Noam Sussman

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
My name’s Noam Sussman and I’m currently working as a freelance character designer, illustrator and animator. I make animated films in my free time!
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I used to massage old ladies’ feet for money. But not actually… I havent had any super crazy weird jobs, I haven’t had to sell my body yet luckily. But I worked at an animation day camp teaching Flash animation to kids, and I worked at a theme park doing caricatures.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I animated a birthday card for JibJab that was a lot of fun, as well as this Christmas card for Guru studio. Oh and a pilot for Tinman Creative which was also really fun to do. I’ve also been doing illustrations for Stride gum packages.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business? 

I live in Thornhill, a suburb of Toronto. And I went to Sheridan College to study animation, and I met a lot of animation people at this end-of-the-year industry day event the school put together in 4th year, so Continue reading

Andrew Pickin

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Andrew Pickin. Co-owner of TTA studios. Animator and Artist.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Head of engineering and Mechanics at Tenpin Bowling (not quite crazy but a far stretch from animating).

What are some of your favourite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m from a fine art background, so some of my favourite work is actually children’s illustration, although one of my favourite projects so far was working on a music video for the band OBEY: it was just complete artistic license. The more creative the project the better; it doesn’t have to be big, just interesting.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m originally from Staffordshire (the creative county) in the UK, though I now Continue reading

The Poor Animator’s Guide to making it in a Digital World

So let’s say you’ve decided to become an artist, or you came up old school and have yet to traverse across the digital bridge to the 21st Century. Of course there are devices that work well such as the Wacom Cintiq, The Surface Pro, The Wacom Companion and the Lenovo Helix, but all of these are expensive as hell, and you might wonder what you can do to keep the hard earned cash in your pocket. Fear not animators and artists, Animation Insider’s got your back for cheap alternatives! One look at the items necessary to be a professional digital artist these days can make you think twice about continuing in your endeavor. In order to buy all the essentials like a Wacom Cintiq, Storyboard Pro, Adobe Suite, Autodesk Maya you’d almost have to sell a kidney to have the cash to shell out for these fine items.

Or do you?

Hardware
For digital drawing hardware there are many cheaper alternatives out there to the industry standard; the Wacom Cintiq and while honestly none of them are as high quality as a Cintiq, if you’ve never used one to begin with you’re unlikely to notice a difference.

Yiyinova MVP22u

The Yiyinova MVP22U is a capable Cintiq replacement and about half the price but for now that’s the only alternative to a desktop Cintiq alternative I can recommend and even that has the caveat of shipping from China. To be fair though if a Cintiq breaks you’ll have to ship it to Germany so it’s a fair enough tradeoff.

Luckily there are other smaller devices you can buy as well that work decently enough.

The Asus EP121 tablet PC is a decent tablet that even has a touchscreen. No it’s NOT an iPad but honestly I’ve found those to be crappy at best while trying to produce professional art, and they won’t run professional programs like Storyboard Pro, or the Adobe Suite. Besides I find it hard to support a company that will not listen to the artists out there by purposely excluding a stylus option for the iPad despite a clear market for it.

For the record a much better alternative for artists is the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2, which while it will not run the above mentioned applications either it DOES come with a stylus and that alone makes me think it’s worth it. We reviewed it last year if you want to take a look.

Asus-Ep121

The Asus EP 121 will run all the standard applications artists use today in a professional environment and do it well. Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Premiere all run handily on the Ep121. It will even handle Maya, 3D Studio Max, Mudbox and Motion Builder and sometimes you can even find it for less than $300 bucks. Right now the cheapest I’ve found the 64 gb configuration for is $550 (which you’ll need to install all that software) but still with a Cintiq costing $2000 you’re getting a good deal. It will even support an external monitor too boot.  It comes with a wireless bluetooth keyboard as well.

I happen to be selling one of these right now if you’re in the market so give me a shout if you’re interested.

Used_LE1700_Tablet_Motion_Computing_EE544523252_view1

The old standby though has to be the Motion Computing’s Motion series, in the form of the LE1600 and the LE1700 both of which run Sketchbook Pro like champ and if the studio is asking you to use Photoshop, it natively handles .psd files perfectly. The LE1600 is the cheaper of the two and for that you’ll sacrifice a bit of computing power but it still will run decently for the price. You can get a Motion Computing LE1600 at Gainsaver for $107 bucks! Not bad huh? It will even do light Maya chores, which for $100 is pretty damn spiffy in my book!

The more powerful device is the LE1700 though and for the extra price you can get a much more powerful processor. Granted it will NOT run Storyboard Pro, but it WILL run Flash, Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro. You can get a LE1700 cheaply at Gainsaver for about $125 bucks but if you do, I would suggest you change the processor configuration to the Intel 1.5 ghz Core 2 Duo and have them install Windows 7 on there for you. I would also bump up the hard drive to 80gb. This will only set you back $374 bucks but you can ‘probably’ get away with the default configuration if you just use Sketchbook Pro. Also this handy lil’ device WILL run Maya which is pretty cool but you won’t be able to have dozens of characters and huge backgrounds in one scene. It’s great for modeling. animating and rigging though. It’s not going to run any serious games or anything processor heavy but you can easily draw and animate with it.

Also, with Sketchbook Pro’s latest addition of the Flipbook 2d animation timeline, you can now animate in 2D for a VERY low startup price using both of these devices.

Software
For software, of course you can always buy used software on eBay as well, but quite often that’s just pirated software packaged to look legit and when you get your disks delivered sometime programs won’t register so I’d stay away from that.

There are alternatives as well and so you don’t really have to go to your friendly neighborhood software pirate to get decent software. Most don’t know this, but there are many academic sites that offer the ability to buy cheaper software legally. All you need is a scan of a student’s report card (and if you’re taking classes ANYwhere you qualify) which you’ll upload and they’ll create an account for you which will allow you buy all SORTS of discounted software.

The best I’ve found is called http://www.journeyed.com/ but there are others and they all offer around the same discounts.

Watch for our Artist’s Guide to Tablets 2014 to get advice on everything you could want for an artist coming next month.

AnimDessin2 v2.0 animation extension for Photoshop

https://vimeo.com/96689934

The Digital Tutors blog is reporting that a new version of the free Photoshop add-on AnimDessin2 v2.0 is available. It brings a simpler, more traditional animation workflow. Developer Stephane Baril designed the add-on’s interface to closely mimic the workflows of traditional animators like Disney animator Glen Keane. However, the Adobe plug-in’s reference to old-school animation is only one of its impressive features.

I haven’t been aware of this extension until now but it looks pretty dang cool! Check it out!

Lenovo-Thinkvision-1423P

You can read the full article here!

Promote Yourself: Spotify and Talenthouse invite animators to express what they’re #nowfeeling

Spotify and Talenthouse invite animators to express what they’re #nowfeeling
Spotify is teaming up with Talenthouse, the world’s creative network, to invite animators to create artwork that shows how music can express a thousand words and emotions.

The new brief comes as the latest phase of Spotify’s #nowfeeling brand campaign, which launches today in the UK and takes a look at how music can inspire emotions, memories and relationships, and how a song can express how you’re #nowfeeling better than words.

Spotify and Talenthouse are issuing an open brief to all animators to design a vision that expresses how music connects us all, which links to an emotion or experience or an important person in their life and conveys how it makes them feel. It could be based upon real moments from their own past or something shared with a friend or loved one. The creative solution should engage 18-24 year-olds for whom music plays an important role in developing their identity, navigating life, and connecting with people around them.

Animators are encouraged to create their own original 15 second – 30 second film inspired by #NowFeeling and the 90 second films that Spotify has already created.

The winning artist will receive part of a prize pool of £5,000 and the opportunity to power-up their career as their design will be promoted across Spotify social channels, feature in a Spotify paid media campaign and have future work commissioned by Spotify.

The partnership, brokered by MediaVest, leverages Talenthouse and Spotify’s combined platforms and will offer an exceptional opportunity for the winning creative to have their work showcased and seen by a global audience.

The deadline for entries is 16 June 2014. For more details and to upload entries, filmmakers and animators click here [http://po.st/H6ROwM] and artists and designers click here [http://po.st/ZrU4eM].The judging panel which includes Jackie Jantos, VP, Creative and Brand Strategy, Spotify and Andrew Duff, co-founder of creative content marketing agency Stereo, will consider the entries between 16 June and 23 June 2014 and the winner will be announced on 27 June 2014. All phases close at 10am PST.

Nikki Lambert, Marketing Director, Europe, Spotify, said: “We’re thrilled to be teaming up with Talenthouse to connect with thousands of fantastic creatives around the world. We are really excited to see how the creative community responds to the brief, and we look forward to seeing some inspiring stories about the power of music in connecting us all.”

Talenthouse’s VP Global Partnerships Emma Trant said: “The #NowFeeling creative collaboration with Spotify represents a great opportunity for creatives to engage with a global brand and have their work showcased globally. This partnership is a really nice example of how global brands are using the Talenthouse network to discover and connect with emerging creatives, drive mass social interest and attract the right calibre of creatives.”

#NowFeeling

Media enquiries
Hayley Hayes
Hot Cherry PR
hayley@hotcherry.co.uk
+44(0) 7973 820 729

About Talenthouse www.talenthouse.com
Talenthouse is a global creative community that empowers artists of all types to earn money and recognition for their work. Artists can showcase their creative work and find opportunities to partner with major brands and celebrated artists. Brands can tap into the global creative community and their networks of friends and fans to discover new talent and be part of relevant conversations that transcend traditional interruptive marketing. Talenthouse was founded in 2009 with a mission to liberate all artists and since then has provided thousands of opportunities to millions of artists worldwide.

@talenthouse
www.facebook.com/talenthousefans

About Spotify:
Spotify is an award-winning digital music service that gives you on-demand access to over 20 million tracks.  Our dream is to make all the world’s music available instantly to everyone, wherever and whenever you want it.  Spotify makes it easier than ever to discover, manage and share music with your friends, while making sure that artists get a fair deal.
Spotify is now available in 56 markets globally with more than 24 million active users, and over 6 million paying subscribers.
Since its launch in Sweden in 2008, Spotify has driven more than US$1bn to rights holders. Spotify is now the second biggest source of digital music revenue for labels in Europe, and the biggest and most successful music streaming service of its kind globally.
* Number of tracks licensed globally. Catalogue size varies per market and can also change over time.

www.spotify.com

 

Jonathan Lyons

http://vimeo.com/24527498

What is your name and your current occupation?
Jonathan Lyons, animator.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
One of my rules in life is always have a cool job.  Mine have included lifeguard, New York City bicycle messenger, and U.S. Navy deep sea diver.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m proud to have worked on all 4 Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  But I’m also excited about my recent project at Tippett.   “Ted” is directed by Seth Macfarlane, and it’s going to be hysterically funny.

How did you become interested in animation?
As a kid, I loved the Harryhausen movies and Continue reading