more More MORE!!!

New goodies YAAAAAAAAY!

From a site called IK boost, a great article on character posing. Adding to Character - posing.

From The Plausible Impossible a nice post on layouts for storytelling. Adding to Storyboarding

Also from The Plausible Impossible a post about using shapes for charactes. Adding to Character Design.

From The Animated Cartoon Factory a whole page of links that makes for a nice overview of the animating process. Adding to Process.
The Mayerson on animation blog with some interesting thoughts on lip sync. Adding to Character - Dialogue


A footnote on the quality of resources.

I've kind of made it a goal to reach 100 different sites to link to from the ARC this year (we are at about 70 now), but as I rummage around the net I can see that you have to be on your toes. There is so much bad stuff out there, some of it is breathtaking in its ineptitude and charged for to boot. I wouldn't ever name a site and don't intend to make a habit of this sort of thing (I'll leave the negative nelly stuff to the likes of John K and Cartoon Brew :P, which I still read regularly), but I just couldn't help but show this one example.

This is a promotional image from a site that expects you to pay them money in order to teach you how to animate characters. WAAAA???! The antic is off balance, the start and end poses have no attitude, the last and first point of contact aren't fully extended, the poses in the air are stiff with no line of action, and I wouldn't describe a single one of these poses as being appealing. And this is the promotional image? Boy oh boy, I guess everything is relative, perhaps the Shawn Kelly's and Kieth Lango's of the net would look upon my advice the same way. But at least I give it freely. I'll tell you what students, if you are going to pay for animation knowledge, my advice is do your research.