The Christmas and New Year holidays went by uneventful, which happens as one grows into middle age, I'm fine with. I actually took the time to do some illustration art that I put in a new blog. The start of Class 3 was tonight and the level of talent of my classmates went considerably up, which is exactly the kind of stimulating challenge that I need to improve my animation. Mike Stern is the mentor who is also one of the first graduates of Animation Mentor, which puts him in a unique position of knowing what the students go through. Mike is currently an animator at DreamWorks. Under his belt is an impressive collection of blockbuster hits such as Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda and Monsters vs. Aliens. He is currently working on How to Train Your Dragon due in 2010.
Class 3 is an introduction to acting and this is where we get into the meat and potato of why I want to become an animator. Looking forward to learning a lot about acting in this class and how it is applied in animation. I already know what my idea will be for the first assignment. Stay tuned for the next post.
I grew up watching old animated black and white Disney and Fleischer Bros. cartoons, Russian cartoons, as well as animation work from China and India.
I attended junior colleges in southern California majoring in art with emphasis on cartooning and animation (that was before 3D). Tom Shannon who later became a Disney storyboard illustrator on such hits as Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Hunchback of Notre Dame, just to name a few was a major influence on developing my skill and style in cartoon illustrations. I was fortunate enough to take a 2D animation class by a retired Disney/Hanna-Barbera animator, the late George Goepper at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. We used pegboards, animation paper, animation cells and learned the very basic foundations of animation.
I dabbled with Infini-D, 3DSMax, and Animaion:Master until the rise of Animation Mentor.
My goal now is to simply become the best animator that I can be. If I get a job animating for a living, all the better. Or I could simply make my own shorts and tell my own stories, which I also enjoy.
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