Princess and the Frog teaser trailer- so it begins !


First look at Disney's return to hand-drawn animation:


(You'll have to click on the link . Couldn't embed it.
On the Disney site you have the option to watch it as a high-quality Quicktime movie)


New online classes at Academy of Art

Have you checked the  Academy of Art Online Course Catalog lately ?

We have three new online traditional animation classes launching  for the Fall '08 semester. (not too late to sign up) 


ANM 380 Stop Motion Animation 1 - taught by stop-motion animator and author Ken Priebe. Ken is the author of the noted book The Art of Stop Motion Animation . This is a unique course in that is one of the few classes in traditional stop-motion puppet animation offered online by an accredited university. Ken will be following up this class with Stop Motion Animation 2 . (The Academy of Art also has several other Stop-Motion and Puppet Making classes in development for launch online in the near future.)

ANM 261 Introduction to Effects Animation - taught by Kathleen Quaife . Kathleen is a veteran effects animator having worked for Don Bluth, Disney, Warner Bros. Feature Animation , and many other places. She is one of the most skilled and knowledgeable effects animators in the business and has been very successful in applying her traditional effects skills to digital production using Flash and ToonBoom. See examples of Kathleen's work here: Kathleen Quaife reels


ANM 375 Maquette Sculpting - taught by former Disney artist and sculptor Jason Peltz. Examples of Jason's work may be seen on his website: Jason Peltz maquette examples

Master Rough Animation Drawings

The always interesting blog of animator/director Michael Sporn is featuring some great screen grabs, storyboards, and rough animation drawings from the Disney feature "Sleeping Beauty" .

Michael's blog is a daily stop for me and if it's not in your bookmarks it probably should be.

This coincides with Danish animator/director/Disney historian Hans Perk's posting of the sequence and scene drafts from Sleeping Beauty. Hans's blog is another must-read for me. The scene drafts are studio documents which give a scene-by-scene breakdown of the films and shows who animated which scenes. This is fascinating behind-the-scenes material.

These great roughs and much more inspiring artwork is currently on Michael Sporn's site. Check it out.

(click any image to see it larger)

King Stefan rough animation drawing by John Lounsbery:




The unnamed comedy-relief "Lackey" character , rough animation drawing by John Sibley :




Another great rough animation drawing by John Lounsbery, this one of King Hubert :



A sample of a Disney scene draft . Many more like this on Hans Perk's invaluable blog :