Stanch is the man!

About a month ago I finally got around to downloading the Walt Stanchfield animation notes from Animationmeat.com (Thanks guys!), but it wasn't until the last few days (minus a few small glimpses here and there) that I was able to fully read them. Now from those small glimpes and glances I was able to recognize the value of the notes and so had them binded at my local Staples. Boy am I glad I did! This stuff is genious!! Just as good and recommended as Illusion of Life and Animator's Survival Kit as far as this young animator is concerned. I've fully studied, highlighted and post-it-noted the whole thing and I must admit, I'm quite enlightened. Go and get them now, and don't put them down until you are done! To convince you further, I've chosen some gems from the text to wet your literal appetites:

"I repeatedly harp on feeling the pose rather than merely looking at it. By looking at it only, you have to keep looking at it repeatedly as you copy the parts. In feeling the pose and I mean actually picturing in your mind, yourseld as doing, the pose. If you have to, stand up, put down your drawing board and assume the pose. Feel which muscles pull or contract to get which stetch or squash. Feel where the weight falls, what is entailed to keep your balance. Feel the psychological attitude it imparts, i.e. if the head is drooped, does it evoke a sad or disappointed feeling; if the head is held high, do you feel proud or haughty or reverent-or what? So with the whole body, impose some kind of attitude on it. Then you have that pose locked into your mind and can summon it up at will by simply seeing it in your mnind and assuming that attitude. As a matter of fact you can see it from any vantage point-you could even do some mental levitation and look down on it from above"



"Sometimes the changes of angles of cheek against flock, or hand against cheek are so subtle they are felt rather than seen, if you are just looking they are seductive-if you are drawing, they suddenly become almost invisible-difficult to see and capture. That's why sometimes you have draw not what you see but what you know is there or what you feel is there."

There are tons more creative gems like those within the rest of the text.

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Also check out this blog from a bunch of Sony and Dreamworks animators. It's called, "Insert Name Here". I can't believe I haven't been reading it all this time, I guess it sort of got overshadowed by Spline Doctors. Anyway, thanks to Cartoon Brew for the heads up.