Chang Dai’s extensive animation experience covers character design, storyboards, art direction, hand drawn animation, game design and production design in Toronto (Yowza Animation, Arc Animation, Industrial Brothers, Jam Filled Entertainment, House of Cool), , Minneapolis, and in San Francisco (Play Studios). Chang’s professional animation experience shows a highly developed ability to draw well.
Is it possible that the look and feel of current animation feature films has hit a wall? Is creativity still alive in feature film animation?
Consider the current response to the Sony Pictures block-buster, Oscar nominated “Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse” in this article from Animation World Network entitled “Art Triumphs Over Everything. Animation geeks and mainstream film-goers alike are finding a virtual treasure trove of inspiration and visual interest in Spider-Verse’s artful direction by the art direction team of Patrick O’Keefe (Animation Portfolio Workshop grad)
Yes and No.
With the advent of the Internet and new technologies, (hardware and software) the platforms existing for teaching the language of observational drawing seem to be expanding…. for better or for worse, one can’t quite tell – yet.
By that we mean that the jury is still out on whether the online offerings are doing more to diminish and eclipse the authentic experience of what is really involved in earning (yes we said earning) what it takes to become fluent in the language of observational drawing as we know it. You have to earn fluency in observational drawing language through a great exertion of energy and time…thousands of hours of sweat basically. The suitability of a term like ‘earning’ makes a lot of sense in context of the advice Gerard is often overheard giving during critiques in APW classes. When a weary APW drawing student comes to cry on his shoulder about how long it takes to learn how to draw, or how hard a particular drawing exercise is, Gerard is heard to say; “Drawing is like digging a hole. You get a shovel and dig.
International and Canadian students make up the Animation Portfolio Workshop Summer Intensive Sessions and create a special atmosphere. Diverse cultural backgrounds all come together when it’s time to draw. Mexico, Columbia, Guatemala, Senegal, UK, USA, Italy, India, Denmark, Switzerland, Vietnam, Fort MacMurray Alta., Winnipeg Man., and even our home city of Toronto and throughout Ontario.
The Summer Intensive lives up to it’s name and is a full 38 days of classes (6 hours per day) spread out over 8 weeks in July and August
Animation Portfolio Workshop grad Saud Boksmati has made Visual Development and Character Design a matter of priority in his art practise. Soulful character designs filled with personality and humanity and meaningful story-telling are hallmarks of Saud’s personal drawings and illustrations as well as his professional work for Cartoon Network, LAIKA Entertainment,
Animation Portfolio Workshop is pleased to welcome back a former Instructor – Toronto storyboard artist Sonia Furier as our 2019 special guest judge for the 2019 APW Character Design Contest.
Sonia got her start as an APW student,
Award winning “Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse” Art Director Patrick O’Keefe talks abut his roots as an Animation Portfolio Workshop student. Patrick cites his APW experience as seminal in forming a passion for drawing that motivates him to constantly aim high in his work as a professional.
Moving into films and working digitally, even building these crazy video game worlds, that all came from an understanding of drawing and design that I learned at APW
It’s that time of year again, and we have been very busy working with all of our current APW students on animation portfolio preparation.
As always, we have had another great group this year. The hard work and dedication that they’ve all devoted to learning how to draw over the past 38 classes and then applying those fundamentally essential skills to creating plenty of their best work for their animation portfolios has been an honour to help with and observe first hand as the process unfolds and develops.
With Seneca animation portfolio preparations complete we are now closing in on finishing up the Sheridan animation portfolios as well as a number of portfolios for other programs. Congrats to all 2018-2019 Animation Portfolio Workshop students. Well done!!
Jason walks us through the various stages he used while developing his character Sushi Cat. One of the benefits of studying at Animation Portfolio Workshop is learning how to
After all of the months spent covering the basics in class, the time for creating the actual animation portfolio arrives and Animation Portfolio Workshop students get to work on the final pieces.