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The Mushroom Hunters by Neil Gaiman

Read by Amanda Palmer

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Learning to Animate a Little Late

Last year towards the end of September, a watching of this panel presentation on Sakuga: The Animation of Anime (presented at Anime Central (Chicago), 2013) and a rewatching of the Tekkonkinkreet movie made me want to try my hand at animation again. I remembered how I wanted to learn animation as a teenager. I didn’t get accepted into the Animation department in my college. Instead I got into the Film and Video department – something I was equally, if not more, passionate about at the time. For whatever reason – probably because of a little bit of childish indignation and definitely a lot of sheer indolence – I didn’t make any serious attempt at trying to learn animation afterwards. And that was that.

I never ceased to love animation though. I guzzled animated shows and films, especially those from Japan. But I focussed more on the filmmaking and writing accomplishments of them rather than the actual animation. I learned as much about the directors and nothing about the actual animators. I had favourite Anime directors, but I didn’t know even a single animator unless they were also the director. Most people in our college did give more importance to the filmmaking aspect more than the animation process even in the Animation department – at least as far as I could tell. When I watched that presentation, I realised what I had missed out on then. I was awed and humbled by the brilliance of those animators. And it left me with an impulse to draw successive frames to see if I could breathe life into them.  I had certain tools at hand which I didn’t have when at the college – one basic Wacom tablet, one decent enough computer to plug it into and a latest version of Adobe Photoshop CC that lately let you animate inside it. No need for a lightbox, a peg bar, lots of punched paper or an animation camera/scanner. I could start immediately on the same machine I was watching the videos on. And so I did.

The first thing I tried to animate was a looping GIF idea I had of the Minotaur character from Tekkonkinkreet. I roughed it in, mostly straight-ahead on ones, and began cleanup and colour. I soon started fearing that I was way out of my depth with it. My roughs were really rough. I was having a hard time trying to figure it out. About 60-70% into finishing it, I decided that I needed to start learning from the proper basics and stopped. I ordered a copy of The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams – I had seen a copy several years ago in the college library and heard several people talk about it. I found YouTube video tutorials, tumblr blog posts and whatever else I could find. I started visiting forums and boards dedicated to Sakuga. I used whatever time I could get to learn and practise. I animated on a daily basis for several months in a desperate effort to make up for time lost. I tried out multiple computer applications, methods, types and processes for animation. I timed myself in order to get faster and more efficient. And so I still do.

It will be many years before I get actually good at animation. I don’t think I am good at even the basics right now. But the one thing that I immediately realised when I started was that I love it. I took to the labour of it with a personally unprecedented ardour. I may never really make a career out of it, but I am certain I will feel a hankering for the animation process and to get better at it till the very end. And that I will keep at.

Yesterday, I dug up that Tekkonkinkreet inspired animation that I had stopped working on. As the only way to fix it good and proper was to start over, I tried to salvage it as much as I could by finishing the clean-up and colour with most of the mistakes of my first effort left intact instead. And here it is –

PS – I have favourite animators now.

TL:DR – After watching a YouTube playlist of a presentation on Sakuga and rewatching Tekkonkinkreet I rediscovered my teenage dream of learning animation. I immediately tried to animate the above GIF and realised I needed to learn the basics proper first. And so I try.

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This is an article written by Vinutha Mallya about #longform a graphic novel collective and their first edition. I am happy that I got to be a part of this amazing anthology with some wonderful artists. @sekharmukherjee my mentor and one of the crazy longform founders is the one who pushed me into it. Am always 'great-fool' for his shenanigans. His partners in criminal comic activities- @mitradebkumar @pinakide1976 @sarbajit.sen are responsible for this anthology. Comic artists mentioned the article @anirban_ghosh @heeseonkim And Mr Konchady for saving a week old paper to show me this. am Very happy =) #graphicnarrative #anthology #story #comicbooks #newspaper

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Leaving Sikkim reluctantly! The same old check-in, boarding. The endless wait at the security check. Meeting interesting characters that keep you company as you wait for your turn #bagdogra #traveldiaries #brushandink #instasketch #livesketch #meeting #travelling #travelersnotebook (at Bagdogra Airport)

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Remembering Arjun. (at Gangtok, Sikkim)

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Been a while since I posted something… Can't blame it on time, it's just laziness! Meanwhile… I got this thanks to @tenderpokes at #supersonic2018 #tattoo #stickandpoke #colourtattoo

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Brazilian graphic designer and illustrator Butcher Billy got the idea of turning famous love hits into book covers of horror master Stephen King. 

Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” The Smiths, “Head Over Heels” by Tears For Fears and many others were portrayed in a very unusual way.

“This series imagines an alternate universe where some of the most desperate and tragic romantic songs in the ‘70s and’ 80s are actually books written by Stephen King. The concept is to look at the dark side of love by the vision of pop culture, bringing aspects of its classic stories to play the true meaning of the songs - this can be completely subverted or stressed strangeness, while paying tribute to the vintage design of the original covers,” Butcher writes on his Behance.

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Good crap =)

A bunch of crap all together for no particular reason.

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#optimusprime

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Been a while since I put up something. Only good thing about being sick is that it helps you get back to sketching. #aubreybeardsley #brushandink Should thank Gianmarco for introducing him to me =) Should I say it was love at first sight? maybe.

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absolutely amazing!

I had a dream I was able to time travel and I went like 10,20,100,1000,2000 years into the future but the instant I went to 4,000 I got stuck in a time dilation jail set up by the American government in the year 3,877 in which anyone that tried to time travel back or forth across May 23, 3877 while on Earth would end up stuck in this time dilation chamber trap to stop time travelers but like it was so crazy and mismanaged because it was legit capturing like every single time traveler ever and the place had only been open for 12 minutes and was already getting overpopulated with nonstop multiple recursive instances of this one other guy trying to break previous versions of himself out of this god damn time traveler jail

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Aoi Honooはサイコウだ！

Opening to Aoi Honoo (Blue Blazes) pays homage to:

Anime Tenchou - directed by Hideaki Anno, AD by Hiroyuki Imaishi

Pani Poni Dash! - key animation by You Yoshinari

Tottemo! Luckyman - key animation by mentioned in the show Yoshinori Kanada

Musashi Samurai Legend - key animation by Hiroyuki Imaishi

Gaiking: Legend of Daiku-Maryu - key animation by Yoshinori Kanada

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＃お誕生日おめでとう＃先生! すみません… belated birthday wishes! ＃常に楽しい！ つなみ楽しい　＝） with lots of #coffee and #brushandink

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#zine #making #workshop at #symbiosisuniversity #diy #handmade #nosoftwares #handson (at Symbiosis International University - SIU)

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A post shared by Ranjitha Rajeevan (@from.rara)

#frogbot another one of #lonely #robot #collection in collaboration with @jhaaaaaaaaa #animatedgif #gif for #fun #illustration #digitalart #abandoned #machines #lost #bots

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A post shared by Ranjitha Rajeevan (@from.rara)

#binary #addict a #lonely #robot #collection in collaboration with @jhaaaaaaaaa #gif #animatedgif #animated #illustration #digitalart