#TOD POLSON

[notadelcielo-blog]

Los 21

En recuerdo del décimo aniversario de la ejecución de 21 cristianos coptos asesinados por ISIS en Libia en 2015, se estrenó en febrero de 2025 ¨Los 21¨, un cortometraje especial de 13 minutos inspirado en la iconografía neocopta, producido en colaboración con la comunidad copta mundial. Los subtítulos están disponibles en español, francés, árabe, ruso y farsi. ¡Simplemente seleccione su idioma en…

[gtunesmiff]

You will never do anything interesting if you don’t take chances.

~ Maurice Nobles || The Nobles Approach (Tod Polson)

[frankieswan]

a Breakdown of my fx work for an upcoming film ‘21Martyrs’ Directed Tod Polson. 

Facebook: @21MartyrsFilm (https://www.facebook.com/21MartyrsFilm/)

Instagram: @21MartyrsFilm

Twitter: @21MartyrsFilm

follow me on instagram @frankieswananimation

[evelmiina]

My resources for animation art and illustration learning

I’m trying to be more available and present for questions and advice about portfolio/career things. In the past one of the issues in my availability has been that questions I get are very broad or general. The other issue is that I don’t always have time, and things get lost in my email box. So I thought for starters to share what has been useful to me in recent years. Mind you, this is not general masterpost of anything, it is just interesting tidbits from my point of view that might be useful to others.

Perspective and layout:

https://imgur.com/gallery/V5Prm 

Thomas Romain’s tips for perspective. Perspective is hard in the beginning, but I promise it gets easier the more you do it. This is a good reference for whenever I feel confused or struggling.

Books:

Marcos Mateau-Mestre: Framed Ink highly recommended! Informative, for beginners and professionals alike.

Tod Polson: The Noble Approach a look into animation history particularly from layout and design point of view. For anyone who’s interested in very graphic and shape oriented approach to animation layouts and philosophy behind it.

Hans Bacher: Dream Worlds a book that takes a quick look on all aspects of animation, I think it’s a good resource for sparking interest in variety of departments in animation and understanding how feature films are made. Often referenced when explaining basics of visual development and concepting for animation.

Character anatomy:

100 Tuesday Tips With Griz and Norm

 http://grizandnorm.squarespace.com/tuesday-tips a great collection of variety of helpful tips for drawing from two Disney feature artists.

https://line-of-action.com/ 

Where to start with online figure drawing. It’s free! The goal for figure drawing should be to draw meaningfully. I’ve spent years of my life doodling and only absorbing a little bit of information, but I think there are more effective ways to learn. These exercises I do are to make me better at drawing dimensionally and so that the characters are acting and interacting in a space.

Exercise 1: Drawing long sessions - taking the time to observe. We should always aim to draw the characters as 3dimensional, even if desired result is heavily stylized and simplified. In the beginning, it might be more helpful to start with thinking anatomy as boxes and balls and pyramids (I draw boxes, but different artists have different methods), I’ve found it helps me to improve my perspective and dimensions. Starting to draw muscles and skeleton straight away, it can be difficult to place them correctly, until there’s enough knowledge to break them down into more basic shapes. I find it takes time to start understanding and really visualizing things in three dimensions, but these exercises help. 

A great demonstration: https://fyeaharttips.tumblr.com/post/23113717282/eyecager-tutorials-done-by-stanislav-prokopenko 

Exercise 2: Drawing over photographs. I saw storyboard artist Ethan Becker on Youtube teach this and found it useful. I do this sometimes, because this too, helps to see how exactly all building blocks of human/creature are acting in different poses and action. The point is not to just idly doodle-trace over outlines, it’s to learn to see the underlying geometry.

Exercise 3: Croquis - the short poses. These exercises are to particularly push the line of action, the direction and force of the pose. It’s also good for seeing how well the basic shapes are working and how they stretch and bend in motion.

Color and light (painting):

Studying how light works immensely helps to figure out how color works. It’s also a necessary skill in BG painting or visual development for animation and very helpful for illustration. Other than that, I’m including a few videos of painting that I think are interesting and have been relevant to what I’m doing.

Schoolism course: Fundamentals of Lighting with Sam Nielsen https://www.schoolism.com/school.php?id=3

Schoolism course: Painting with Light and Color with Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo https://www.schoolism.com/school.php?id=30

Books: 

James Gurney: Color and Light - A Guide for the Realist Painter

Hans Bacher: Vision - Color and Composition for Film

Scott Wills painting demos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvqCOo47Ag_GdWk_HXc1l_hD20yGca8TH 

Four Disney artists paint a tree: https://youtu.be/9Dg8w6gk4cE

----

With these, a little disclaimer! My area of knowledge is mainly color and paint for backgrounds, illustration and a bit of character design. When it comes to storyboards and animating, I have next to no experience and there are many others who would be better to ask about these things. 

[emily-escott]

Hi! I just found your blog and your artwork is absolutely fantastic! I love how you use light and shadow, and your mastery is especially evident in your questober work! Question: do you have any one or two particular artists or books that you recommend studying as a novice artist? Thanks! ❤️

Hi friend! Thank you so much for the kind words 🥺 There’s too many great artists for me to name, but I’ll give you a few and the reasons why I think they’re great to study:

For colors and shapes, take a look at Jason McLean, Juliaon Roels, and Scott Wills. All three of these artists have great understanding of color and their shape choices are always inspirational!

For figure drawing and gestures, check out Yujia Wang, Grace Liu, Shiyoon Kim, and Ian Abando. These artists all have amazing foundational knowledge of the human form and it’s a good idea to compare and contrast each of their approaches to how they capture gesture!

As for books, my grandpa taught art for decades and I’ve always had a perpetually growing STACK of drawing books from him. I honestly couldn’t tell you which ones are particularly good or better than the others, and I’d say they’re no substitute for hours of drawing. I would highly recommend “The Noble Approach” by Tod Polson. It’s about the art of Maurice Noble, and you get a look at his design process, his color theories, sketches, etc. It’s definitely my favorite art book :)

I hope this is a good jumping off point, if anyone has anything to add please chime in! :)

[mographub]

BOOKS

Animation

The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard E Williams

The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Frank Thomas

Elemental Magic by Joseph Gilland

 Directing the Story by Francis Glebas

 Animated Storytelling by Liz Blazer

The Power of Expression by Francois Lefebvre

The Noble Approach: Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design by Tod Polson

The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials for Effective Character Design by Stephen Silver

Rowland B. Wilson's Trade Secrets: Notes on Cartooning and Animation by Rowland Wilson

Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers

Business

The Win Without Pitching Manifesto - Blair Enns

The Freelance Manifesto by Joey Korenman 

Someone made a giant list here.

[zerachin]

Tod is a super talented and overall lovely guy whom ive been lucky to have as a teacher n advisor during animation school, check out his stuff and shoot him your questions!

[fyeahfailedcartoonpilots]

Mantelope

Created by Dave Thomas and Tod Polson

Cartoon Network/WildBrain, 2001

[blooming-concepts]

The Book of Life guitar exploration by Tod Polson.

"Director Jorge Gutierrez described the world to me as one of"...whimsy... full or round fun shapes... a land that is essentially one long continuous party." Here is a few takes on a guitar... some of my first designs on the movie. As far as I know none of these designs were used as seen here... but led to other ideas. And helped the art team better visualize what the Land of the Dead would become." ~ Tod Polson.

[cbqcc]

Mark Oftedal & Tod Polson - The Pumpkin of Nyefar (2004)

[iheartanimation]

"The Pumpkin Of Nyefar" is a personal hand animated short film I wrote with Maurice Noble (Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century and What’s Opera, Doc?) in Turkey, and co-directed with Mark Oftedal (Toy story, A Bugs Life) at the "Wang film studios" in Taiwan, and Bangkok. The film is narrated by June Foray (the voice of Rocky in Rocky and Bullwinkle).

- Tod Polson

[fuckyeahconceptart]

[blooming-concepts]

The Book of Life poster art by Tod Polson.

" Maria dreamed of traveling the world... and plastered the walls of her room with travel posters. Several of us on the Book of Life design team contributed poster ideas. These are a few of mine." ~ Tod Polson.