Patrick Smith

[notorious]

so i was in chicago over the weekend and came upon a store which had 'Liquid Tales' a dvd collection of animations from animator Patrick Smith!

Patrich Smith is a traditional animator who is known for his insane morphing liquid animation. Use of this morphing liquid technique can be seen in the below video, around 0:34. The morphing part of the video is certainly what stands out to me in the video as being some draw dropping animation work.

I watched the whole dvd, and his animations often incorporate simple ideas, handshakes, drinking, and turn them into freakish surreal happenings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opVbudqpWKQ

[rtil]

god that song is annoying. i think this guy made a cartoon about two people who shake eachothers' hands and suddenly start tangling into eachother. good stuff, nice linework style too

[ZekeySpaceyLizard]

I've seen his stuff on atomfilms.
He is very gewd.

[zomfgbie]

even with such simple characters that was impressive

[trent bortknob]

it was neat on mute

[Gavin]

can someone define tradtional animation i think i have an idea but i wanna be sure

[rtil]

animation done with traditional mediums although some people would also refer to traditional animation as animation that has any resemblance to drawing by hand as opposed to moving controllers in 3d

[Nadroj0711]

i didn't watch it with sound, so I don't know if there was a plot or anything it just looked cool

[zomfgbie]

i thought traditional meant completely done by hand, no computerised drawings

unless thats what you said and im just being dumb

[adamant]

this guy is neat%%%%%%

[ZekeySpaceyLizard]

I always defined traditional animation as animation consisting of mostly frame-by-frame movments where each drawing is more or less different aka no tweens or auto-animation buttons or puppet-like movable parts.

[MRat]

I always defined traditional animation as animation consisting of mostly frame-by-frame movments where each drawing is more or less different aka no tweens or auto-animation buttons or puppet-like movable parts.

This to has been my definition, though recently since I've been speaking with a guy at Vancouver Film School, he says that definition is now what pros call "Classical" and traditional means by hand. But whatever, either way this stuff is by hand I believe.

[Thor]

I had a chance to meet with Pat a couple months ago when he came to Northampton, MA for a film festival (he was the curator for the cartoon segment, "Cartoons from HELL")

I had no idea that he graduated from the same school I'm going to right now (then again, he doesn't really make that bit of information known widely). From what I gleaned, he discovered the wonders of animation from one of my favorite (and probably the exact same book, judging by the wear and tear from it) books, the Illusion of Life, while studying for an art history exam. I guess from there he dropped out of school, was rejected by Cal Arts, and then re-enrolled at the same school because my animation teacher is a cal-arts graduate that studied under Jules Engles (one of the animators that worked at Disney on Fantasia), and from there he went to work at MTV as a layout artist, then he directed Daria, etc etc.

The piece of advice he gave to me was to keep drawing. I've been keeping a daily sketchbook and I've been making an effort for 1 sketch per day, but he told me to try to fill up to 4 and to keep drawing nonstop.

But yeah, he's a great guy to talk to, but he hasn't returned my email asking about an internship :[

[zomfgbie]

[size=]THOR, GOD OF THUNDERS[/size]

[Thor]

more like CLOD OF BLUNDERS!

Anyways, the animation teacher at Hampshire college pointed out to me that Pat's cartoons (ESPECIALLY moving along) have segments that have relatively low framerates, yet the movement is still pretty freakin fluid and lifelike, which goes to show that you don't need a billion inbetweens to have smooth actions (actually Pat uses holds and so well that you don't even need to see the action- only the anticipation and follow through. This blew my mind when I first found out about it, because what I had been doing was setting up 2 keyframes and then cramming in a billion inbetweens to make the action smooth.)

THE PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION IN IN ACTION!

[zomfgbie]

aha i knew it was you. i used to read your tutorials on ABS all the time  

[psi43]

ooo hello thor.

[Thor]

aha i knew it was you. i used to read your tutorials on ABS all the time  

I'm surprised anyone outside of ABS knew about those.

I'm actually rewriting my big ol' "Animation Primer" tutorial with more examples and whatnot. Anything you guys want to see in it?

So far major changes will be:
-lotsah more examples
-more squash and stretch (more on motion blurs)
-acting using the principles

[zomfgbie]

something on camera angles and stuff would be niec. if you know anything of it.

[Thor]

Unfortunately, staging is probably my weakest area right now. I wouldn't be qualified to teach it