Animation "Newbie"

Approaching the World of Animation

Favorite color: purple. Favorite animal: dog. Favorite food: chocolate. Favorite style of animation: undecided?

I typically decide pretty quickly what I favor about certain things. However, animation is a new topic that I’ve been introduced to in my college Animation and Communication class, and one that I’m not at all familiar working with. My focus in college so far has been more public relations related classes such as marketing classes, writing classes, research classes, etc.…Though I don’t know much about animation just yet, I really enjoy the animation created by Pixar. The realism of characters created by Pixar reflects that of an actual person so accurately that you can imagine yourself interacting with their characters.                                                            Video found on Youtube

 

This quick clip is one of Pixar's recent creations, Hotel Transylvania 2. The characters in this clip were created beautifully. Each movement of the body appears as an actual person moving in front of you. Of course parts are not completely realistic, but animations like this are entertaining because these characters are able to do things that people cannot. The movement of hair, blinking, and body motion are so accurate to a human that it's almost like your          watching real actors, because the detail is so stunning.

Pixar is known for its attention to detail in animation. This detail however, takes a great deal of time to perfect. For example, many Pixar movie lovers know the character Merida in Pixar’s Brave. She is highly recognized by her hair, even by those who haven’t seen the movie. Well, these luscious locks took Pixar 3 years of studying curls to perfect the thing that we adore most about this character's appearance.

It is the dedication of making a character so realistic that many love so much about Pixar movies. While I’ve yet to create my own animated characters, when going through the process, I’d love to understand more of the techniques that Pixar utilizes for their amazing creations.

Image Credit: http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/nov/15/pixar-brave-toy-story-4