Lost in the Plot

Tonight’s time wasting exercise was this quick painting in Photoshop- a concept for a predictably dramatic post-apocalyptic future world. It’s very rough, but I do feel I captured a nice sense of colour and light.

Click below for a large version–

After spending more time on Amazon.com over the holidays, it occurred to me how badly the site could use a redesign. Or perhaps I should use the word refresh; I’m sure there are loads of well-researched usability models behind the current layout of the site, but it to me it feels like a dated, crowded, messy experience. I always feel bombarded with a million links to content Amazon should realize by now I’m not interested in.

In an afternoon I mocked up this fresh take on the Amazon.com homepage. While it was very tempting to totally rethink their information architecture, I decided to work with their existing layout for the sake of realistic continuity.

I focused on improving two weak points of their current design – design clutter/noise, and visual prioritization of important features like search and the cart.

This was just a quick exercise, so it’s far from complete, but I do wish Amazon.com looked more like this.

Click the image above to see the design at full size.

Click the image above for a design comparison.

Menu rollover detail

Disney Animation’s The Princess and the Frog is out this weekend, and it’s a fantastic return to a classic style of storytelling and animation. My personal highlights were Eric Goldberg’s Louis, Nick Ranieri’s amazing Charlotte, and of course Ray the firefly.

One upside of this traditional Disney fairytale being released in internet-connected 2009 is the amount of information available about the film online. In wandering the web I’ve come across videos, links and info about the production of The Princess and the Frog.

With the help of IMDB’s full credits, a rundown of the lead animators and their characters-

Mark Henn – Princess Tiana
Randy Haycock – Prince Naveen
Randy Cartwright – Tiana and Prince Naveen as frogs
Bruce Smith – Dr Facilier
Eric Goldberg – Louis
Nick Ranieri – Charlotte
Andreas Deja – Mama Odie
Ruben Aquino – Eudora and James
Anthony de Rosa – Lawrence
Duncan Marjoribanks – Big Daddy La Bouf
Michael Surrey – Ray

From Disney Animation’s official Site: Short, but very inspiring conversations with Ron Clements & John Musker, Andreas Deja and Bruce Smith. While those interviews aren’t directly on the subject of Princess and the Frog, they do have an awesome gallery of visual development artwork from the film.

From The Princess and the Frog’s official YouTube channel: Eric Goldberg draws Louis, deconstructs his process (always fascinating), and discusses the design evolution of the character. Bruce Smith draws Dr Facilier and explains his approach to animating the character, and Michael Surrey draws Ray and talks about discovering his style.

Also there, John Lasseter discusses the return to the traditional, sincere fairytale, and how it’s like finding a forgotten, favorite pair of comfy old shoes. There’s also a clip of Lasseter discussing hand drawn animation, which includes some fantastic clips of rough animation. I recommend checking out the other videos on this channel, lots of great stuff.

From Disney Animation’s official YouTube channel: Excellent (if brief) clips of rough animation show at ComicCon, and a clip from the film of Eric Goldberg’s Louis.

Lastly, AWN has a great article featuring Andreas Deja, Eric Goldberg and Bruce Smith, and PRX has an audio interview with Mark Henn and Michael Surrey.

I’m sure there is even more out there on the interwebs, but that’s enough links for one blog post. To finish, some high-res pics for your enjoyment!

I’ve recently been enjoying the amazing art of Pixar production designer Bill Cone (A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Cars), and seasoned concept artist Paul Lasaine (a wide range of films, from The Prince of Egypt and Surf’s Up to The Lord of the Rings). I recommend checking out their blogs for some real inspiration.

Caramelized granny smith apples and blackberries, baked with a dark buttery caramel layer, topped with a crunchy ginger and oatmeal crumb crust.

Always evolving my methods of procrastination and avoiding real work, I’ve recently started playing in the kitchen. These were fairly unplanned creations – sautéed tomato and green peppers on a short stack of whole wheat miniature toast, with garlic and sesame. Was quite tasty, but needs developing to be lighter and more balanced. For dessert, warm caramelized apple with toasted almonds – extremely delicious, would be excellent with ice-cream and fresh vanilla.

“Finding himself without his suitcase, Mr Samuel Pilcher remembered his old friend to whom he had once lent three dollars.

It was a bitter, windy night. With an hour to pass before his train would arrive, a walk through the city was far preferable to waiting on the exposed station platform.

As Samuel recalled, this friend had worked in a cafe just two or three blocks from the train station, a short walk that perhaps would give him the opportunity to remember where he had misplaced his suitcase.”

Benjamin’s excellent site has been redesigned, with a beautiful portfolio, and a weblog you should subscribe to and be reading every day: all of the above.

120 frames of Tailor, jumping from step to step. It’s a lot better than it was, thanks to polishing and fixing the tail to ensure it does a better job of following the line of action.

So I’ve begun Animation Mentor, and just three weeks in I can tell that it’s going to make a huge impact on my understanding of animation, and be a really transformative experience. I’ve been pulling out all sorts of books for reference and inspiration, including the one above, signed for me by Ed Catmull at Siggraph last year!

I can also tell that my free time is rapidly going to diminish down to exactly zero, which is tough right now given the several unfinished little hobby projects I’m tinkering with. But in a way, I’m looking forward to just devoting every waking minute to animating, and I can tell the rewards from all the work will be awesome. First term is Basic Foundations, and my mentor is the amazing Anthony Wong.