Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Latest from Maia Gross

When a dedicated student shows significant and consistent progress with their art to the point of reaching a professional level they oftentimes become instructors here at the Academy. Such is the case with Maia Gross who continues to impress us with her excellent art.

Here's a couple of examples of what she's created lately. The fist image is from Visual Development and the second is from Character Design 2. 


Thursday, September 04, 2014

Character Rotations - Student Assignments


One of the reasons why the Character Design classes at The Animation Academy are so effective in getting our students up to a professional standard with their skills is that they're encouraged to do work that is as challenging for them as it is fun.

Case in point is our emphasis on creating rotations for the characters they come up with. Concept is of course very important. Yet when it comes to the art of Character Design it is essential that artists working in a professional capacity in this area should be able to generate rotations for their designs.

The main reasons for doing so are that rotations are the link between concept development and production. Adapting your designs to production enables a character design artist to work in a realistic capacity within the animation production system. It is a marketable skill that will give artists the chance to participate in the production process more than just with concept design alone.

Whether it's a 5 pose traditional rotation or a 3 pose turn for CG modeling, being able to pivot your design will do a great deal of good in extending your abilities into new opportunities.

Take a look at the examples below. These are class assignments recently completed by several of our students. They get into the nitty gritty of the art and are better suited for whatever situation might arise that requires rotations as an aspect of the job.


Lola Chee



Jeff Mum



Amanda Gonzales



Johnathan Keys



Dawn Glover




Ryan Magnon



Raul Enciso



Joel Valdez