Hey everyone.
Today I wanted to make another post centering around animation and flash, the heart and core of this site. I searched around a bit the other day to find some more outstanding flash-based sites and blogs and boy, I found quite a few hidden gems. I’ll also talk about a book that I bought a few months ago that, if you’re interested in animation, will benefit you in the long run to purchase. Anyway, let’s get started…
(Before we begin, looking at my previous post about flash-based blogs and sites might be helpful.)
Moolt.com aka HayasaPictures.com
http://www.hayasapictures.com/
This is my new favorite animation blog out there. It’s run by Hayk Manukyan, a young flash animator who has worked for companies such as Disney, Cartoon Network, Luma Pictures, Unbound, One Red Room, Sixpoint Harness, Toonaciouse family entertainment, as well as others. He keeps his visitors updated with long and in-depth video tutorials of him working on some of his projects, which, if you ask me, is epic.
ColdHardFlash.com
Not so much for tutorials, this site is more about keeping everyone informed about the happenings in the flash world online. It has daily newsposts about all the popular artists and their animations and series, as well as interviews with them. Definitely worth a look-at.
AnimationForum.net Forums
http://www.animationforum.net/forum/
I haven’t been able to snoop around this place alot, but by judging from it’s name and the huge amount of topics and users that appear on this site daily, I’d say this is surely a forum that all animator’s should be a part of (I am :D).
Bitey.com
Bitey.com is owned by Adam Phillips. I’m guessing you all (the flash animator’s out there) know who this is, right? He’s the creator of one of the most popular and well-drawn flash animation series out there, Brackenwood. Phillips used to work for Disney before he called it quits to work on his own. He’s recently hired a writer to help him begin to plan out a feature film he plans to produce in the future (he wants it to be about 90-120 minutes long) featuring his Brackenwood series. As you can imagine, his site is full of great flash inspiration and tutorials.
Now that I got that list out of the way, let’s talk about that book I mentioned before, shall we? I talked about it in V2 of the site, but since the database went bye bye, I’ll revisit the subject for all of you that missed out before. The Animator’s Survival Kit is a great ol’ 340+ page book written by Richard Williams, best known for being the animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. As the cover of the book says, the book is “A manual of methods, principles, and formulas for classical, computer, game, stop-motion, and internet animators.”
The book is filled with really in-depth and thought out tips and tricks that WIlliams has acquired over the years throughout his various jobs at Warner Bros. and Disney, and even under the apprenticeship of great animator’s such as Chuck Jones (Looney Tunes), Ken Harris (Looney Tunes), and Art Babbit (creator of Goofy). The book is about 85-90% hand-written, this is including the hundreds of drawings and sketches that Williams uses to help his readers easily understand and comprehend what he is teaching them.
Below I have scanned a few pages of my copy of the book and put them together real quick, just so you can get an idea of what the style of the book consists of (crappy scans, I know, sue me 
). Before I post them, you can find this book on Amazon.com for $16-$20 and have it delivered to you in less than 5-10 days. It’s definitely worth the price.
Well, I hope you got some useful information out of this post. You should bookmark all of the sites that I posted in this article as well as the ones that I talked about in my previous article on this subject. They are all owned and run by trustworthy and talented animators, and they can only benefit you from reading over them.
That’s all from me today. See ya’.
July 12, 2008 @ 8:58 pm.
Hey thanks for the helpful sites and ideas! Great site. I have my own but im trying to get my flash ability up before making it great. I have lots of ideas and your site helps me think of more every time i visit. Thanks!