I’ve been working for one of my professors, Dr. Browne, (to whom I owe much of my growth over the last 3 years) making posters of his favorite ideas. The first assignment was to illustrate the inter workings of Aristotle’s description of the human brain. The concept is referred to as “Aristotle’s Who We Are”. I thought about describing the concept here, but I suppose my artwork is supposed to do that- so have a gander:

The whole thing:

Breakdown (Click to Enlarge):

I’m still struggling with color usage and drawing, but I’m-a keep working at it.

Until the next post,
-Tom

So I’ve picked up the guitar again. It’s been about 3 years since I played… and even then I was casual at best.
I thought I’d throw this up here because I’m too shy to actually play in front of anyone. Singing is a really nice stress release for me…

In any case, the song is “Run” by Collective Soul. If you want the chords send me a message.

The guitar might be a little out of tune… hehe
Hope your ears don’t bleed,
-Tom

While I’m talking about Czechs…

I took a trip to Prague this summer to see my family and had the chance to see a photography exhibition called “Geometrie Nahoty” (Geometry of Nudity). The photographer’s name is Pavel Brunclik (Pah-vel Broon-tsleek) and I was immediately taken in by the imagery. I’ve always been very interested in human anatomy (while I was in Prague I also went to see the astounding Bodies exhibit). I tried to sketch a few of the photographs but I did not do them justice. I managed to find some images online of the gallery photos, so have a look:

The lighting was pretty neat. I believe models are all ballet dancers and it looks like they were really pushed to the limit physically for some of these poses. They really inspired me to draw. I tried to draw a few of the figures from the photos while I was in the gallery- here are two of my quick sketches:

That is all, for now…

-Tom

This post is spurred by a recent post about Czech Animator Jiri Trnka on Animation-treasures 2 by Hans Bacher (Where I graciously made a mess of the comments board :-/). In any case- as some of you may or may not know, I am from the Czech Republic. Not only that, but I am hoping to return sometime (from my current home in Ohio) to attend graduate school in animation. Czech Rep. has a very rich history in animation and art, and I thought I’d post something today about one of my favorite illustrators.

The man’s name is Petr Sis (Peh-tur Seess)- in english he is “Peter”- and he is a children’s book author (among many other things). Born in 1949, Sis lived through some of the less favorably remembered times of Czechoslovakia (mainly Soviet occupation), but he managed to lead quite an extraordinary life (and still does). Sis’ work ranges from awarded films to major book illustrations and Sis has appeared in several major publications. (Read more about Petr here)

Anyway, I just wanted to share some images from his books, which I always found quite captivating:

I find Sis’ graphical style quite magical. It certainly has something to do with growing up with his books- but I think Petr’s work is well worth some examination.

Until next time,

-Tom

This is my timing for a weight-lift, roughed out in flash. I’m probably going to scratch the facial expressions, and do a new face later… I sort of stopped doing the face halfway through anyhow. I’m still getting used to 2-D… and I’m not very good at drawing. But I am determined to get better, so I’m devoting this school year to it (at the least). I’m going to take this into Photoshop CS3 and hand-render it… once I figure out how I want to do that.

Anyway, crits are welcome. I don’t know how much longer I plan to spend on this particular peice, but if your suggestion is minor I will probably give it a whirl. If you have some major adjustments in mind, I’ll probably just jot them down for next time.

Hope you enjoy it!
-Tom

I like to check CGsociety’s forums fairly often. Every now and then I come across something there that is fairly inspiring. (Although I must admit, I come across a lot of uninspiring things there as well.)

 In any case, I came across a film made by Tim Marchant called “Tidy Monster”. I think what really inspired me was the simplicity of the execution. You can watch it on Tim’s site and the film is on youtube here.

 Before I go on, I’d like to clarify what I mean by “simplicity”. I guess the term could be interpreted in many ways. I certainly do not mean that the film was simple; I mean, rather, to emphasize the fact that the visuals did not try to overpower or convolute the idea behind the film. Given the dialog in “Tidy Monster”, I think many animators/filmmakers would tend to try to cram as many insane visuals into the piece as they could. It is this kind of thinking often leads films deep into the ground. Humor me as I indulge in an analogy:

Let’s say we were making soup. First we should probably decide what kind of soup we want to make- we may call this the idea behind the soup (I know… reaaaaally subtle). There are numerous possibilities as far as types of soup, but for the purposes of this metaphor, and because I am a vegetarian… we’re going to make some delicious broccoli cheddar soup. Now we heat up some water, we prepare the pot and we put in the basic ingredients- essentially we give the soup a basic structure and context. So far so good…

Now its time to really make it taste gooooood. So what do we do? We find EEEEverything we like and we toss it in!! You like hot-dogs? In they go! How about some pancakes with loads of syrup? Throw’em in! I know, FRIED snickers bars… they’re all the rage- what the hell- toss a dozen of those in! And ice-cream goddammit… loads of ice-cream. Oh man oh man oh man oh man YEEEESSSSS!

Anybody want some soup?

The point I’m trying to make is putting a lot of “cool” stuff together does not make a good soup… errr… film. As much as we love those fried snickers bars, we need to cut them out if they do not point the audience toward something vital to the film’s idea. The idea is key… and sorry, no amount of technical goodies will ever replace the idea. At least not for me.

Anyway, I’m going to go vomit.

I put up a new header for my blog, as you may have noticed (hopefully better than the dull blue with centered text that used to be up top). I got the font at www.dafont.com . It was pretty fun to make. Apparently you can have the blog rotate through different headers. I may try that in the future.

I’ve also changed the name of the blog to “The Curious Animator”; I guess I’ve always really valued curiosity, and I’m trying to set a bar for myself with that title. Sort of a reminder to be engaged with the world…

 That’s all for now.

-Tom

There are certain things that make economics very potent- a multitude of ideas and concepts that govern most of what we do in life. However, the more I study and read I find that there are many things about economics that are a bit questionable.

First of all, allow me to clarify something I did not mention in previous posts: Economics has a variety of belief systems, the set of beliefs and assumptions that I am referring to in these posts is called “Neoclassical Econimics.” The reason I will be primarily mentioning Neoclassical economics is because it makes up around 90-95% of economists in the U.S.. It’s pretty crazy how homogeneous the makeup is… Apparently many economists will be confused if you tell them they are part of a classification of economics- they just think there is one. In any-case, I’ll continue my notes:

One assumption that I find particularly interesting is this: CHOICE is all-important. There can never be too much.

And the people must be allowed to have the choice.

One interesting side-effect of this is that the market loses any sense of ethics- any sense of priority on one good over another. So in the market a breast implant is just as valuable as education. Now I don’t mean to pick on breast implants… err… I’m not sure where I was going with that sentence. Anyway, the economics justification for ethical apathy is this: We are economists, not ethicists! Let the PEOPLE decide which is more important.

But can people really decide for themselves? Is there really no such thing as too much choice? Why do grocery stores shove tons of candy in the check-out aisle? Why do advertisers spend billions on finding ways to manipulate the buyer? Are people really in complete control?

Even if people are completely in control, the econ view of people states that people make decisions myopically- they choose immediate benefits/pleasure. If people really are short sighted, then we can expect them to give into some very poor decision making. Why else would the university I attend pile the eateries with cake, chicken wings and candy? In fact, there are entire eateries on campus devoted entirely to different kinds of fried chicken… and the lines are out the door. Why is no-one at the salad-bar?

 Afterwards, when people will pay a price for not looking to the long term- economists shed all responsibility. “You had a choice, had you not?“. Despite the fact that, in econ, people are expected to make these poor short term decisions.

Dr. Browne introduced to the class what he called the “Hurricane illustration”. It works like this:

Let us look at some products that are in high demand during a hurricane: Plywood, milk and gas. The supply of these products is relatively low during the normal operations of a coastal city. Suddenly, WHAM… a hurricane hits and suddenly there is an extremely high demand for plywood, milk and gasoline. What happens? Well the prices for each of these goods sky-rockets- money acting as a natural rationing device. If people cannot afford these goods and ask for help the economists simply turn to them and ask: “Did you know you live on a coastal city? hmm… Did you know that coastal cities are prone to hurricanes? interesting… Did you also know that the destructive power of a hurricane could complete wipe out your house and belongings? intriguing… so, I must ask you, why do you wish to burden the poor tax-payers with your problems? You did, after all, have a choice.”

The funny thing here is that many political figures decide that they will not allow the prices to go up during the aftermath of a hurricane. Somehow the drama of the disaster makes them feel sad, and seeing people floating in the streets makes them rethink market decisions. Unfortunately, the political figures do not realize that the market works like this ALL THE TIME, prices are always acting and reacting to demand- such as the demand for plywood, milk and gas that is illustrated above. So instead of changing the way things work, they label the price changes during a disaster as “Price Gouging“. The rest of us refer to it as the “market system;” it’s just that during a hurricane, the victims of the market system are much more publicized and concentrated.

I am not suggesting that the modern Neoclassical economics approach should be tossed away. Dr. Browne makes a good point that it works extremely well for poor countries. In a sense, for the very poor, consumption and money DOES create happiness. However, once we have satiated our basic needs, perhaps we need to look to a different model.

-Tom

I’d like to devote one post to J. Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith was Havard professor in econ. During his lifetime he was a tremendously influential economist and wrote a multitude of books. He was famous for poking and prying at the classical economics thought. From his quotes he appears to have been ruthlessly satirical (or just plain ruthless) about various things he found absurd:

Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.

I came across a similar idea last year when reading “The European Dream” by Jeremy Rifkin. Rifkin discussed the application of the GNP and how it was not necessarily a measure of the “good” of a society. Rifkin made his point by claiming that the GNP goes up due to any economic activity; Activity that might otherwise reflect poorly on a society- such as building thousands of prisons.

Essentially we are looking at the assumption that more money/consumption = happiness/goodness

Galbraith challenged econ assumptions, and probably ran into problems that generated the following quotes:

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof

I react to what is necessary. I would like to eschew any formula. There are some things where the government is absolutely inevitable, which we cannot get along without comprehensive state action. But there are many things — producing consumer goods, producing a wide range of entertainment, producing a wide level of cultural activity — where the market system, which independent activity is also important, so I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that. I’m deeply suspicious of somebody who says, “I’m in favor of privatization,” or, “I’m deeply in favor of public ownership.” I’m in favor of whatever works in the particular case

There’s a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.

Kenneth Galbraith, however, insisted that uncomfortable questions be asked despite the difficulty with which people change their mind- despite the dichotomies of people’s thought or the particular disposition of the majority:

In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.

People are the common denominator of progress. So… no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the other familiar furniture of economic development. … But we are coming to realize … that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

Galbraith also had a very scathing ironic humor to many of his sayings, this next quote (in a humorous twist on a familiar Socratic quote) appears to refer to the certitude with which economists flaunt their knowledge:

One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.

And finally, I’d like to end with a quote that I found sums up the whole theme of the current “market system” :

By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.

Our labs at school got the updated Adobe Suite (which now includes Flash), and I finally had a chance to really mess around with some of the new features in Photoshop CS3. One feature in particular really got me excited: Timeline Mode.

For those who edit video, timeline mode will probably look like a lame iteration of After Effects. However, coupled with onion-skinning and video layers, the timeline mode in PS CS3 presents some 2-d animation opportunities that could arguably induce salivation.

Basically you can import video as a layer and create empty video layers in much the same way that you would import an image and create regular empty layers. The main difference between a regular layer and a video layer being that the image on video layer is linked to the position on the timeline (no more making gif animations with a layer for each frame!!). So now hand-rendering animation, video, 3-D animation, or even other rough 2-D animation is easy- all of those familiar photoshop tools functioning over a timeline.

Here is a quick ball-bounce I made using the timeline mode in Photoshop CS3:
Download link