History of Animation

So I have been taking a History of Animation class this semester. I just got to Disney in the 30's and 40's after watching other animators like Charles Mintz (Krazy Kat), Fleisher Brothers (Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman), Winsor Mckay (Gertie the friendly Dinosaur) and Otto Messmer (Felix the Cat, Flip the Frog). Important as they were there is a serious jump by Disney. I AM A FAN! Say what you will about him, I repeat, I am a fan. It is incredible what he has done for the art form, even if he probably was a little hard to work with. Which he was. The class is awesome. For about an hour we talk about history (everything from all over the world from 1880-2013) and then for 3 hours we just watch films. This week we finally arrived to Disney. If you want to see what kind of difference there was between the Disney and Fleisher studios (probably the number 2) look at Disney's "The Band Concert" (1935) and "A Song of the Birds" (1935). Yeah... There's a difference. But Fleisher's Superman series is much more impressive, but they would never be able to catch up. Too little too late, as we say...

Anyways, and on a completely different note, I had a very good idea of a new project that I am going to start working on. I have thought about making videos that explain how to do tricks on trampolines but animated by hand. I've already grabbed the video, which will end up being the references for my animations. They are going to take some time! But I am super excited! I hope that they are impressive. I just wanted something to help me stick out. I have a 4.0 in the pre-req classes and about a 3.6 total gpa so my academic resume should be perfectly fine. I just know that they only accept about 9 people each semester so I needed something that helped me be different from the other applications. I'm going to spend my Saturday mornings in front of a light table. First I am going to go to the library but I want to see if I can use the actual 2D animation labs too. I'm going to go in and talk to a teacher soon. Today I bought my 500 sheets of printer paper and hole punched the first 100 so no I just need to limit the videos down to the ones that I am actually going to use. Super excited to animate myself flipping around on trampolines and jumping into foam pits! I am going to mess with the timing a little bit I think to see how it looks. One cool thing that I have learned about the history of animation is that the world you create is so manipulative, I can do whatever I want! Plus I might add some extra layers to make it more fun. I'm hoping to have them done by April but I will post each one as I finish them.

For today, I offer some pictures of some noses that I was sketching just to get better at them. Noses are a pain for me so I just did a bunch of them last week. Here they are: