First day at Animation Mentor

We start at last...  Today was my first day at Animation Mentor, it was very exiting to log into AM website and see the amount of students online from all over the world come together to learn about the art of animation.

In this first term ( Basic Foundations ) I was assigned to be mentored by Adam Green.   Adam is such an amazing animator, he is currently working at Walt Disney Animation Studios.. woww..   He has an impressive list of credits that includes: Tangled, Ice Age, Horton Hears a Who!  , I'm really lucky to be mentored by such a great artist.

The first week's lecture was a general discussion about the animation industry, it included very simple yet important tips that every animator should consider through out his/her career.



The key points for the lecture are :

- Every animator should find his own source of inspiration, whether its another animator, a painter, or a movie..etc.

- An animator is constantly learning. No matter how good you think you are, you have to keep improving your skills.

- Animators are similar to actors, the only difference is that after studying the performance personalty and attitude of the character, we need to break that performance and emotion down into keyframes.

- Observe your surrounding, & always carry a sketch book & a pencil to capture any pose or gesture that might add
to your visual reference.

- Take video reference for every shot you want to animate, either by shooting your self or using an existing footage.  
This step is often ignored, but I can not stress how important its to achieve a better results. 

- Animation is an art form, it makes no difference whether its a stop motion, 2D, or 3D... the principles are all the same.

- In your animation career,  always keep your ears opened to criticism, and do not take any critique as a personal attack.

- Never ever steel other person's work and claim it as your own.


Again, This advise above comes from leaders in the animation industry, & we should take them seriously if we aim to become a professional animators (especially in the Arab world).

Physics of Balance & Weight Shift

I came across an important article that explains the very basic principles of balance, & how we could benefit from this in character posing, as well as animation .

Click on the image to view article.

Capo Campaign

Would like to share with everyone the latest character animation jobs I did during my work at Blackstone Studios.

This was a collaborative team work between a small group of talented artist,  my role in this campaign was art direction along with my friend & colleague Ayman Akoshali, I also did the modeling & rigging for most of the main characters, shot blocking, full character animation, & some compositing work.

PS. To see the full credit list please visit my Vimeo Page. Questions, comments & critique are most welcomed.

My Vimeo Portfolio.

Click on the lovely dude to check my portfolio on vimeo : )

My first post :)

Hi everybody & welcome to my new Blog/Site.

I have an announcement to make !!.. I recently got accepted as a student at Animation Mentor... Yeaaahhyy..

I will dedicate most of the posts on this blog for sharing all the important info, tips, and notes I'll be learning from my mentors along this great journey, so it will be a be a good reference for myself, as well as everybody else to get back to in the time of need.
I was hoping to make my posts in two languages ( Arabic-English ) but unfortunately, and due to time constraints I'll be posting here only in English.

So wish me luck everyone & stay tuned : )

PS. If you have any question, comment, or feedback, Pls feel free to drop a line.