Speaking of Animation has released their latest interview with Jason Ryan. It’s fantastic, and a great source of inspiration for young animators. Make sure you stop by and check it out.

John Nevarez has started a Paul Felix blog. There’s some amazing stuff on there, like this:

Click the image to go.

This design / concept artist has a very inspiration gallery online at boyrobot.com. I suggest you treat your eyes to a visit.

The March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair features prominent Hollywood stars “recreating” some of Hitchcock’s more iconic film moments. Granted this is over two years old, but I just discovered it so maybe you just did too! These images are a great keep sake, and really make you want to watch the films that are featured. It must have been surreal for the actors in these spreads to portray the characters from the films that inspired them to be where they are today. Here’s the cover as well as all the spreads in high resolution images:

Awesome demo reel that got this guy a job at Pixar. When you see stuff like this you really see that it’s all in the blocking.

Okay bad joke, I know. But check out this Vimeo page
Matt Ornstein put together. It features demo reels that he finds inspiring. What a great idea! I literally have hundreds of inspiring demo reels on my hard drive, but I still found a bunch here that I hadn’t seen. Thanks Matt!

These guys are pretty funny. I already posted their latest video the other day. This one in particular appealed to me as an animator because of the use of simple gestures (pose) to create completely contrasting characters. I’m not saying you’d want to be this obvious in all your posing, but it’s good for illustrative purposes to show how quickly you can get character across. You can also tell these guys are just having fun working on these videos, and it reminds me that if I’m not having fun animating, there’s really no point. Stop by their site for more off the wall humor and fun. Great work guys!

The success of any comic idea depends not just on the skill with which it is executed, but more importantly on the attitude with which it is performed.

Download here.

This is a clip from the excellent four part series John Cleese put together for the BBC entitled, “The Human Face,” that I’ve mentioned here before. It’s a must see as far as I’m concerned. It’s the only part of the series that gets this close to art, but the rest of it is extremely useful as behavioral study for the animator.

Here’s some really inspiring stuff from Rune Bennicke. Check out his Vimeo page for more.

This site is a must see. Anyone developing as an artist can get distracted/discouraged/depressed/you name it, when they can’t draw well right out of the gate. Looking at so much amazing art around the world, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that these artists simply draw great the first time. This site dispells that myth, showing that it not only takes a lot of effort, but a lot of re-dos before they get what was in their heads onto the paper/canvas. For personal growth, art instruction, and self-confidence, I vote this as a must see site. Go now!

http://www.artboxforum.com/wip/

Thank to Jean-Denis for the heads up on this one.