Animation, Conceptual Dev., Matte Paintings, Interviews, & CG Sites ::
Welcome! This is a comprehensive list of everything under the sun. "Choose your poison."
Updated: 8/22/07

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Animation Blogs
There's a lot great blogs out there giving us the ins and outs of the industry. Here are a few of the best.

Cartoon Brew ::
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/
Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi give us the low down on what's going in the animation world. Thanks guys!

Lou Romano ::
http://www.leo3d.com/
Lou was the production designer for "The Incredibles", his strength is in his mastery of design, sense of color, light and texture.

Mark Kennedy ::
http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/
Mark is a story guy and designer at Disney, you'll learn a lot about story and characters from his blog.

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Animation Companies & Visual Effects Studios

Pixar Animation Studios ::
http://www.pixar.com/
Creators of "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo"

Industrial Light & Magic ::
http://www.ilm.com/

Lucas Arts ::
http://www.lucasarts.com/

Dreamworks Feature Animation ::
http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/dwa/opencms/index.html
Creators of "Madagascar" & "Shrek 1 & 2"

Disney Animation Studios ::
http://disney.go.com/home/today/index.html

Warner Bros. Feature Animation::
http://looneytunes.warnerbros.com/web/homepage/homepage.jsp

Blue Sky Studios ::
http://www.blueskystudios.com/content/index.php
Creators of Ice Age 1 & 2.

Iceblink Studios ::
http://www.iceblink.com/home.php
Currently in production for them, "Beowulf"

WETA Studios ::
http://www.wetadigital.com/digital/
King Kong, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia

Blurr Animation Studios ::
http://www.blur.com/indexl.html

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Advice from the Pros. ::

Animation Planning - Ways to get good storytelling results by Andreas Deja ::
http://animationpodcast.com/archives/2005/05/25/principles-planning/
Great advice and reminders about storytelling, humor and pacing.

How to Succeed in Animaiton ::
http://genedeitch.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=chapter&chapter=Intro&page=1
Article on the AWN site..

Lecture Notes from the great Disney's "9 Old Men" ::
http://www.abwag.com/acting.htm
A series of lecture notes by Eric Larson and Ham Luske, two of Disney's Old Masters.

9 Old Men :: Animation Examples & Pencil Tests
http://www.1on1animation.com/inspiration-flip.htm
The site features pencil tests of famous Disney characters done by animation greats such as Glenn Keene, Ollie Johnston and Milt Kahl.

Quick Acting Tips ::
http://www.abwag.com/acting.htm
Yes, as an animator you will be giving an otherwise inanimate object life. This is acting. Go to this site to get some acting tips.

The 7 P's of hiring a potential animator by Jeremy Cantor, Sony Columbia Pictures
http://www.zayatz.com/text/the_seven.htm

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Animation Portfolios ::
As you prepare your reels and websites, check these sites for inspiration.

Bobby "Boom" Beck ::
http://www.bobbyboombeck.com/index2.html

Carlos Baena ::
http://www.carlosbaena.com/

Christian Haley ::
http://www.christianhaley.com/

First Avenue Machines ::
Really nice integration of live action and CG. Mad skills going on here.
http://www.1stavemachine.com/

Jimmy Maidens "Boring 3D" ::
http://www.boring3d.com/

Leonid Larionov ::
http://www.leo3d.com/

Lou Romano ::
http://www.leo3d.com/
Lou was the production designer for "The Incredibles", his strength is in his mastery of design, sense of color, light and texture. Lou, if you read this, thanks for sharing your work. An updated blog of his work can be found here:

Ryan Terry ::
http://www.ry-guy.com
A great animation site that utilizes Flash.

SimpleViewer Portfolio Template ::
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/
Viewfinder is a pretty nice, easy to use and update flash based picture viewer.

Connecting to your Server ::
Once you have your web portfolio ready, upload it to a server. The two methods demonstrated on these pages shows how to do so in GoLive and using the AiLV servers.
>> Click here to go there now.

Best of Portfolio Reels ::
http://www.linklater.ca/inspring_reels.htm
This page showcases an excellent compilation of animator and character sites. Check it.

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Character Design & Model Sheets ::

Animation Archive ::
http://animationarchive.net/Feature%20Films/
Model sheetst to all of your favorite Disney animations. Be sture to click MODEL SHEETS found in the left nav after you have selected your movie.

Feng Zhu ::
http://www.fengzhudesign.com/characters.html
Another conceptual artist with mad mad skills that served as inspiration for our Digital painting class..

Stephen Silver Animation ::
Examples of semi-real and cartoony character design. Designed Kim Possible.
http://www.silvertoons.com/
To see updated works, check is excellent blog.
http://stephensilver.blogspot.com/

Shaun Pendegast ::
Excellent character stylization and sense of light.
http://web.mac.com/monkeyspin/iWeb/MONKEYSPIN/Illustration.html

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Conceptual Art & Matte Painting ::

Brom ::
http://www.bromart.com/bromshop.html
Sci-Fi Illustrator. Great design and concepts.

CG Talk ::
http://forums.cgsociety.org/
One stop shopping for CG animation, conceptual art and tutorials.

Craig Mullen ::
http://www.goodbrush.com/
A fantastic artist with mad painting skills.

Doug Chiang ::
http://www.dchiang.com/
Lead production designer for Star Wars EPI. Check out his new Robota concepts....excellent.

Donato Giancola ::
http://www.donatoart.com/
Some excellent tutorials here folks to see how things are done. Check it.

Dylan Cole ::
http://www.dylancolestudio.com/
Dylan has an excellent command over light and details in his work. I was hooked when I viewed one of his DVD's. You'll learn a lot from him.

Feng Zhu ::
http://www.fengzhudesign.com/
Another conceptual artist with mad mad skills that served as inspiration for our Digital painting class..

Foret-Bleue ::
http://www.foret-bleue.com/
Fore Bleue features work by Patrick Tatopoulos, the production designer responble (iRobot, 2004).
Some pretty nice conceptual develeopment going on here.

MattePainting.org ::
http://mattepainting.org/
An incredible matte painting site. The leaders in the profession are featured on this site.

Michael Whelan ::
http://www.michaelwhelan.com/
Sci - Fi Illustrators. One of the greats. We studied him a lot in school.

Mike Rayhawk ::
http://www.mikerayhawk.com/dante.htm
Mike has a great sense of storytelling in his illustrations and also has a great sense of color.

Ralph McQuarrie ::
http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/
Conceptual designer and illustrator for the original Star Wars.

Ryan Church ::
http://www.ryanchurch.com/
Conceptual artist for Star Wars EpIV. The single source of inspiration for our Corel Painter IX class at the Art Institute of Las Vegas for Winter 06.

Warren Fu ::
http://www.seeoutloud.com/


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Newly Added Conceptual Artists and Matte Painters 8/19/06 . Thanks LaRoyce Jones for the hookup.
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Erik Tiemens ::
http://www.virtualgouacheland.blogspot.com/
An updated blog showcasing his most recent work. Watch his use of atmospheric perspective to get depth in his color comps.

http://www.watersketch.com/film2.html
View color scripts for the work he did on Star Wars EP III. Color scripts tell the story without action, dialogue or music....only through color.

George Hull ::
http://www.ghull.com
Awesome sense of color.

James Clyne ::
http://www.jamesclyne.com/projects_wofw.html
Incredible concept designer. This link showcases his "War of the Worlds" work.

Mark Goerner ::
http://www.grnr.com
Mark's got some mad skills. His paintings remarkable.

Yanick Dussealut ::
http://dusso.com/
One of the best mattte painters around. Saw battle action during the production of Star Wars EP III.

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CG Sites, Tutorials and Downloads ::
Provided by Philippe M. of Las Vegas - Thx

Alias / Autodesk Site ::
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=6871843&siteID=123112
Creators of Maya and 3D Studio. The new site shows them now merging.

Antics ::
http://www.anticz.com/animate.htm
Great Site, the guy's good. Great tutorials too. Hope his achilles heel is better.

CG Talk ::
http://forums.cgsociety.org/
One stop shopping for CG animation, conceptual art and tutorials.

High End 3D ::
http://www.highend3d.com
Nice forums, I especially like the career and industry advice board. Also some very nice still renders in the gallery, inspiring stuff. I like the 2d/3d digital dictionary on this site too.

Robinwood ::
http://www.robinwood.com
Indices of refraction

Maya Tutorials ::
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=6871843&siteID=123112
Some good, some not so good. Check and see.

Mental Ray Tutorials ::
http://sv1.3dbuzz.com

Textures ::
http://www.mayang.com/textures/ 
Some nice free textures (brick, wall, paint, concrete, and tile are nice).

Software Tips ::
http://www.pixel2life.com 
How do I do X in program Y? 2d, 3d, audio, video, programming, even office software. If you use it there's probably a section in here.

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Interviews with the Pros. ::

Brad Byrd Interview on "The Incredibles" ::
http://www.animationtrip.com/item.php?id=257

Interview with Pixar animator Victor Navone ::
http://www.animationarena.com/pixar-the-incredibles-animator.html
Anyone remember the "I Will Survive Dancing Alien?"

Interview with animators Carlos Baena and Victor Navone ::
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=1394&page=
What's it like working at Pixar's Finding Nemo.

Interview with animator Alex Orrelle ::
http://www.animationarena.com/working-for-pixar.html
What's it like working at Pixar. Films include "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo"

Disney \ Pixar Monsters Inc. Credits List ::
http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon_characters/23322-Monsters,_Inc..html
What do you see yourself doing. View this to see how many creative individuals collaborate to put a feature CG animation together..

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Misc. Animation Sites ::

Animation World Magazine ::
http://www.awn.com/
Animation World News Network. One stop shopping for the latest industry news. Post your resume, research companies and contests. Definately worth visiting once a week.

Animation Magazine ::
http://www.animationmagazine.net/
Current news all around the animation industry. Check it!

Adult Swim ::
http://www.adultswim.com/
TV schedules and fan news.

Atom Films ::
http://www.atomfilms.com/
A collection of Flash and CG animations.

The Batman Animated Series ::
http://www2.warnerbros.com/thebatman/
Flash site for "The Batman" animated series. Wallpapers and coloring pages..

Big Cartoon Database ::
http://www.bcdb.com/
An extensive site listing everything you wanted to know about your favorite animations.

Cartoon Network ::
http://www.cartoonnetwork.co.uk/home/index.jsp
TV schedules, fun, games and more.

Jetix ::
http://tv.disney.go.com/jetix/
For Saturday mornings, wat

Kids WB ::
http://kidswb.warnerbros.com/web/home/home.jsp
The Batman, Shaolin Showdown.

Samuari Champloo ::
http://www.madman.com.au/samuraichamploo/index2.html
Official Australian "Samurai Champloo" site. Turn up your speakers while you navigate through this site. Great site design too.

Toonami Infolink::
http://www.toonamiinfolink.com/modules.php?name=Forums

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