Mark McDonnell and Vilppu Lectures

McDonnell

Know the companies:

Are their graphics soft and round? Sharp with angles? Realistic? Or truncated? What mediums do they use and what is their target audience?

• Cartoon Network
• Audience: young males
• Realistic though Foster is an exception.

• Sony
• Manages to create a different style for each of their films.
• Pixar
• 2D shapes into 3D. Unrealistic.

Some companies create the character first and others create the story first.

• Those that create the characters first usually do so for products. Western.
• Those that create the story first usually have characters that are similar in appearances. Example given was Gibli studio. Eastern.

Create your portfolio with the company and their process in mind.

Television shows

• Allows for more exaggeration

You'll always be a student. You simply just hide that from the other professionals. Be humble because you're not as good as the old masters and have an air of professionalism.

With observation, know your market and what you're after. Without a goal, it's harder to find your way quite as fast. Draw with a purpose.

Paint traditionally yet know Photoshop

Sketchbooks are to learn and try new things without having to show it to people. Have multiple sketchbooks to try specific things.

Fail in order to succeed. Work through a bad drawing. You can place tracing paper over it or flip it.

The only time you need approval is when you're working as a professional. You're at the will of someone else, but any other time, you don't need approval for your work.

Ask about budget. You'll get an idea for if textures of cloth will be needed.

Flash is shape-driven. It's cheap and easy to animate.

The triangle shows direction, and action. This is why most action shows feature the triangle shape a lot.

Disney is a mix of soft and hard shapes.

Main characters are usually realistic so that people may relate with them. The more visually interesting characters have little screen time so as not to take away attention.

Design things in three. This allows for comparison and differences.

Don't be the greatest artist that goes unseen.

Be sociable. During crunch time, no one wants to work next to a grump.

Know what program will be required and who to contact.

For class, it's not about the material that you're learning, it's more about what the teacher wants from you based on that.

In brainstorming, usually the first 15 things are common. The next 15 are more difficult to find.
Think of what would sell in our culture instead of the reality.

Draw character-based, story-driven.

Draw outside your comfort zone so you can adjust in your career.

Design in 3/4s. Animators would then understand how to animate.

Make things easier for the animator.

Companies don't like you stealing from catalogs for ideas.



Vilppu

Never copy.
Use the best materials since that's what professionals do.
Always believe that you'll do well.

Composition is organization and helps communication of idea.

Opposing curves are transitions. They're organization and composition.

When you have a real model and you're only do one pose, you make the square torso but animators shouldn't do that since they have model sheets and are doing many poses.