodies yet, just shapes.Take a look at this beautiful video of pencil tests by Glen Keane to see how rough pencil tests can be before cleanup:

2D Animation Lesson 2 - Character Model Sheet

In this lesson, we'll take the ideas learned from the bouncing ball lesson and apply them to a character. The ball was an easy shape to draw. Characters can be more difficult, but we can make them easier to draw by breaking them down into simpler shapes, like sphere, cylinders etc.Here are some examples of characters broken down into simpler shapes.More Model SheetsClass Work1. Design a character with a head, two arms and two legs. Don't worry about making fingers and facial features (eyes, nose and mouth etc). Just make the basic shapes, without extra details like clothes.2. Make a single drawing of your character from the front.3. With another sheet of paper on top, or if on the computer, in another layer on top, draw shapes like circles, rectangles, cylinders over your character to simplify it down to basic shapes.4. Draw the side/profile view and isometric/perspective/3/4 view of your character, using the shapes to help stay on model (keep it looking the same). This is your model sheet. it will help you to redraw the character in different poses and angles and still keep it looking consistent.Homework1. Finish you model sheet.2. Draw some poses, and expressions with the character to get a feel for how he or she will move and what his or her personality is like. Act out these poses and then draw them.

2D Animation Lesson 1 - Bouncing Ball

My name is Adnan Hussain, and a friend asked me to give some tips on animation and help design a course for his students. I saw some of their work, and got an idea of their skill level. Based on that, I feel that drawing is the most important skill I can help to push. These lessons are designed to help you loosen up your drawings for more fluid animation so that you are not limited to animating parts of a single drawing or rotoscoping.The work I do is more as a 3D animation generalist. I do a bit of everything. Examples I am showing are all from the internet, by other people, simply presented in a way that I hope is accessible.Lesson 1 Bouncing BallWe start with a bouncing ball to learn the basic principles of animation, because it is easy to draw a ball.Watch this video from Dark Mane the Wolf.Principles of Animation to think about:Squash and stretchThis will help make your ball feel like it has weight and volume. The idea is that when you squash the ball in one direction, it becomes stretched in the other direction so that it retains volume. Otherwise the ball will look like it is becoming smaller and bigger over time.Slow in and slow outObjects accelerate and decelerate over time. When a car starts, it goes from standing still, to slowly moving and then gaining speed. The same is true for when a person is sitting, then stands up to begin walking. We start slowly and then gain speed. You might slow down to walk around a chair, then speed up again. This also goes for the motion of body parts and objects. When a ball bounces, it hits the floor, which slows it down and then picks up speed as it bounces up. This makes the animation look smoother and more natural. This can be achieved by spacing your inbetween drawings. Draw frames with the ball closer together for slow movement, and further apart for fast motion.ArcsWhether we speak of a bouncing ball, or a swinging arm, or a moving foot, arcs can help make movement look more natural. After drawing your key frames, when you draw your inbetweens you have a choice of drawing the exact middle drawing, for linear movement, like a robot, or you can place the object on your inbetweens on an arc, which can give more natural, and fluid movement. Try it and see the difference.Class WorkIn class, draw a minimum, 50 frame animation of a bouncing ball using some of these principles.HomeworkDraw a 150 frame animation of the bouncing ball. Experiment with making the bounce feel heavy and light using squash and stretch and slow ins and out (spacing).

madguru.com Gul - Concept Art Added

I've redesigned the main website with a bunch of new material and the start of many exciting new things.  Have a look at concept art from my short film Gul(flower). The concept art gallery gives  a good glimpse into the design process, from taking inspiration from real life to re imagining it for the context of the story. A lot of the design process is about how you think about each element to make intelligent choices that drive the themes and purpose of the story home. A lot of time and care goes into each decision, while trying to balance the desire for spontaneity to bring in fresh, seemingly unrelated sources of inspiration into the mix.

Original Drawing of Gul.

Concept art of the Maker

Workshop Concept Art from Gul

Manav Sadhana 4

The earn and learn kids were busy creating Christmas Cards. That night, some of the other volunteers and I went to a restaurant called Vishalla which is basically a sort of Rajasthani folk village with live musicians, puppetry and amazing food. Somehow someone thought I might not be that interested, even though it features my favorite things. It was amazing. I spoke to the puppeteers for a while and watched all these interesting puppets do tricks. We talked for quite a bit about history, different arts and I tried to share how what I do is very much like what he did as a puppeteer, but on a computer. For me, that was really the most exciting thing, was to sit down and speak to a wonderful puppeteer.Afterwards we all piled into an auto rickshaw and made our way back to the volunteer homes.

Manav Sadhana 3

The next day Kristeen and I went to the community center/school to do a workshop with a class there. We were greeted by the sweet kids and hard working teachers. One of the children gave us sandhur as a way of welcoming us into class. The kids were amazing as usual and it was a tiring, but incredibly rewarding experience. I jokingly said invited myself to come eat lunch at one of the children's homes as we were leaving after the workshop and she was walking home for lunch. She said she'd ask her mom what she cooked. So many dimples and funny little toes. After that we ate and went to another slum that was more recently adopted by Manav Sadhanda. The look and feel are completely different. There is not yet a sense of community. The first tikra that was adopted by MS has more of a community feel. There has been a great deal of work by MS and people of the community to really make it a home. The other slum is much dirtier, and doesn't really feel safe. We had Jagad bhai with us, but I don't think we'd come alone. Of course these are people who are squeezed harder day by day and things are unimaginably tough. We made our way through to the school that MS had started there. We climbed up a ladder to a floor with all these children sitting there. It's a little nervous to start these workshops, not because I am shy with the kids, but because I feel some pressure from myself to do my best to give these wonderful children my very best and I hope that they will feel good afterwards. These kids were just like others I have met at earlier workshops.Next we walked to Indicorps offices to visit, then had some lunch at a cafe and made our way back to the Gandhi Ashram.

Manav Sadhana 2

The next day we went to the Dalit school across from where the earn and learn kids meet. I had peeked into the school the day before and I can't quite describe how excited I was to share animation with them. The children I met so far have really been an energetic and amazing bunch. Many are not used to discussion questions in class so carrying on an in depth class discussion has not really worked, but they are bursting with energy, creativity and most of all a genuine desire and willingness to try new things and learn. This really does a lot to make what I am doing with the children possible.First I was introduced to the class. Then, as Kristeen continued to cut paper, I asked the kids if they understood Hindi (as Gujarati is their first language) and then liked cartoons. Thankfully they all said yes to both in a cute little chorus. When I asked which cartoons they liked, they would say Tom and Jerry, Chota Bheem, Popeye or Chooha Billee Wali (cat and mouse one :) ) Since most of the kids had seen "Tom and Jerry", I explained how just like they do drawings, the people who made "Tom and Jerry" made many drawings of poses to show Tom running after Jerry.These kids live away from their parents in order to be at this school. They are absolutely beautiful. It's so much fun to get them started with the shapes which they all know and can draw easily. Then coaxing them through that first flipbook with the shapes is fun. Kids eagerly ask if they have done it right as I go around the room, and the sweet thing is that no one really does it wrong. Each drawing will be different even if they try to make them the same and so when they flip the pages, it will move. Walking around and just talking to each kid and congratulating them on their very own cartoon is so fun. They really feel so happy, and I do too.Next I went back to the blackboard and showed them how to draw stick figures in different poses, including getting them all to jump up and down to show me what jumping looks like and also joining them. Then I drew some different things on the board and gave them the option of choosing one of them, or making something of their own. I drew stages of a flower bud blooming, fish, a cricket bat in the hands of the stick figure and more. Then the kids got started. Many first copied what I had drawn, then started creating something of their own. It was like magic to look at a child's flipbook and show them the movement they had created, and then hand it back to them and have them flip it and see it come to life with their own little hands. Next we tracked down a school in the slum and repeated the workshop there. It was so sweet how the teachers welcomed us and most of them participated too. The kids were so eager and full of energy and excitement. Much like children I have seen in Casa De Paz orphanage in Mexico, these kids are so sweet and nice, full of cute naughtiness but so eager to do things. It is really quite humbling to share something with them and see them go from confusion to understanding. It takes a lot of energy to give each kid the individual attention they need and foster that confidence when they ask if they have done it right, but to be able to get everyone creating and understanding within 2 hours is worth it. I love seeing all those crazy, cute, happy faces jumping up and down to show me their very own little animation.Afterwards, exhausted and grateful to have enjoyed such a wonderful experience, we caught an auto and made our way to the school for street kids. Unfortunately we did not make it in time to give a workshop, but Anjali shared the beautiful work they are doing with getting kids that literally live on the street and live unimaginably difficult lives to come regularly to a school and teach them about hygene and other health related issues as well as the core subjects that other kids are learning in school. There are beautiful murals in all of these schools and the kids are provided a nutritious (and might I add, delicious :) ) meal.

Manav Sadhana 1

On the way to Ahmedabad from Delhi, I met a friendly man named Uday on the train who works in the Ministry of Textile. He was very kind and shared a lot of information on Ahmedabad. I wrote down notes for things to see, unsure how much I could fit in, but glad to learn. He had a good sense of humor and kept me laughing on the way, which is always appreciated, especially on long train rides.He told Kristeen (whom he called chotee) and I (whom he called chotoo) to get off a stop early as it was closer to where we wanted to go, so we did and then made our way to Manav Sadhana. I'd heard of Manav Sadhana through Kristeen and other friends who had visited and volunteered there. Many of those friends had gone back several times and could not say enough wonderful things about the place.I was apprehensive about going to Gujarat, due to the anti-Muslim riots which took place in 2002, but did so just to connect to this organization. We arrived from the train station by auto rickshaw and sat down as they were starting their morning meeting with a prayer and moment of silence. We joined and were warmly welcomed with sandoor.We introduced ourselves, then relaxed a bit, put our luggage in our respective girl's and boy's volunteer homes, then took a tour of the slum they had adopted. We got a glimpse of several nursery schools and then the school/community center which was beautiful. Even the people in the colony were warm and welcoming. To me this was really interesting to see that there had been created a real sense of community in the slum and a lot of work was being done hand in hand with the community. They were accustomed to and appreciative of the volunteers who came in their colony.The school/community center had a lot of really creative uses of recycled materials used for construction and decoration. From colored paper wrappers, to bottles and crates these materials were really artisically repurposed. They also had a nice library where I learned how they keep things organized to check out books to children in the community.There were beautiful murals and a nursery with a cool slide and swings. After looking at the slide (yes, a slide) entrance and cool swinging baby in the nursery, I decided that it was the place to live. Afterwards we walked back to Manav Sadahna next to the Gandhi Ashram and met some of the earn and learn kids who create beautiful cards and other items for sale while also going to school and receiving an education. Jagat bhai was removing some strings that were making life tough for a bird he found with entangled feet.Then it was time for my first workshop there. I sat down with the earn and learn kids and taught them to make flip books. This time, I started with circle (gole), triangle (tricone) and square (chorus) on a blackboard and had the kids draw this in different positions, sizes and shapes on their flipbooks. This quickly got the concept across. Then I gave suggestions by drawing blooming flowers, stick figures etc with which the kids could create something new. Jagat bhai is also a very talented artist with many amazing pieces focused on religous harmony depicting many symbols of various religions in creative and beautiful ways. It was really heartwarming to see the kids take to animation so quickly and also to see the adults taking part too. It was really sweet to get all of that support from Kristeen, "", Jagat bhai and really just everyone there. I felt at home right away thanks to all the warmth.Anjali, one of the amazing people at Manav Sadhana met me and within minutes was on the phone arranging workshops with the various schools in Manav Sadhana. I was really grateful for how everyone invited me in and trusted me with their precious time and resources. It is very humbling to walk into a group of truly dedicated and amazing adults and kids and to try and share something that you hope will be worth their time.