fall collection: detail
Sep. 22nd, 2007 09:32 amAnd here's a second closeup of that piece I finished yesterday, because I really like this segment.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Sep. 22nd, 2007
introductory texts
Sep. 22nd, 2007 11:13 amHere's an intruiging thread: What single book is the best introduction to your field for laypeople?
Animation and art seems to be conspicuously absent from the list of Things People Who Paid Five Bucks To Metafilter do. One person mentions that all their animator friends like Frank & Ollie's "The Illusion Of Life" but damn, that's an expensive tome no matter how you hunt it down.
My 'animation for the layman' book would not be that. It would, instead, be Leonard Maltin's "Of Mice and Magic", a survey of the history of animation in America from its beginnings to somewhere in the 70s, when it was published. There's some information on how it's done, but it's more about all the studios that came and went. It was here that I first heard of the legendary insanity of the Fleischer shorts, for instance.
The drawing book that I think is the best for the layman? Not the Blair books on drawing for animation - those are invaluable, but they're tutorial texts, ones to work from when you start being serious. It was a thin tome by Jim Arnofsky titled "Drawing Life In Motion". In a package the size of a typical children's book (Arnofsky did a number of those), there are a lot of little thoughts on how to create drawings that feel alive. Stylized, but observed, and dynamic. Even a couple of pages on the slow, subtle reachings of plants. It's relatively short on details, and long on the magic of a lively world. Unfortunately, it's out of print. It wasn't my first drawing book, nor was it my last, but something about it stayed in my mind all these years.
What's your 'introduction for the layman' book? Where would you send someone interested in an overview of the hows and whys of the fields you're into?
Animation and art seems to be conspicuously absent from the list of Things People Who Paid Five Bucks To Metafilter do. One person mentions that all their animator friends like Frank & Ollie's "The Illusion Of Life" but damn, that's an expensive tome no matter how you hunt it down.
My 'animation for the layman' book would not be that. It would, instead, be Leonard Maltin's "Of Mice and Magic", a survey of the history of animation in America from its beginnings to somewhere in the 70s, when it was published. There's some information on how it's done, but it's more about all the studios that came and went. It was here that I first heard of the legendary insanity of the Fleischer shorts, for instance.
The drawing book that I think is the best for the layman? Not the Blair books on drawing for animation - those are invaluable, but they're tutorial texts, ones to work from when you start being serious. It was a thin tome by Jim Arnofsky titled "Drawing Life In Motion". In a package the size of a typical children's book (Arnofsky did a number of those), there are a lot of little thoughts on how to create drawings that feel alive. Stylized, but observed, and dynamic. Even a couple of pages on the slow, subtle reachings of plants. It's relatively short on details, and long on the magic of a lively world. Unfortunately, it's out of print. It wasn't my first drawing book, nor was it my last, but something about it stayed in my mind all these years.
What's your 'introduction for the layman' book? Where would you send someone interested in an overview of the hows and whys of the fields you're into?