Animation Portfolio Reference

[UPDATED March 10th '08]

- Check out the weight lift animation by Raphael Suter made during his Pixar Internship.

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- The February Winner of the 11secondclub competition did a really great job. Check it out!

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- These two posts show a very relaxed and smooth walkcycle. One here, and the other one here, which has great visual aids in order to see which body parts are moving.

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- Check out Cameron Fielding's "Turok" Animation. Absolutely beautiful. Great reference for more realistic animation.

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Here are portfolios I recommend studying.

First, go to Cameron Miyasaki's site. I like his site, because besides showing awesome animation, it also shows a progression from bouncing balls to character work.

So first you have bouncing balls. But it's not just physics, there is great personality in each ball and it's a neat little story.
Then you move on to bipeds. Milt is a simple rig without any mouth shapes and it's perfect for pantomime. The clip shows off great body mechanics and weight, plus a little acting.
Then you move on to a dialogue exercise. Still Milt (I don't know if Hogan was available at that time), no facial work, but it's not needed because his body performance is great. Timing and acting works very well.
Then a full on short, further showcasing Cameron's great sense of acting and pantomime. It's by now 5 years old but the animation is still superb.
He then got an internship at Pixar and there you can see the same progression, just at an even higher level.
First, Luxo Jr. You get bouncing balls and the lamp showing off cute acting. No fancy rig, no fancy facial stuff, still great animation, clear and entertaining.
Then two walkcycles with Mike Wazowski and Sulley. Walks are hard to do and force you to think about a lot of elements, body mechanics wise, and on top of that you need to give it character, which he does.
Once you master all that you should be well equipped to tackle a performance shot and Buzz's slide in and delivery still cracks me up. The timing and acting is awesome.
Unfortunately you won't get to see his feature work at Pixar, just a text description. But there is enough on his page to get your animation juices flowing.

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Another portfolio, which I showed in class already, is Guilherme Jacinto's. It's immediately visible that he's a very talented guy. Beautiful drawings and awesome animation work. My favorites being the three person dialogue piece from "Creampuff" for its great acting choices and polish and the Mr. Incredible Physical Test for the weight and poses (beautiful line of acting after he throws the bomb, right down to the fingers).
The rest of his clips are great too of course, check them out again.

Don't forget to check out all the Student Showcases from Animation Mentor. Here's a link to their Fall 2007 Edition, which has some fantastic clips in it.

I think I will add portfolio's and clips to this post as time goes by, stay tuned.