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

http://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

http://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’.

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Hey everyone.  Sorry for the late post today, busy doing stuff.  Those little puppies aren’t gonna rape themselves!  (I kid, I kid…)

Anyway, today’s post will center around a video game that was brought to my attention just the other day, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.  I’m pretty sure most of  you know, or at least have a general idea of what these two groups are.  Very briefly, Mortal Kombat is the brutally violent fight game that has held its own throughout years from the arcade, to the Sega Genesis, to the PS1, and even onto the 360 and PS3.  The DC Universe is all those traditional super heroes, aka, Superman, Batman, etc…  So as you can imagine, it would be pretty entertaining to see how each “team” will hold up against the other.

I’m sure some of you are probably questioning some of the scenarios that might occur when, for example, Scorpion has a brawl with someone “all-powerful”  like Superman.  Or how the traditionally gory Mortal Kombat fatalities might work out on people like Batman and other DC heroes.  Ed Boon (Project Lead of the Mortal Kombat series) confronts some of these questions with his interview with GameSpot.  You can see that video right here:

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is scheduled for release later this year in the fall.  It’s planned for release on the PS3 and Xbox 360.  For more information, visit the games website, WorldsCollide.com.

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Happy Monday everyone.  See, I can say that, because it is currently summer vacation, so Monday doesn’t have that evil power it usually has over me.  If you’re at work or school or whatever right now though… um… sorry.  I hope you guys enjoyed yesterday’s Sunday Funnies.  I laughed out loud when I first saw the bathroom stall prank.

Anyway, time for another post.  Today’s topic hit me when I first went online this morning - web comics.

My homepage is NewGrounds.com.  After I check out if there are any posts by the admins or my favorite animators, I head over to the two web comics that I have viewed daily since, I don’t know, probably 2005 or 2006.  The first one is Ctrl+Alt+Del (CAD), which has been on my bookmarks toolbar longer than the second one, Cyanide and Happiness.  Note, it’s only been in my bookmarks longer because I found it first, if I had to compare these two strips, I’d say they’re both equally as entertaining.

First let’s talk about CAD.  I’m not going to go into a major description here or anything, just give you the basic gist of it.  CAD was created by Tim Buckley who resides in Connecticut, USA.  He’s a pretty damn good artist, and it shows in his strip.  He first roughs out the comic with paper and a pencil and then scans that into photoshop, where he uses his Wacom Cintiq (I’m guessing this is the model) to trace over his rough draft and digitize the comic that the viewers see.  He updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (he recently stopped updating on Saturday’s as well, to work on other projects).  It’s a little tough to describe to you the actual comic strip, so I’ll just say this.  If you’re anything into video games, you’ll like this comic.

The second web comic I’ll be talking about is pretty well known, and I’m sure you’ve all heard of it -  Cyanide and Happiness at Explosm.net.  When the authors get it right, sometimes this strip will make you actually laugh out loud.  The creators of this comic are Rob DenBleyker (also known for his flash stick-figure series, Joe Zombie), Kris Wilson, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick.  If you’re that type of person that gets easily offended by anything, and then has to voice their opinion and make sure whatever it is that you’re protesting is ruined for the rest of us normal people who can take a joke, please, please don’t even bother with this web comic.

Alrighty then.  That’s enough of this nonsense.  I’m bored.

Cya’.

Oh, and if you’re reading this, you have to leave a comment.

HAVE to.

If you liked this post, don't miss out on other good ones in the future, bookmark our RSS Feed. Also, if you're feeling kind, Digg this post or give it a thumbs up with the StumbleUpon toolbar or by using the buttons below. I appreciate any help you guys give out!