This short video shows how to take a scanned image and tidy it up in Photoshop. The image I am using is an ink cartoon drawing, but this method works equally well for pencil drawings, and also works for images that have been photographed with a smartphone camera. Why should you clean up your scans? The purpose of the cleanup is to make your scanned images look prettier, to make them ready to send to a client, or to look nice for a presentation. Raw scans look ugly and unprofessional - watch the video above to see how to tidy them up.
Friday 1 December 2023
Thursday 30 November 2023
How to Use The Shelf Editor in Maya
This short introductory tutorial shows how to use the Shelf Editor in Autodesk Maya. The Shelf Editor allows animators to create buttons on a shelf, permitting the user to select frequently-used control curves such as hands, feet, body and head quickly and efficiently. For most animators working on production, the Shelf Editor is one of the first tools they will use when setting up their character workflow, to ensure they can animate fast and efficiently.
Monday 27 November 2023
Animating With Maya's Motion Trail Tool
This short video (just three minutes long) shows how to use Maya's Motion Trail Tool. The Motion Trail Tool is very useful for smoothing out the kinks and bumps in your animation, to ensure that your arcs and paths of animation are as smooth and flowing as possible. Bumpy animation curves will create pops and bumps in your animation. The Motion Trail Tool is one way of overcoming these problems and giving your animation an extra polish.
Thursday 23 November 2023
Animate a Feminine Walk with "Monty"
One thing every animator needs to learn is how to animate a character walk. In this tutorial, we show how to take a "plain vanilla" walk using the marvellous "Monty" rig (free for download from highend3d.com) and make Monty walk in a feminine way, like a model on a catwalk. The video tutorial is recorded in Autodesk Maya, and is aimed at animation beginners. The animation above was completed by Animation Apprentice graduate Phil Loeffler.
Thursday 16 November 2023
How to Fix Knee Pops in a Walk Cycle
In the video above, we show how to fix knee pops in a walk cycle. IK chains can "pop" if the leg on a character gets over extended, so the trick is not to completely extend the leg. Straighten the leg on the contact position, then slightly dial it back and relax it. To find out more, watch the short video above.
Wednesday 15 November 2023
Using AI to Colour 2D Animation with Cadmium App
![]() |
Cadmium App |
One new breakthrough comes from the Cadmium App, a new tool which automates the process of colouring 2D animation.
Cadmium is a creative tool for hand drawn animation. Using machine intelligence, animators can now colour their entire animation sequence from just a few keyframes.
Monday 13 November 2023
History of Who Framed Roger Rabbit
We're enjoying this "Deep Dive Documentary" into the History of the 1988 animated film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". The documentary is based on a range of source material, including Ross Anderson's well-researched book Pulling a Rabbit Out of a Hat. It's a thorough documentary that shows just how many twists and turns Who Framed Roger Rabbit took before finally making it (and even then only just) to the big screen.
Saturday 11 November 2023
How to Pitch a Cartoon Strip - Queen's Counsel
This is a short video on the subject of pitching ideas - in this case the "Queen's Counsel" cartoon strip that I pitched to The Times back in 1993. The pitch was successful; the cartoon strip started in The Times in 1993 as Queen's Counsel - it became King's Counsel in 2022. It's still being published every week 30 years later.
Friday 10 November 2023
Free Tutorial: Copying & Pasting Curves in Maya
In this brief tutorial we show how to copy and paste curves in Autodesk Maya. This short video tutorial is part of our series of beginners' tutorials, and shows how to copy and paste curves in Autodesk Maya. Maya is not especially good at copying and pasting curves; it's a fiddly process and takes a while - but it can be done.
Thursday 9 November 2023
How to Use The Layer Editor in Maya
How to use the Layer Editor in Maya. This short video tutorial is part of our series of beginners' tutorials on how to use Autodesk Maya, and how to develop a fast, efficient workflow. The Layer Editor works much like layers in Photoshop - it allows you to put different elements of the shot on different layers, so you can work faster and more efficiently.
Tuesday 7 November 2023
Steve Woodhouse - Founder of Skyline Visuals
![]() |
Skyline Visuals - founded by Steve Woodhouse |
Skyline Visuals creates 3D visuals & photomontage for the architecture & landscape industry. Skyline Visuals "provides effective solutions to assist with planning pipeline and visual marketing".
Monday 6 November 2023
Oliver Canovas 3D Artist at KAN Engineering
Many congratulations to Animation ApprenticeOliver Canovas who is working as Digital Modelling Engineer at KAN Engineering.
Oliver Canovas took our Online MA in Computer Animation (the first of its kind) with our Higher Education partner Buckinghamshire New University, graduating with honours.
Friday 3 November 2023
Young Cartoonist of The Year Awards 2023
The Young Cartoonists of the Year Awards are back. This year the deadline for submissions is 14 January 2024.
Hosted by the Cartoon Museum in London, the annual Young Cartoonists of the Year competition seeks to reward rising cartoon talent.
Judges include Martin Rowson (The Guardian), Christian Adams (Evening Standard), Banx (FT), Peter Brookes (The Times), Nick Newman (Private Eye), and Matt Pritchard from the Daily Telegraph. Entry is free.
Entries can be mailed in (via old school Royal Mail) to the Cartoon Museum, at 63 Wells St, London W1T 3PT, or emailed to hello@cartoonmuseum.org. As always, we encourage all our students to enter competitions such as this one.
Wednesday 1 November 2023
ILM Offers Industry Advice to Animation Graduates
![]() |
ILM Education Series 2.0 |
Known as the ILM Education Series 2.0, ILM is offering two dates, Thursday 9 November at 5pm, and Wednesday 29 November at 5pm. The events are free.
Friday 27 October 2023
Animate a Neon Sign in Maya - Free Tutorial
Wednesday 18 October 2023
Animate a Lamp Hopping With Pixo Jr.
![]() |
Lamp Hop with Pixo Jr rig |
The rig we recommend for this exercise is the Pixo Jr rig - an excellent rig, free for student download at highend3d.com, and the perfect starting point to learn locomotion & mechanics.
Tuesday 17 October 2023
Create a Starry Sky with the Arnold Skydome
Monday 16 October 2023
Using AI to Make Better Animation
In the short video above we offer some suggestions on how to use AI to make better animation. AI is a powerful tool for the creation of stories and ideas. Watch the video above to see how to use Chat GPT to generate ideas to make our animation more interesting and inventive. AI represents the biggest technical advance in the animation & VFX industry since 3D animation began to replace traditional hand-animated feature films in the early 2000s. Artificial Intelligence is here to stay - so let's make the best possible use of it.
Saturday 14 October 2023
Export a Render Sequence in Arnold
Friday 13 October 2023
Basic Lighting in Arnold with Sky Shader
In this simple lighting tutorial, aimed at Autodesk Maya beginners, we explain how to achieve a basic lighting setup in Arnold using the Arnold Sky Shader. This is a simple lighting setup, only slightly more sophisticated than the Arnold Physical Sky tutorial - which is as simple as it is possible to achieve in Arnold, and gives good results for an outdoor scene with just a few clicks.
Thursday 12 October 2023
Winter Animation Class Starts 6 Nov 2023
![]() |
Animation by Robin Herrmann |
It's not too late to book a place; all you need to do is visit the main Animation Apprentice site and go through a few simple steps.
If you want to learn 3D animation to a professional level, and start your new career as an animator - your journey starts here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)