Thanks and keep enlightening us all!

But for me, though I was classically trained, my drawing skills were never great enough to get the acting and appeal I had in my head across. But my *sense* of design I totally credit to Calarts and continued art and cinema “education” in general. Whatever the medium, you’re still composing for a 2d screen; the principles are all the same. So if I’ve got an appealing model to begin with, like Remy or Ego or Presto, chances are I’ll be able to come up with something more appealing than if I tried to draw it. With cg I’m simply building on a great design that some great designer already built.

But I do agree that more students ought to be educated in art history and to watch movies as often as possible, not just animated films but live action too. See how filmmakers or other artists solve design problems and learn from them. Not to copy the answers as a shortcut, but to learn from the thought behind the answers. I see too many stock gestures and poses in animation these days. When in doubt people fall back on what’s comfortable. Certainly I’m guilty of this at times. So never stop learning from life and from people who’ve figured it out. And watching great animation is only the half of it; those old guys got their inspiration from somewhere too! Go to the source.

But hey! There’s no wrong opinion right?
Thanks a lot.

Is it harder for you to get appeal in 3d then in hand drawn? As awesome as 3d medium is, I still feel it has a lot to grow in this area when compared with those Milt drawings that you posted..

and do you still think it’s important to be able to draw well even though you are a CG animator? I feel that a lot of CG students mostly focus on physicality and entertainment.. but lack appeal~ possibly because they’ve been using simple guy gigs all the time in school.. but when given a appealing complicated character… they dunno how to push it in terms of appeal because they haven’t been drawing!

Re: Stephen. I agree, but I suppose I would argue that everything you’re talking about — clarity, staging, animation just plain reading — would in fact fall under story. I’m not saying I as an animator at pixar (ie. huge studio) am making calls about whether the character should do this or that or the other in each scene, but it IS my job to make sure whatever the character is supposed to be doing reads. So perhaps “clarity” would be a more appropriate word in one sense, but to me “story” carries a stronger connotation.

And you’re right, I’m pretty biased toward narrative “character” animation, since to me cinema is an inherently communicative art form. I can’t call a film a failure if it doesn’t present some kind of character or drama I can follow and relate to, but I’m not going to spend two hours of my life sitting through it. Of course, whether or not one finds a film compelling is totally up to the viewer, so I’m not saying anyone should like this and not like that. But a film’s got to be pretty darned interesting, and not just in a graphic sense, to keep my attention these days.

Thanks for the discussion!