How Evolution Works

Film Fanatic Friday: The Director's Chair – Quentin Tarantino

Rules For Dating My Daughter - by Mike Dawson

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Always a Family

Measles Explained — Vaccinate or Not?

Nucco Brain and Mediacom - Ad campaign for GSK Piriton

'3 Misses' by Paul Driessen

Animator's Guide to Health and Wellness - Part 2: Back Pain & Posture

Animators, visual effects artists, compositors, CG artists, digital painters, and all those who do long, long, long hours sitting at a desk using a pen tablet, your posture can suffer greatly if you're not conscious of your sitting position. You're looking into a monitor, hands on a keyboard, or gripping that Stylus Pen for large amounts of time while sitting at a computer, barely moving all day long, it can make your neck and back sore.

Here's a good little video for exercises to help with your back and posture.




Here are exercises for preventing tendinitis and carpal tunnel, and they apply very well for animators, VFX artists and CGI artists & technicians of all kinds doing long days of work gripping that stylus pen.




In this clip, the focus is on a few hand stretching exercises that are essential to every guitarist's warm-up routine, of course these stretches apply very well to animators as well. These types of exercises can really go a long way to keeping your hands healthy and in good condition.




Reminding animators and artists to sit up straight, pull their shoulders back, pull their necks straight usually isn't too effective or long-lasting. We all sit for long periods of time, deeply focused on our work, not thinking about our postures or the grip on the pen. Eventually we all slouch down, our heads and necks stick out in front of us, whether we work with a tablet-and-monitor, or looking down at an angle on a Cintiq or some other graphic monitor system, or down on a flat table using good 'ol paper and markers.

So the big thing is to take breaks, get up and walk around, because the main cause of your neck sticking out, your shoulders rolling in, your eyes getting dry & sore, and your back curving forward is from many, many hours of sitting motionless at your work station.

So get up and stretch your hands, arms and back, walk around, give your eyes  a rest, just for a few minutes, a couple times a day. Don't forget to do some of the exercises shown above, at a minimum of once every evening. It will help with blood circulation, prevent some strain on your back and neck, and help correct your spine from buckling.

From the book DRAW STRONGER:

See more...
Animator's Guide to Health and Wellness: Part 1

Super Turbo Atomic Ninja Rabbit

Wesley Louis drew 'Super Turbo Atomic Ninja Rabbit' as a comic when he was 13. It was time to realise the dreams of a geeky kid by animating the intro to the best TV-series that never was. 'Super Turbo Atomic Ninja Rabbit' A love letter to Saturday morning cartoons from the 80’s and 90’s.

Check out the awesome VHS version:



The making of this amazing intro to a mock 90s animated series:

Once upon a time in 1991, a young Wesley Louis sat down with some colouring pencils, and started drawing a comic book about an armored rabbit with superpowers and a sword. Little did he know he had taken his first step on a journey that he wouldn’t see completed for another 24 years.

In 2013 Wes found the comic stuffed into the back of an old folder. 10 pages that, though unfinished, and slightly ravaged by time, perfectly captured all the joys and obsessions of a 13 year old child of the 90’s. Desert chrome, speedlines, ninjas, saturday morning cartoons, it was all there. The blueprint for his career, scrawled onto yellowing paper with a startling degree of skill.

He brought the comic into work and there was something about it that he and the crew couldn’t put down. Yes it was nostalgic, but more than that, it was a fully realized world, of heroes villains, and monkey sidekicks with guns.

Wes started to imagine what it’d be like if it were a real cartoon from the 90’s and before he knew it he had storyboarded the intro sequence. Rina May and Box of Toys Audio put together a rock solid theme song, and pretty soon everyone was hooked.



See more behind-the-scenes and shot breakdowns here.

Credits:

Created and Directed
WESLEY LOUIS

Executive Producers
LEE PAVEY
JAMES SINDLE
DANIEL MARUM
GILES CHEETHAM

Storyboards
WESLEY LOUIS

Additional Storyboards
TIMOTHY McCOURT

Character Design
WESLEY LOUIS
JONATHAN DJOB NKONDO

Graphic Design
MAX TAYLOR

Animation
PETER DODD
JONATHAN DJOB NKONDO
DUNCAN GIST
WESLEY LOUIS

Effects Animation
MATT TIMMS

Clean Up Lead
DENISE DEAN

Additional Clean Up
DUNCAN GIST
AMIX FILM STUDIO

Background Artist
CALLUM STRACHAN

Additional Backgrounds
BJORN ERIK-ASCHIM
KRISTIAN ANTONELLI

Layout
BJORN ERIK-ASCHIM
JONATHAN DJOB NKONDO

Colour
DUNCAN GIST
HELENE LEROUX
MAX TAYLOR
TIMOTHY McCOURT

Compositing
MAX TAYLOR

Music and Sound
“SUPER TURBO ATOMIC NINJA RABBIT THEME ”

Written, Composed and Performed by
RINA MAY

Music Production and Sound Design
BOX OF TOYS AUDIO
CHRIS DIDLICK
MAGNUS ARWENHED
BEN LAVER

“WTL Productions” Voiceover
ASHAN LOUIS-PHILLIP
SAMAYA ALEXANDER
JOSHUA FONTAINE

Special Thanks
AUDREY LOUIS, ANTOINE JAMES, LOUIS NATALIE PLATT, CHRIS KING, SAM TAYLOR LAURENT, ROSSI GABRIELLA, CERENZIA ELECTRIC, THEATRE COLLECTIVE, NO GHOST COLLECTIVE, HANAE SEIDA, AZIZ KOCANAOGULLARI, JENNY WELLS MERVIN, LOUIS NANOU, BLAIR GOULD, TOM SHEARING, DAN JESSOP, ROSA NUSSBAUM

SOUP’CIÈRE

Film Fanatic Friday: The Director's Chair – John Carpenter

Reels from Old School Classic Animators - Part 2

Robert McKimson




Bill Littlejohn




Grim Natwick




Manny Gould




Bill Tytla




Don Patterson




Ken Muse




Fred Moore




Preston Blair




Irv Spence
(version 2)




See Part 1 here.

Jeremy Polgar - Animation Reel

Gunship: Tech Noir - Stopmotion-animated music video by Lee Hardcastle