#a: chris oatley

[artofdisneyfairies]

Tinker Bell - Visual Development by Chris Oatley

- ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʀᴇᴍᴏᴠᴇ ᴄʀᴇᴅɪᴛ -

[ladygoofus]

I'm so heckin' excited that Chris Oatley is releasing podcasts again!! His old podcasts & his online art school (The Oatley Academy) taught me so much of what I know about art and storytelling, and this interview is fantastic.

[chrisoatley]

ImagineFX Magazine's "Rising Stars" of 2D and 3D Art (Part 2)

My interviews with the ImagineFX “Rising Stars” continue! Today, in Part 2: Finding motivation in frustration and choosing an art career that fits your personality. PLUS: Why two of them switched from painting to 3D!

In part one, Chris Oatley interviewed four of his nine mentees who were recently named the “Rising Stars” of 2D & 3D Art in ImagineFX magazine.  Now, in part two, the interviews continue… Illustrator Andrea Ivetic Vicai begins the episode with a positive spin on the more frustrating aspects of illustration. Next, animation artist Lucy Ledsam talks about finding an art career that matches your…

[ergoshwampy]

First version of this piece was done back in 2020 during Painting Drama mentorship at Oatley Academy. After finishing this piece I reviewed it with my mentor Chris Oatley who had fantastic feedback. I knew it was worth it to go back and redo the illustration and include the feedback I got. It took me a bit of time to finish, life you know.... but finally, now that I am satisfied with it, I am ready to share with the world.

[mariocki]

Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell To Earth (11.1, BBC, 2018)

"These legs definitely used to be longer."

[interestingcontent]

website

[mauesartetc]

So… do you have some personal beef with the HH/HB crew or something? Cuz you post about that… a lot…

Haha no, not personal at all. More like professional beef. And to be clear, the vast majority of the team are doing a great job with what they've been given. My issue stems mainly from the writing and character designs, which have problems that are too big to ignore.

The thing with the designs is, if you look back at Viv's previous characters through the years (or hell, just in the Hazbin pilot), you notice a clear formula. She recycles certain visual elements to the point that it's practically a drinking game. There are numerous characters with either huge eyes, hair bows/bow ties, spots, stripes, a dress jacket with lapels, shark-like teeth, one gold tooth, fingertips of a different color from the rest of the hand, a stick-thin body, or some combination of the above. This reliance on the same limited cluster of traits ends up making each design look more generic than unique.

Character designers: Do not do this. You want your characters to stand out as individuals with their own personalities rather than look like part of a hive mind.

For example, I'd understand if the different-colored fingers and bow ties served as some kind of symbol or uniform in Hell (similar to wearing a hijab for religious purposes or wearing a badge to be recognized as an employee of a company), but there's no evidence to bear that out. What's the specific, story-related connection between all these characters with bow ties? We have no idea!

And why do these guys look like quadruplets despite being unrelated? 

Again, no idea.

Basically, the laziness and lack of research is what gets me. Once again, speaking directly to character designers:

Visual research is your friend. Pulling ideas from real life will serve you much better than adding random details from the top of your head just because you think they look cool. Ffs, take advantage of Google Images!

It seems like Viv has always prioritized style over substance, focusing on what’s easiest for her to draw and what the audience has come to expect of her rather than focusing on what’s best for the character. What the design says about them as a person. Much of her work comes off more like first-draft, knee-jerk reactions of how the characters should look, instead of polished final products that go deeper than appearances, and that went through multiple iterations. Chris Oatley has a great post on that.

As for the writing, this post sums it up well, so I won’t bother repeating myself.

The truth is, I want these shows to succeed. I want them to be great. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t say a thing. I’d just grab some popcorn and watch it all blow up. But there’s some real potential for a good story here, and if Hazbin’s studio deal results in a critical and financial hit, it could open the door for many more independent animators trying to go mainstream.

However, speaking as an animator and character designer myself, it’s insanely frustrating to see these projects stumble into easily-avoidable pitfalls. It feels like staying loyal to a talented football team that keeps losing because of the coach’s decisions. Like damn, I’m rooting for you, but you’ve gotta take the ball and run with it.

But yeah, I acknowledge that venting these frustrations, while cathartic for me and hopefully educational for young artists, can get to be a pain in the ass for some. Sorry, dude. There are just a lot of teachable moments to talk about, unfortunately. Don’t worry, though; I plan to funnel in more of my own characters and animations, so the floodwaters have subsided for now.

[barnlarn]

May I ask an art question? How do you study anatomy and practice? I'm always awestruck when you post a pegasus piece because it's so detailed yet simple, plus you draw horses with no problem so I'm very inspired and afraid of your power.

Hello!

Ahhh thank you!!

Art theory incoming! Brace yoursellllves!

There are 3 main things that I've found work best for me in practicing anatomy/composition/drawing in general:

Timed studies and drawings

Asking "What do I want to say with this drawing?"

Drawing every day

The single most influential thing I was taught about art is that it's not about the drawing or the draftsmanship - it's about the communication.

If you can successfully make someone feel something, or ask a question when looking at your drawing, you've done well.

Draftsmanship does help with that, so I do timed studies (10 min or less) of master paintings, concept art I like, or just photos of interesting animal/human poses to force myself to make decisions more quickly. And, the more you draw, the more you see and can apply. So I try to practice as often as possible.

Doing that has helped me narrow down what's important in each drawing. If you can give an answer to the question "What is your drawing about?" you're halfway there. Then you just have to be judicial about using composition and pose to communicate what the About is.

I'm not always very good at it, and I'm always learning, but that's my general thought process.

I mostly learned that stuff from Chris Oatley, Loish, and Pascal Campion. Those are artists who're extremely effective, and their pieces are full of life and emotion. Other artists who I've studied are Norman Rockwell, J.S. Sargent, and Bill Watterson. They do a FANTASTIC job of selective detail and visual communication.

---

As far as reference goes, I have sort of large Pinterest board for horse reference. It also helps that I own a horse, and have been riding for over 20 years, so I'm pretty familiar with their physical mechanics. I keep one for people, too.

---

My Pinterest boards

Horse Ref

Human Ref

--

Sorry for the rambling!

- Lauren

[artofdisneyfairies]

The Great Fairy Rescue - Visual Development by Chris Oatley and Fred Warter

- ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʀᴇᴍᴏᴠᴇ ᴄʀᴇᴅɪᴛ -

[zachsgotyourback]

Art dumpo of some schoolwork and doodles for funzies 

[annychristine831]

These All New Podcasts Are A Designer’s Best Mates

In a world full of smart TVs, let’s be someone’s reason to plug in the earphones. Podcasts help you with precisely the same. For the listeners, it is a fantastic medium to escape the world and step in the land of knowledge and entertainment. For the hosts, it is a profitable business strategy that helps in building their personal branding. The podcasts are a way of showcasing the views and opinions of the host in front of the listeners. This helps them create a robust and unique bond between the listeners and the podcast holder. The following are some fantastic podcasts that every enthusiastic creator and listener swears by. Check out the list.

Shop Talk

UX is the newest trend in town. Shop Talk understood this, and presented a show each week. Dave and Chris come up with their usual energy and bring to you a session attended by various guests and talk about insights on web design and UX.

Beyond Pixels

Kyle Adams and Cody Keisler are here to talk about design and technology, where are you? These talks are much loved by the tech-savvies and are a great entertainment package to combat the lockdown blues.

Chris Oatley’s ArtCast

Want to know the secrets behind the success of Disney? Well, Christ Oatley is here to answer all your questions. Dig deep into the world of character designing, animation, and much more.

Sitepoint Podcast

If you are a budding web developer, then this one will provide you with all the knowledge you need. From news to freshly brewed thoughts to soft and hard opinions, this one will give you access to everything that’s buzzing in town.

Adventures In Design

If you chit chat a lot about graphic design in your college canteens, then you must join Adventures in Design. Mark Brickey and Billy Baumann present their own views on everything in the graphic design industry.

Rookie Designer

This is a special one. It is loved by not one but many budding photographers and creators who want guidance through their journey ahead. It provides every tip and trick that will make one stand out from the crowd of designers. Get to know a lot about business, practices, techniques, graphics, photography concepts of the tech world.

Design Guy

If you don’t understand the technical steps easily, but you still aim to be a designer, the design guy will guide you. With its simple teachings, the podcast has helped many designers in kickstarting the design career.

The Industry

Adam Stacoviak, Jared Erodu, and Drew Wilson are here to spill the beans of the tricks applied by startups to get at the top. Enjoy the goldmine of knowledge and widen your horizons of knowledge.

The Big Web Show

Here comes the superstar. Jeffrey Zeldman is all set to chit- chat with some beautiful experts and guests who talk about art direction, content strategy, and what-not. This one is not an award-winning show for anything. Many listen to this one on repeat.

Source: These All New Podcasts Are A Designer’s Best Mates

[jennaschererwrites]

‘Doctor Who’: Long Live the First Female Doctor! – Rolling Stone

In its five decades careening through the cosmos and the popular imagination, Doctor Who has given us plenty of philosophies to choose from: “Go forward in all your beliefs.” “There is no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.” “We’re all stories in the end.” “Bananas are good.” But on yesterday’s Season 11 premiere, the latest incarnation of the time-traveling, galaxy-hopping, species-saving, face-changing Time Lord gave voice to what is perhaps the show’s most enduring philosophy: “We’re all capable of the most incredible change.”

As surely as the Doctor has two hearts, change is built into this show’s DNA. It has a lot to do with Doctor Who‘s enduring message of hope and progress, and even more to do with practicality: A show can go on indefinitely if its lead can change bodies whenever an actor decides to call it quits. In its 54-year history, 12 blokes have stepped into the role — four of them in the past 13 years alone, since the series’ 2005 resurrection. But no change has been more monumental, more timestream-shattering, than the decision to have the Doctor regenerate as a woman.

As with any major news about a beloved franchise, last year’s announcement that our hero would be transforming from Peter Capaldi into Jodie Whittaker (along with a new showrunner, Broadchurch scribe Chris Chibnall) was met with equal parts euphoria and derision. But the proof is in the pudding, and Whittaker’s long-anticipated debut, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth,” is an episode rooted solidly in the Who tradition while also offering something deliriously new.

After six seasons under showrunner Steven Moffat — who delighted in the kind of “timey-wimey” plotting that would leave your head spinning — the character’s mythos had become so convoluted as to be indecipherable to new or casual viewers. The latest series mercifully hacks through that jungle of backstory to bring us a fresh start. New to this universe? No worries — so is the Doctor.

Freshly regenerated and separated from her TARDIS (that’s the blue police box that can travel through time and space and is bigger on the inside, for those just joining us), Whittaker’s Who crash-lands on Earth clad in the tattered, oversized clothes of her predecessor. She’s a bit confused and still cooking, brand-new-body–wise. “Why are you calling me madam?” she asks one of the first humans she meets. When she find out it’s because she’s a woman, she widens her eyes in surprise and delight. “Am I? Does it suit me?”

But never mind that, because the lady has got extraterrestrial bad guys to fight ASAP — in this case, an electrified tentacle-y creature and a goth Power Ranger-looking dude menacing greater Sheffield. It wouldn’t be Doctor Who without some jerks threatening Great Britain, or without a scrappy, endearing human or four to join the Time Lord in her heroics.

The new crop of companions breaks the usual mold of “plucky young woman looking to have an adventure.” This time, it’s a quartet: local teen Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole); policewoman-in-training Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill); Ryan’s nan, Grace (Sharon D. Clarke); and her husband, Graham (Bradley Walsh). Together, they help the addled but very game Doctor find her bearings, craft a shiny new sonic screwdriver, and take down the threat of the week. (It’s a testament to the new series’ spirit of inclusivity that this group includes three actors of color.)

Fittingly, said villain is toxic masculinity personified: a gravelly-voiced alien (Samuel Oatley) who hails from a planet where they hunt and kill random innocents for sport in order to rise up the ranks; as a fun, gross bonus, the guy wears the teeth of his victims as face jewelry. When the Doctor wins the day and turns his own DNA-melting weapons against him, she tells him: “You had a choice. You did this to yourself. Go home.”

It’s one of several lines in the episode that function both within the plot and as a message to skeptics and haters. “Don’t be scared. All of this is new to you, and new can be scary,” she tells Graham, and later, in a crane-top showdown: “We can evolve while still staying true to who we are. We can honor who we’ve been and choose who we want to be next.” It’s all a bit on the nose, sure, but you could argue that this is a moment — in a show whose occasional heavy-handedness is part of its charm — when everyone’s noses need a good poking.

Because, well, let’s get personal here: As a Who fan ever since Christopher Eccleston first grabbed Billie Piper’s hand and shouted, “Run!” back in 2005, I’ve been enamored of the Doctor’s particular brand of heroics. You know the drill: brains over brawn, godlike powers married to self-deprecating wit, searing curiosity, hidden darkness, endless wonder and a determined compassion for even the most monstrous of creatures.

Through its many incarnations, the show has imagined a universe of infinite possibility, so it seemed nuts that the Doctor would be limited to resurrecting as a series of white guys. Not that the 12 men who’ve captained the TARDIS haven’t been frequently brilliant, but like many other women who love Doctor Who, I’ve been waiting for the day when that Time Lord regeneration glow would fade to reveal a different sort of face than the ones we were used to.

It’s a truth multiversally acknowledged that the Doctor is always the smartest, most capable person in any given room. And the value of seeing a woman in that position, after five decades of alien mansplaining, cannot be understated. The real world is miles behind, but as far as speculative fiction is considered, we have the sci-fi equivalent of a female president.

Whittaker (who’s best known for her previous work with Chibnall on Broadchurch) absolutely owns the part from moment she leaps into the frame. Like every Doctor, she’s a ball of frantic energy and one-liners, commanding the room by thoroughly flustering and out-talking everyone else in it. But she also brings something else to the table that sets her apart from her male antecedents: emotional availability. Take the way she describes the experience of regeneration: “There’s this moment when you’re sure you’re about to die. And then … you’re born! It’s terrifying.” Previous incarnations drew power from shoving their true feelings down deep; Whittaker’s version airs them in the open, and is no less formidable for it.

There comes a moment in every Doctor’s first episode when they take a stand against the bad guy, square their shoulders and declare: “I’m the Doctor.” It’s formulaic, but it’s thrilling; the mantra is both the establishment of a moniker and a mission statement, a superheroic call to fight injustice across time and space. And when Whittaker says it — wind-whipped and majestic in the charred remnants of a black coat tailored to an old body that no longer suited her — it sent a shiver up my spine. For the first time in half a century, women aren’t just in the passenger’s seat of the TARDIS. We’re the goddamn lords of time and space.

[thetruthampere]

do you have any tips for writhing scripts for comics?

I don’t really have much experience with writing comics.  What I can advise on is making what words you do have appear in the comic count along with balancing when more words are needed versus less.

This website also has a how to write comic book scripts by Chris Oatley, probably worth a good read.

TTH

[beyond-far-horizons]

fireeaglespirit said: Oh, it’s a pity they haven’t done the other sequels on hedge knight. I hope they do one day… It must be time consuming though with all the illustrations. BTW I’ll be waiting for the she wolves for decades if need be… I hope Grrm gets to it someday.

fireeaglespirit said: And yeah for both ebooks and physical books! Both are great. I love being able to read so much stuff from my phone. It’s life-changing TBH and I’m extremely glad we have that option now. I’m a huge fan. And yay for the reading room but it’s for when I’m settled on a nice place and content.

fireeaglespirit said: I have rescued some souls from this cycle of ignorance (lmao) I can proudly say I’ve made a few people read again, with joy and not boredom… There’s a book for everyone, you just have to find the right one, that’s what I say

fireeaglespirit said: All I know about worldly and ancient history and classics comes from my own personal interest and mom’s influence. It’s barely mentioned in school books and imo this system makes people dumb and prone to have a narrow view of things and just generally uncultured. I’m really sorry it’s like this and I try to help any one who shows an interest in learning different stuff even if I’m terrible at teaching

fireeaglespirit said: I mean, I understand the importance of reading historical lit. but here it’s too focused on the romance genre and local stuff, we never get to learn about worldly literature and the truly important classics. It’s all fault of said vestibular, belive me. It cripples education here by limiting it immensely so we are not encouraged to learn about stuff that isn’t part of it, everything else is dismissed

fireeaglespirit said: Anyway just agreeing and it’s a cautionary tale for teachers so they won’t lose potential life-long readers by shoving them way too much 19th century boring romantic stuff (lol). They do this because if you want to enter any University there’s a test called “vestibular” and those books are required no matter the field so I had to know them by heart :( every teenager goes through this

fireeaglespirit said: And I just could barely finish them and I realized around that time many of my colleagues were developing a distaste for reading so that’s how we get the impression books are boring. By reading boring books on the wrong age, while we’re still developing. Luckily I found Eragon and other stuff that put me in contact with fantasy again

fireeaglespirit said: I mean they think reading fantasy or popular fiction brings nothing to the table. School cripples people love for learning and makes it tiresome and repetitive. Once I was like 12 years old and I had to read classics from local literature and it was so boring it put me out of reading books for a few years. I got exhausted and hated them so much I could barely stand the themes were adult and

fireeaglespirit said: I was never good at grammatical studies (in any language) and still I had great vocabulary and writing skills on both languages compared to my colleagues thanks to reading a lot of random stuff and just following my interests. I’m so sorry when I see a child being denied this. I know a local mom which forbids her children from reading things like Harry Potter under the excuse they bring nothing

fireeaglespirit said: I agree whole heartedly on education. Perfectly put. I learned more about things on my own than on school, just by following my interests… Plus learning english by playing games and reading on my own terms felt much more natural than glaring at boring lists of verbs, etc.. I’m lucky my mom enabled and stimulated my interests so it never felt like a waste of time, not all children have it

Lunna well done you for rising about this. We have this in the UK although perhaps not quite so strict and it drives me crazy! Children are so primed to learn and it just gets drilled out of them.

a) I think it is a way of indoctrinating people for the boring 9 to 5 life 

b)I think it is part of the overly rational/logical way of being/teaching with rote facts and not using creativity, enthusiasm and play (I say this as thinking logic has its place but it has become too left brain now.)

c)Elitist and old fashioned where older people just force you to learn things that they probably didn’t like when they were kids was seen as seminal 50 years ago but then aren’t prepared to move on because ‘ooh it’s new and I don’t get it’. Yeah not all new stuff is great but some things are amazing or if popular like HP can be used to teach as well. Rowling is a great writer and plotter and also has an amazing moral message which all the fundamentalists never understand as they think ‘eww witchcraft’. 

d)There is still this prejudice against genre fiction - Fantasy/Sci Fi/Horror vs literary fiction that I fight with in my work and I see other writers/creators much more successful still fighting with, despite 8/10 of the highest grossing movies of all time are SF/F and alot of books like LOTR and GOT for example.

Re learning this quote highlights it for me as a creator - 

As Chris Oatley - a successful animator for Disney - notes -

‘… if the path was chosen by us and the standard for success is uniquely self-defined, why do we repeatedly empty our religion and submit to the same kinds of boring rules and rituals that we are supposed to subvert?..Art is indeed a discipline but the word “discipline” is NOT a synonym for “punishment.  (http://chrisoatley.com/7s_inherentfun/)’

As for ‘escapism’ this is another one - from an amazing book called Story by Robert Mckee.

‘Our appetite for story is a reflection of the profound human need to grasp the patterns of living, not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience. In the words of playwright Jean Anouilh, "Fiction gives life its form.”

Story isn't a flight from reality but a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.’

[shinondraws]

Hey! I was just wondering what kind of art podcasts you've been listening to as I love listening to them whilst I work and im slowly running out 😭 Thank you!

Oh man, I listen to so many that I don't think I can list them all from the top of my head but I'll list the ones I listen to the most. Idk whether they all classify as podcasts but they're all good talks nevertheless.

One Fantastic Week

Art Side of Life

Bobby Chiu

Gimmie Babel

Dark Art Society Podcast

Chris Oatley

I'm also open for any suggestions because I'm running low on things to listen to as well!

[mauesartetc]

Oh look, a redesign of Alastor from Hazbin Hotel! (The ref on the left is pixelly and doesn’t do the original justice, but it was big and Photoshop accepted its file type, so there ya go.) As always when I do one of these, I want to be clear I have NOTHING against the original artist. It ain’t personal. This is just a challenge for myself, and I hope others can learn from it as well. So lemme walk ya through the thought process!

Based on the wiki entry for this guy, he’s a serial killer from the ‘30s who’s a radio demon and also a... deer demon? Whatever, I’m sure the story will explain the connection there. With the design on the left, the serial killer aspect comes across pretty well: Dark tones, lots of bloody red, crazy eyes, sharp fangs made for killin’... I get it. But apart from his staff and one expression he makes in the animation, what about the design says “radio” to you? For that matter, what about it says “deer”? The antlers look more like branches to me, and with the ears, it’s really vague as to what animal they belong to. Here’s how I approached my version:

- I based the shapes of his head and torso on ‘30s radios. The speaker on one had an interesting shape; almost like a seashell. I based his mouth shape on that, and made his eyes more angular to drive home the fact that his face is based around something man-made, without all the curves more commonly found in nature. The white eyelids were inspired by markings deer have around their eyes. I wanted a lot of value contrast to make the face a focal point, so I kept the darkness of his hair but switched it up a bit. I didn’t see the point of keeping the face’s human qualities, particularly the nose. It’s so small it might as well not be there anyway, and do demons really smell things the way we do? They could very well use their tongues or something. 

- The ears still have a little fluff, but they’re much more obviously deer ears. I also changed the color and shape of the antlers to make it more clear that’s what they were, and molded them around a floating microphone that matches his eyes. I don’t know what Canon!Alastor uses the staff for or what kinds of powers it has, but I thought if my version was going to carry a mic, might as well keep his hands free. He’s a demon, so he can presumably do these things. Hooray for suspension of disbelief! Also, his antlers have bloodstains echoing the red blobs on his hair in the original. His hair’s still fluffy, but the style is more reflective of his time period, as opposed to the emo pageboy look.

- In my research of ‘30s fashion, I came across some high, white collars. I used that here to make the shape of a deer hoof as well as pay homage to the big white markings deer can have on their necks. I also repeated this motif on the shoes. The bottom half of his jacket sports a similar shape as well.

- More fashion stuff: His tie has a pattern of X’s reminiscent of the crossbars an old radio tower would have, and I repeated this on the patches at the bottom of his jacket. The pattern also supports the “DIAMONDS FOR DAYS” theme this design’s got goin’. I wanted to spread some more yellow around for a more unified design, so I added it to his lapels and pockets. He has a monocle in the original ref, which I thought was oddly shaped: A horizontal, oblong oval. It didn’t make sense until I remembered that deer pupils are similarly shaped. If that was intentional, it’s the most clever thing about that design. But I didn’t see much use for a monocle in my version (did folks even still wear them in the ‘30s?), so I used that deer-pupil shape for the pockets n’ patches. 

- Finally, his arms are shaped like mic stands and his hands are shaped like antlers. WHEW.

So I guess the takeaway here is that visual research always helps, and that designers shouldn’t be afraid to think outside the box or get out of their comfort zones. Like Chris Oatley says, good character design goes deep. (https://chrisoatley.com/character-design-goes-deep/) I hope I’ve accomplished that today. Thanks for reading!