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CU doodles to start the day!!!

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Never-before-published model sheets for canned Amblin Cats movie 🐈‍⬛✏️👁️

Hi all. As promised, I am sharing a comprehensive .PDF of model sheets that were created for the Amblimation Cats movie that never saw the light of day. Most of these model sheets have not been published or posted anywhere on the internet as far as I'm aware. I'm going to get ahead of some questions for the good of the order:

Are these real? I certainly didn't sit and create all 117 pages myself for the sake of an elaborate hoax!

How did you get these? I work in the animation industry. A senior coworker caught wind of my cats obsession and said he had the Xeroxes and asked if I wanted him to bring them in. Internally, I flipped my shit. And then I digitized his hard copies.

How did your coworker get these? They were found in the library of the university he used to go to. (Not super unusual at an arts school in southern California.) He made photo copies back then and has been holding onto them. The thing is he knows nothing about CATS; isn't a CATS fan, never seen it, etc. I guess he just felt it was something worth holding on to!

Can you upload better quality? Unfortunately what you're seeing as good as the quality gets. These are scans of photocopies from the 90s. There is nothing to be done for the crunchiness.

What about (missing characters)? I'm showing you everything I was personally given!

Which character is (nondescript drawing of a cat)? If the image isn't labeled, your guess is as good as mine! I put all the misc./unlabeled cats in the back of the PDF. The only exceptions are ones that I felt were abundantly obviously supposed to be a specific character.

Who are the artists? Unfortunately, there's no way I can tell for sure. None of the sheets are signed. I wouldn't even go about guessing because many concept artists can perfectly emulate more "well known" illustrators whose styles were sought after. My coworker said he might be able to figure out who the draftsmen were; until then it's a mystery! If I find out, I will come back to this post and update it with that information.

Are these all the model sheets ever? No! In fact, there are model sheets that have been posted online that are not in the bundle I was given. I have no idea of the sum total of model sheets in existence.

Where's the link?! Here it is! Have fun kitties!

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I wish I could send all the photos I have of Xeni in one post but I cannot

But I will put my favorites that I have so far in here!

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I fell really proud of this one. This is one of the first 2D animation tests of a Pixar character. This is for a prompt for a #1houranim challenge, the topic is “THINK”. For this animation test, I decided to animate the lead character, PAULA PERSIMMON, from Pixar’s new animated miniseries, Dream Productions, voiced by the talented Paula Pell (@pellpix), that involves her her sitting by a desk looking at a script. She thinks for a moment to come up with a better idea, then BING! An idea came to her and adds the suggestions to the script to make it the best dream possible.

#dreamproductions #paulapersimmon #pixar #insideout #insideout2 #2danimation #tradtionalanimation #tradtionalhanddrawnanimation #handdrawnanimation

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Well... These are the vibes...

Xeni - A24

They are both young and love to experiment with emotions and symbolism. They love to be transgressive and make their audience feel uncomfortable or impaled with intricate plots full of drama and unpredictable and powerful plot twists.

Paula - Disney

She love the simple and extravagant even if it is silly, empty and repetitive... Their formula has worked many times and their career is built on those stories and they believe that their formula is fireproof. They are comfortable within that formula and do not intend to leave that comfort zone... They are stuck until they learn to let go and believe that the children for whom they think they do magic are not stupid...

Besides, the movie/dream with colorful musicals already worked for them... Why not make the same silly musical with other colors another 1000 more times?!

Janelle - Pixar

They have been under the shadow and protection of "Paula", but they are talented and can do great things.

They know what their audience needs, they know how to do wonderful things, they just need "Paula" to trust their strategy... Because even if it's not a colorful musical, she can handle powerful plots.

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“Color Kitten”

Today (day after Christmas) was a lazy stay-at-home day, so I grabbed my 3DS and animated this guy. It started out as some random guy, then turned into the cowardly lion, and finally me trying to remember what the Color Kittens from the Little Golden Books looked like. Enjoy!

(Animated using the “Butterfly Animation” app for the Nintendo 3DS)

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Tadaaaaa~

I call this bouncing freak a “Lickimoka”: Basically an unholy mixture between a pokemon (lickitung) and my own creation called: Moka.

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Woah another oc!!SmurfSnapdragon!!! One of the strongest warriors in the girls' village! She was once a normal Smurf living with the girls in Smurf Grove. However,a magical accident had turned her into half dragonfly. Ever since then,she frequently visited where the dragonflies live and felt attached to them. However, something lurked within the domain of the dragonflies that endangered the species. Snapdragon decided to move in with the dragonflies and protect them for a while. After that,she moved back with the gals,now in their new village!

Snapdragon is considered the leader type of the girl smurfs,who is considerate,smart,kind and protective of her sisters. However,her methods of keeping the girls in line can be a bit much,and she isn't exactly best at being patient. Due to her physical advantage,she deals with more chores and heavier work in the Grove/village. She hardly gets any rest tho,and is secretly jealous of her sisters being able to roam free most of the time. She also has a motherly side to her,mostly to Pitaya (aka Dragonfruit Smurfling) and the dragonflies that she took care of.

Her design inspiration is from Snapdragon Cookie from CRK,Rambutan cookie from crob and my friend, @hatsampixie 's Smurf oc,Sparky!!!

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God I love “We’re enemies, but we’ve been enemies for a long time, which is sort of like being friends.” Great trope.

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Salem Saberhagen being the ultimate mood™

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+More Expression Notes ! 💕 | Instagram

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Smurf (Modern AU) model sheet. Part 2.

The Smurfs (C) Peyo/IMPS/Lafig Belgium S.A.

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Smurf (Modern AU) color model and model sheet. Part 1.

The Smurfs (C) Peyo/IMPS/Lafig Belgium S.A.

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silly doodles… hahaha

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Recopilación de arte conceptual de la película

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Force to Velocity-

Force converts into velocity of movements, and when animating, the more extreme the velocity, the more distorted and abstracted the graphic form would become.  When in extreme distortion, the drawings must be exposed on 1′s.  They are meant to be felt, behaving as visual pops and not to be seen.

Interestingly, if the speed of the animation is correct through spacing and timing, but form does not react aerodynamically to the velocity, the final animation will feel less fluid and strobe as it moves about.

One noted consequence from animating force is that while the movement feels fluid in motion, the single drawings often come across unappealing and odd-looking.  While distortion is a strength for motion, it can be a hinder in still-frame, as the natural tendency is to look for the beauty aesthetics in the single drawing while animating, (perhaps the reason why more animators favor form over force).

Above a short scene I animated for Brad Bird’s ‘Iron Giant’, (from 1st pass to the less successful 1st tie-down attempt to the final tie-down and clean-up with camera move)  …And on another aspect of cause and effect to high velocity, in physics and nature, the faster the velocity, the more heat is generated.  ‘Heat’ certainly didn’t cross my mind while animating the many action scenes in ‘Iron Giant’.  I wondered if this ‘heat’ consequence was also being considered, then perhaps the story of the movement is even more compelling with this additional info.

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Velocity through 24 fps-

It is natural that form reacts and bends to velocity in aerodynamic ways, and in motion pictures, there is one more element that furthers the interaction- that is the film projection speed at 24 fps, causing a visual blur to movement pending on its velocity.  

(Interestingly, paralleling physics to animation, in Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, the speed of light is constant while space and time are flexible.  And in animation, the projection speed of 24 fps is constant, while space and time within the cinematic frame are also flexible.)

In CG, motion blur is added mathematically and not a concern for the animator.  Quite contrary to 2D, how shapes blur has to be considered by ‘feel’, becoming effectively an added element to expressing ‘force’.

Feelings are abstract, and when forms blur and distort, they too become abstract.  When the abstracted shapes are interpreted in accord with a certain ‘feel’ and then projected at 24 fps, the feeling can be felt visually, a condition that enable animation to communicate in a very highly personal and inwardly reverence ways.

Above, a sample of form distortion through blurring out due to high velocity at 24 fps (This scene I animated is from Warner Bros. ‘Space Jam’ a while back).