It's been a long time since I've posted, but I've been really delving deep into animation technique - trying to take my stuff to the next level. One thing that I find difficult is "subtle" animation - when there's not a lot of movement going on, and a character may be doing a great deal of acting while generally staying in one pose. In my searches, I found a great article by John K (Ren & Stimpy). Here's a snippet to think about:

"Subtle" is a very misunderstood word today. Most people think it means the lack of anything happening-and they think that's good. It actually means that lots of things are happening but they are happening not blatantly obviously and they are conveying meaning even though each individual subtle move is hard to detect.

I'll keep posting as I find out more.

Here's the short film I recently contributed to for Zoetifex, a Pittsburgh-based animation studio that's on the up and up. My shot (3) starts with "forthcoming lecture" up until ,"our good friends." Check it out, spread it around, and leave comments on You Tube!

I did some illustration work for the Magnificent Baby company this summer, and their website just went live. Their product is so necessary and long overdue - taking the hassle out of baby clothes. I myself had three little ones that put up the darndest fights when we tried buttoning them up in little outfits that had fifty-million snaps to fasten. Great product, great clients.

Check out their site: www.magnificentbaby.com. I'm featured in the "how it works" section.

I enjoyed a brief stint last year at Chabad.org, working on a couple of projects for the site. They asked me to do a commercial for their Hanukkah site that had the potential to maybe go viral. So, I cranked this bad boy out in less than a month - doing the design, animation, and sound design. It was really my first shot at something like this, and considering all of the hats I was wearing for it, I think it came out pretty OK.

Well, here's my first shot from my Alumni course at Animation Mentor, Polishing & Portfolio. Man, I'm so happy with this one . . . Compared to the original, I think it really shows how much I've grown as an animator in the last couple of years. Thanks to my amazing teachers.

Stewie and Taylor from Sruli Broocker on Vimeo.