Some Notes on Comparative Anatomy

It’s a mighty big subject obviously but for this talk I focused on looking for squash and stretch in the skeleton. Useful for animation and also for rigging. It’s easy for humans to forget how squashy-stretchy most animal skeletons are, because we ourselves are built very upright and straight with all our bones pretty much on the surface. A coiled-up, spring-loaded arrangement of bones is more usual, especially in the hind legs. Because they are covered up in muscle... Read More

Till the Cows Come Home

Here’s some of my notes on four-legged walks (our feature animal: COWS!) for a class I’m teaching at the Animation Workshop, for those who might find it useful– as always, study as much as you can from reference and understand WHY the action is as it is.  Read More

Cat Anatomy Notes– The Spine

Just got back from teaching a few weeks at the always relaxing and inspiring Animation Workshop. I agreed to do a short course in animal animation in 2D before I remembered that I haven’t animated on paper in three or four years– yikes! They tend to ask me to teach something with animals when I go, and this time around I thought I’d have the students all do cats. I think I kind of overwhelmed people with anatomical information, which is a particular geekery... Read More