How to Paint Like Miyazaki

From the Craft Mastery Special Unit

I found this nice write up about a recently translated pamphlet that show's Miyazaki's painting technique and tools.

I'd seen the pamphlet before in Japanese, which I don't read, and though it looked nice, but I missed all the charming self-deprecation Miyazaki is known for.

What's great about this is Miyazaki's tools and techniques are about eliminating friction and getting work done. Tools aren't the focus in his work, he just found something that gets the job done, and his technique never gets in the way of telling a story, or exhibiting a character's personality.

Read the full write up here: LINK​

The second page there is concept art for a commercial Studio Ghibli did back in 2004 to pay the bills:

Watch the video here: LINK

-Jake

The Art of the Smear

From the Art Department's Craft Mastery Special Unit

Smear frames in animation is a creative solution to making animated characters move with more fluidity in a short amount of frames. This webpage does an EXCELLENT job at explaining it with interactive examples.

THE ART OF THE SMEAR: BREAKING DOWN A SECRET ANIMATION TRICK LINK

I share this because someone recently posted screen grabs of all the smears from the recent 3D animated Spongebob film. Each of these frames is like a Dali painting. Brilliant work by the artists at Mikros, who animated the film.

Tons more here: LINK

(via @PunzieSfw)

-Jake

Painting Practice Continues

From the Art Department's Craft Mastery Special Unit

Another paint over of some of my line work. Having fun with these and learning a lot about color, form, and light.⁣

-Jake

Painting Practice Continues to Continue

From the Art Department's Craft Mastery Special Unit

Working on my painting skills some more. Trying to knock one out every week in my off time. You can see the original line art version of this at the bottom there. I wanted to take that art and see if I could make it look more rendered, like 3D.

-Jake