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Scott Evans
What is your name and your current occupation?
Hello. My name is Scott Evans and I am a freelance cartoon graphic designer and animator at www.lookcreativestudio.co.uk
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
The animation I am working on is based on the craziest job that I had. Just after I turned 18 my Dad got me to pass exams so that I could be licensee of his new pub. I was suppose to me going to university in London, having just completed my A levels but my Dad convinced me to take a year off for work experience, to help manage his new pub in Torquay. Originally from Birmingham, the whole family moved to this seaside town that we had only ever visited once before, and Tony Dunne, now fellow Barstewards writer/composer and long time friend decided to come down for the summer with us. None of us ever returned home to Birmingham (and I never did get to university). Being in charge of a pub at 18 resulted in all the things you could probably imagine. Lots of drinking, lots of trouble and very little work. The pub last two years (though the memories live on!)
What are some of your favourite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I do lots of cartoon artwork for businesses all over the world and I am grateful that I get to do that every day for a living. I can’t think of Continue reading
Watch these artists 3D print animation into reality
Engadget is reporting on a group of Dutch 3d animators that literally printed out every frame of a short film in with a 3d printer and made it into an exhibit.
From the site:
Why 3D print a computer animation? ‘Art’ is a good enough reason for us, and that’s exactly what drove Dutch artists to put a hundred frames into a single mind-bending installation. Using an Ultimaker 2 3D printer and liberal amounts of glue and string, artists Job, Joris and Marieke squeezed all the cells from a short animation (below) into a single mise-en-scene. At a glance, you can see the fate of the teal-hued hero as he vaults off a cup and into a vase, with each detail (including a bouncing ball and shattered cup) faithfully reproduced in PVC. If you want to feel like you’re inside a computer where time has lost all meaning, it’ll be exhibited at Amersfoort’s Kunsthal museum on March 29th.
Aaron Sowd
What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Aaron Sowd. I’m currently the president and art director at Aaron Sowd Productions, Inc. We specialize in storyboards and animatics for feature films. We also do some 3-D and previs work. Right now, we work exclusively for Will Smith and Overbrook Entertainment, doing development work. It’s a dream job, and they keep us very busy.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve worked as a professional artist more or less full time since I was 18. I spent about six years in comics before working on the Anastasia and Titan A.E. style guides for Fox. I was the art director at Stan Lee Media. I’ve been freelancing in just about every media since: film, TV, advertising and video games.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
After Earth comes out this summer, and that was a blast to work on. I got to storyboard some of the additional scenes and meet M. Night. My favorite project is the one I’m working on right now — which is top secret, of course. Working on the first Transformers film, Solaris, the Transformers and The Simpsons rides at Universal, and the God of War and Rage video games were all career highlights for me.
How did you become interested in animation?
As a kid I grew up with no TV, so I got interested in comic books first, then animation. Our local library used to carry the Tintin and Asterix collections, and later I got into Marvel and DC. The first animation I can remember seeing was Continue reading
Sam Ellis
What is your name and your current occupation?
Sam Ellis, Creative Director at Never Say Die Studios LLC. Â I also teach Animation, Story Art, and Concept Design to college students, 2 days a week at the Art Institute of Washington.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was a supervisor at a quick service chicken restaurant, a Mormon missionary in Arizona, a house framer in historic Williamsburg, a pizza delivery driver, a burger cashier, I built curbs all over Virginia Beach, an off-ice hockey linesman, as well as quite a few more freelance art jobs.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well, the one project that really helped launch my career and that is going into its 5th season is Archer. I was Lead Designer on Archer Season one and left at the end to go work on personal projects, but we were wrapping up an episode of the short lived Xtacles on adult swim and Adam Reed was getting ready to pitch a new show around called Duchess, Neal Holman was too busy with his other duties so Matt Thompson passed off the majority of the work over to me and Chad Hurd. I was to draw Duchess (later to be known as Archer), his mother, and his father, while Chad drew Archer’s love interest, his foil, and his car. Â After his pitch was successful and a pilot was green-lit, I got to do quite a bit more designing, Chad and I were pretty delighted to start making some changes to the designs when we got hold of them, there was some great stuff already done by Neal Holman and Eric Simms, but with Neal working on creating backgrounds before we found Trinity Animation and Eric taking some heavy animation duties, Chad and I were like kids in a candy shoppe. We had a blast on that first episode, it came together real fast and we came up with some interesting solutions. Â Even though I left Archer I still love the crew and am tickled when I see some of the art I did show up all the time, also I get a kick out of seeing my son every time I see young Archer as he was the model for it, Although he has never seen or probably will see Archer. Â Outside of Archer I have been able to work on Cory Edward’s Krogzilla with the fine folks at GreenShoe Animation, Jason Shwartz’s company–man totally forgot, working with those guys let me work with Disney and Marvel I am heck’a proud of that I also got to foray into gaming and got to do some designs for that Avengers ultimate alliance game–that was fun.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I currently live in Spotsylvania VA, and I grew up on the east coast, most of my life was spent in Virginia Beach, VA. Â I always wanted to be an animator and a comic artist, I love telling stories and find that using pictures and being able to draw was another great skill set in being able to Continue reading
Cintiq Alternative: Ugee 1910B 19″ Monitor Drawing Tablet review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MpTHZa6eP8
If you remember a while back we reported on a Cintiq alternative called the Ugee 1910B 19″ Monitor Drawing Tablet which you can currently purchase on Amazon for only $429 and users really seemed to like. Today I was alerted to a fantastic and very lengthy in depth review of  the device itself by an artist named Holly. The review points to an unboxing video as well as two other demos of using the tablet monitor and I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the results. If I needed a new Cintiq I might actually drop the cash for this one.
You can read the full review here.
Of course you REALLY don’t need a huge tablet like this when you can still buy an LE 1600 for LESS THAN $100 at Gainsaver which works perfectly well for a cheap digital sketchbook. Also recently I purchased a J3400 from eBay also made by Motion which I’ll put through it’s paces and hopefully do a review.
If the Ugee makers want to send us a demo unit we’d LOVE to take the tablet monitor through it’s paces.
