Spotlight on Ryan Simmons - CartoonSolutions.com
I discovered Ryan Simmons via his CartoonSolutions website a few years ago. I’ve been impressed by his art, his animations, his video tutorials and the interesting business he has developed. He was nice enough to answer a few questions which I hope you’ll find interesting.
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| Television commercial which won an award in 2005 |
1. Can you tell us a little about your background and you got started in animation?
I got into animation when I was 21 years old. My Dad worked at a traditional animation studio in the effects department (animating fire, smoke, water, debris, body tones, shadows etc). They were looking for inbetweeners/assistants so he brought home some scenes and I did the inbetween drawings, they tested the animation and it looked fine and I got the job! From there I stayed in the effects department at Warner Bros. and Dreamworks working on
3. Which part of the creative process do you enjoy the most (ie. concept art, storyboarding, inking, animation etc)?
I enjoy animating the most! There is nothing like seeing your character come to life and move around fluidly. I get a lot of satisfaction just watching something I’ve animated over and over again if I like how it turned out. There is something so mesmorizing about watching an animation with the right weight, timing, arcs and overlap action!
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| Spoof cartoon which won a 2004 Lucasfilm Fan Film Award |
Note: You can see some of Ryan’s just-for-fun art and animations on his
| Star Wars Spoofs website.
4. How do you approach a new project? Do you have a specific work flow? When I am animating, I can usually see in my mind the action and camera view I want it to happen from, so I usually go straight to rough animation. I’ll get the big movements in and camera moves and edit the scenes so they cut nicely from one to the other. I’ll put in any necessary sound effects or dialogue and then I start the long tedious (but fun) part of cleaning up everything and refining and polishing off the animation. 5. Do you have any favorites artists, cartoons or other sources that inspired you? I absolutely love the caricatures of the puppets from “Spitting Image”, a British TV show that ran from the mid 80’s to early 90’s. I collect their toys and any images I can get my hands on. Looking at those 3-dimensional characters helps me think more 3-dimensionally when I go to draw a character. I also love the comic art of Alex Ross, and the character designs of Ben Caldwell are always beautiful. As far as Flash animation goes, I love the work of Alan Lau who is currently at Ghostbot.
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6. Care to offer any advice for budding artists who might be starting out today?
Make sure you love what you do, and when you get a full time job doing it, realize how lucky you are to be doing it and getting paid to do it! I’ve seen plenty of artists get jaded and unhappy with their jobs because they don’t like how the company they are working for is handling the project, whether it is the changes in story or the lack of distribution for the final product. Sure those things can be annoying, but at the end of the day, you’re still getting paid to draw and animate and that is an extremely cool career to have!
Additional Links:
CartoonSolutions - The main site for his character and background packs.
CartoonSolutions Freebies - includes a more complete mp3 interview, some free tutorials and other goodies.