Computer Animation Arts

Perhaps best known as the creator of the Dinotopia books, James Gurney is an American painter and illustrator in the fine-art tradition; he has also produced book covers, illustrations for National Geographic magazine, and postal stamps.  His work is characterised by highly realistic depictions of scenes that cannot be photographed, such as extinct creatures, historical events, and fictional subjects.  In addition, he has written several excellent books on illustration techniques and art theory - Imaginative Realism & Color and Light, both of which are in the college library. Imaginative Realism deals mainly with creating images from imagination, from basic perspective and colour theory to more advanced techniques such as maquette work, along with advice on collecting and using references in your work. Color and Light is more concerned with the theory of painting, whether from life or imagination.  It goes into detail on subjects such as atmospheric ...

Hey guys, today is my first Author in Residence day - unfortunately I don't have the time to post all day, so I'll do a 'summary' post and include everything in one in the evenings (today I posted in the morning as I prepared this post on Sunday evening :) ). A quick introduction for those who don't know me. My name is Jon Stewart, I am a graduate from CG Arts (Three years ago now!) and I graduated with a first class degree. I am currently working for Rail Simulator as a Third Party Downloadable content artist, and I create downloadable asset packs for people to populate their train lines with. That's pretty much it about me, feel free to visit my portfolio at www.jonstewart.co.uk.  My plan is to introduce you guys to my interests. Namely artists I like and things that inspire me. My main interest is Pin-Up art, but don't worry, that doesn't mean it's going to be posts of breasts. Here we go then! My first supplement...

From Cedric Hohnstadt , illustrator: "The Pose Drawing Sparkbook is a “super-charged” sketchbook designed to help you practice putting more life into your drawings and make them more entertaining. The 240-page sketchbook includes: • 32 pages of instructional articles (think of them as acting lessons for your drawings) • 100 short situations for you to sketch, carefully crafted for their acting potential (think of them as acting exercises) • Hundreds of bonus drawing ideas in the back of the book. It’s not a “how to draw” book. It’s more of a “how to think” book. It’s designed to help you learn to think about acting and posing as you draw your characters. For more info watch this short video or read my Kickstarter page ." Pre-order your copy now

I thought I would jump in on this as well and recommend Framed Ink by Marcel Mateu-Mestre  . This wonderful book is jam packed with a myriad of useful and practical illustrations that demonstrate the art of composition. This book is a must have for storyboard artists, directors and comic book artists as it presents tools that will prove useful to all those individuals and many more besides. This book explores more than just camera angle and framing and also looks at lighting and scale to enhance a particular narrative. As a bonus it is also the sort of of manual that can read from cover to cover rather than just dipping into for some cherrypicking. Link to Amazon This book has just been reprinted and if you can afford it grab it, as when it last went out of print prices soared to well over $100 for an as new copy. There is a huge demand for this book.. The ultimate guide to visual storytelling. Using his extensive experience of working in the comic book ind...

The Walt Disney Animation Studios - The Archive Series  is a four volume set consisting almost solely of images and material taken from the Disney Research Library. The content over the four volumes is hugely varied - ranging from storyboards, animation frames, quickly drawn character sketches to perfectly rendered concept art and background designs.  I could of featured any one of the four books currently released, but as almost everyone on CG Arts is in the midst of creating worlds and developing their own visual style in 2D form, it seemed apt to recommend Design - the most spectacular book in the series.  Design features sometimes rarely seen before concept art and designs of just about every major film Disney Animation Studios has produced. There's nothing quite like looking at page after page of lovingly realised art work, and at a meaty 250 pages, the book delivers that expectation in spades. It's relatively new therefore covers shorts and feature ...

The Art of Walt Disney: From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms and Beyond   by Christopher Finch The very definition of 'heavy reading' if only because the book is a 500 page juggernaut - it's absolutely huge and weighs a ton. Otherwise, it's a very digestible and easy to read history of Disney and the artists working behind the scenes, developing the ideas which ultimately make Disney cartoons as beautiful as they are. As expected for an art book about Disney , expect some absolutely glorious images. Finch's seminal book, originally published in 1973,  has seen numerous reprints and revisions and was most recently revised in 2011 to include an extensive section on Pixar . I prefer the older editions which go into more depth about slightly obscurer Disney cartoons and these copies also feature some lovely pull-out double page spreads of Disney art. Even its modern, slightly truncated form, this book is still the de facto study into Disney's st...

Although not a lot to read in this book it does however provide the perfect companion for a CG student. Over the past few years of being a student on CG Arts this book has been my friend. Even if you don't use every shot depicted in it, its still helpful for getting ideas together. Each page takes you through a different camera angle/shot, what the shot is called and a description of how it is captured. It also gives examples of where to find such a shot in well known films as an example to follow. . 

I'll bite with this one. First thing that came to mind for me was 'Stop Staring - Facial modelling and Animation done right' The title explains it all really. Perfect for head modelling and rigging/ animation. Fantastic book, definitely a must have for character artists and animators, and is a valuable resource for the course!  Amazon - Stop Staring (Third Edition)

Hi Everyone, Whether it's your very first film review or those first speculative moments of your final dissertation, it's the start of a new academic year and pretty much everyone studying at university, of all years, is about to embark on an uncharted journey of self discovery and research which often involves climbing a few sets of stairs to the library so that you can discover new and exciting things about both the world and of yourselves. You're all like academic George Mallory's and Andrew Irvine's, but hopefully without the grisly, frozen demise! To avoid being stranded on the metaphoric Mount Everest of academic writing, the best trick to survive is to prepare yourself for the climb so you don't get caught in a tricky to navigate blizzard without the correct equipment. And that means books, and lots of them. While studying my MA, for the entirety of the year I carried around a canvas bag full of books which made up a quite sizable reading list ...