Drawing Inspiration Make friends not enemies By Tony Bancroft Every “good thing” I received in my career came because of a friend or a close relationship. Every job, every promotion, every opportunity. Everyone. When people talk about success in Hollywood as being because of “who you know” it is just as true for the animation [...]
Never Stop Learning – Part 2 of Drawing Inspiration by Tom Bancroft I used to look up to top cartoonists – not for their money or fame – but because they could draw whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. In my childhood artistic viewpoint my ultimate goal was to be able to draw whatever I could think of- [...]
Have A Direction One summer day when my brother, Tony, and I were about 10, we were with a couple friends playing. Soon, the games stopped and we sat there bored, trying to figure out what to do next. Star Wars (the original film) had come out recently, so naturally one of us said, “Let’s build [...]
Free Taught By A Pro BONUS Character Design Lesson: Here’s a short video lesson where Tom Bancroft creates a redline sketch over a “student’s” drawing to illustrate how to strengthen the pose/story. A full character design lesson on posing animated women is coming soon.
Interview with Cartoonist Michael Jantze Michael Jantze is the most recent Taught By A Pro instructor. He took time to answer a few question for Taught By A Pro. Michael Jantze is a cartoonist, humorous illustrator and story guru. He is best know for The Norm comic strip. His course Drawriting A Comic Strip describes his method [...]
Being funny is serious business. Doing it well requires the right ingredients and process. Text-image interdependence is one of the keys to a good comic strip. Drawriting is the method for producing a great comic strip. Legendary comic strip artist Michael Jantze, creator of The Norm comic strip, shares decades of experience in the most [...]
New Taught By A Pro Instructors – Michael Jantze, Jeff Victor, Steven E Gordon, & Dean Yeagle Taught By A Pro continues to increase our line-up of great professional artists, illustrators, cartoonists and animators. Michael Jantze, Dean Yeagle, Jeff Victor and Steven E Gordon have committed to sharing their extensive knowledge with Taught By A [...]
Tony Bancroft, animator and animation director, was one of the first Taught By A Pro instructors. His courses on Squash and Stretch cover some of the foundational skills of animation. In the courses Squash & Stretch 1 and Squash & Stretch 2, Tony describes the concepts of squash and stretch and demonstrates their application. John [...]
These four Taught By A Pro “pros” (instructors) have each spent decades in the field of animation doing amazing work at Disney, Sullivan Booth and others. They have written books on animation, directed, produced and been nominated for major awards. This is the advice that they give to aspiring artists and animators. From, Michel Gagné, Artist and Animator [...]
To celebrate joining Taught By A Pro, John Pomeroy was kind enough to answer a few questions about his career and offer advice to aspiring animators. What is the best advice you ever received? John Pomeroy: From Ollie Johnston, while animating the character “Penny” under his guidance, his sage advice to me was “keep it [...]