Mitch's Animation Anxiety Attacks

ANOTHER?!?!?! *Richard Nixon mumble noise*

It's that time of the week again where Mitchell posts up yet another experimental piece of artwork. Although you will find that he is talking, there is no sound. I will give a prise to the first person who can tell me what he's saying "so long as I already haven't told you in person"


What am I saying? from Mitchell Druce on Vimeo.

Peace out folks.

It's extreamly bloody late, and I should be sleeping BUT, I felt like I needed to post this NOW! because I just finished it like 20 minutes ago. This is part II of the "Steppin' On My Turf" episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. I tried to not make the footage soo crappy this time.


Steppin' On My Turf - Part II from Mitchell Druce on Vimeo.

EEEee GASP! What will happen next?... WHO KNOWS?!?!

Hey everyone happy easter and all that funky jazz. To celebrate this wonderous non-christian occasion, I'd like to give you all a treat.

The first of many to come "MITCHELL SHORT FILMS!" This is the part one installment of a three part cartoon episode called "Steppin' on my turf!"
Hope you guys like it.


Mitch's Shorts - Steppin' on my tuff! (Part One) from Mitchell Druce on Vimeo.

For all those who want to know what tools I used. Adobe flash CS3 with the Bamboo WACOM tablet, and then finished up with Adobe After Effects. And yes, this was rushed (4 hours), and once I've finished all three parts I'll run over them all again to make things look a little more nice.

I'd like to thank those who where nice enough to answer my Fan Art question "what is Fan Art". I'd like to reserve a special thanx to those five, who gave a proper answer too :). The figures say that the majority of people who voted on my poll agree that Fan Art is the physical manifestation of Sparta. I'd love to believe that as well, but alas, acid died out in the mid 90's so this can't be the case. So there we have it, Fan Art is a love for a specific type of artwork.

In other news, Crazed mad men without arms have been terrorising various computers at southbank. I've managed to capture one of them reaking havok on film.

Some scenes may frighten some small children and sexually inadequate teens. Viewer discretion is advised.


Disabled High Jump from Mitchell Druce on Vimeo.

For all those who are unfortunate enough to be out of the loop, Dan and I have come up with an idea for a strangly funny series of animated skits based in the office environment. The unofficial name of the show will be called "This Means Business" and will be loosly based on the morbid imagination of two great minds combined.

Also ontop of this I'll be working on a personal project by myself hopefully with the voice talents of the same people who will be helping us out with This Means Business. This ones called The uberNaturals, or just uN for short. This project I've been working on for about 6 months so far. I've been turning alot of my friends into cartoon characters one by one (at their expense mind you) and I have been writing amazingly long intertwining stories for them all. Which I'm still working on.
If all goes well, it should be one hell of a cartoon. Here are some concept art designs for some of my friends. ENJOY!

Nothing new. Just using old techniques with new software and very very bored. For the record this is over 500 frames. 500 frames of crap, but still 500 frames non the less. I guess what this personal excersize was about trying to push movement to it's fastest. Ian wanted us to try and make something so fast that we would lose sight of its movement. I think at about frame 382 it did it for me. What do you guys think?

Well it's 2:30 so I best be off to bed. I'll see all my wonderful animation class mates on monday. Apparently it's the important (must attend) class... Like I miss any of Ian's classes anyway. sheesh.


Rogue Balls from Mitchell Druce on Vimeo.

I managed to go see horton hears a who today using my young nephew as an excuse for not looking like such a panzy.

and in the great words of Prince Habibu "It is simply awesome!"

Snappy scenes and a good example of pushing movements to their limits and then beyond. And ontop of it all. If someone could make a joke out of every freaken object in a room, it'd be the guys who made this film. And of course there HAD to be a musical number at the end, which I'm sure the animators would have had a fun time playing around with.

and what kind of movie would it be without a 2 minute sequence of horton and morton paying the crap out of anime through the medium of an enraged ninja elephant and a pikachu-esque lightning mouse.

I highly recommend everyone in my class to check this one out. IMMEDIATLY!

Hahaha my reply to Ian's post on Anime was so long I decided to make it into my own post ^_^ I hope you don't mind Ian.



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Wow you've really thought about this long and hard, and I've got to admit, it's different hearing this from the teachers point of view. But a good different.

And through the few weeks I've been in this course I've been judging cartoons more on their movement rather than their looks.

Having said that, theres nothing wrong with having both happy pretty icing with a nice portion of cake in the center.

"Blame Ian for the cake reference, if you don't get it, ask him ^_^"

Which is why I still stand by my earlier stance of defiance by using both quantity AND quality ^_^. There's nothing wrong with giving yourself extra work, so long as you are willing to put in the same amout of effort in the more important details, which in my case at the moment is movement. I'm aware that its unnessisary, and so is the human appendix, but there it is all the same.

And I guess in a way, Anime is helping teenagers not look so much like losers. Haha, bare with me because I know this sounds rediculous. There is nothing cool "to the majority" about using "around the world with Timon and Pumba" as a conversation starter. Let's be honest, you don't come across as an intellectual. But more mature cartoon's are coming out and are becoming more and more socially acceptable. Evangelion has probably one of the biggest philisophical story lines easily accessable to my generation of cartoon lovers. And let's be honest, I'd rather see Alucard from Hellsing devour his next prey than watch Roadrunner slap Mr. Coyote with another dose of ANVIL IN THE FACE.
Slapstick will always be close to my heart, but seeing drama and suspence in cartoons creates more of a sympathy factor for me.

But yes, you do have a very good point about watching a still picture of Yugi on the screen at 7:30 in the morning whilst he goes through about half the season's plot in his head. Every now and then they put masses of streaming lines and colours behind these still faces to make their thoughts more intence.

I guess we're looking at a new era of animation. Scientists say that the first possible evolution of man was distinguished by his ability to find humour by watching other's hurt themselves in a minor fasion. Maybe we're just evolving into wanting a little bit more out of life than just slapstick humour.

I personally believe that Anime is alive today because real people are just too boring to look at.

Hey everyone. I know whats your thinking. whats that underneath Mitch's arm, and is he going to share it with the rest of the class? I will answer both right now.


The Happy Little Worm from Mitchell Druce on Vimeo.

and yes.

For those in the loop, you would already be aware of the fight Ryan, some of his other friends, and I have found myself in. Theres this douche bag on deviant art who thought he would do the righteous thing and preach us (fan artists and cartoon lovers) in the depressing ways of horrible sculptures and Military Buttsecks. Of course I couldn't sit back and allow him to just mow over this poor girl trying to bring happiness into this world with her colourful art, so I faught back along with the others to teach this guy a lesson in Deviant Art PAIN! ><

Aaaaanyways, He was claiming that FanArt is illegal. Which was his first mistake and I quite happy to inform him of his aweful misunderstanding of the law. And he was also claiming that FanArt is the worst kind of cartoon Art.

This got me thinking. When a company makes a cartoon. There's someone making up the characters, and then about 50 other people copying this character over and over again to breathe life into him. So essentially what he thought was an original cartoon, was in reality ONE person's imagination and 1,000,000's of fan art pictures crammed together. Which when you put it that way sounds horrible, and when you look deep inside your cartoon soul you know this not to be true. There is nothing wrong with FanArt, and in some cases, people put alot more time and effort into FanArt than some of the original drawings. It's essentially an essence of creativity and wonderful imagination coming together from the minds and hearts of 100's of people to create a world away from reality. Where anything is possible. Of course, creating your own characters is much more fun and adventurous.

So the question I leave you all with today is. What are your thoughts on FanArt and what are your thoughts on Longun

The Early Bird does indeed get the Worm. But who the fuck wants a worm for breakfast. It'd be like a thick stream of snot that had been living in the dirt all of his life, pondering over the one great question I'd only imagine worms would ponder, "Which end's my head, and which end's my anus?"

I guess Ian's new saying should be "Having your worm and eating it too"

So here we go people. This ones coloured in photoshop with a strangly large amount of layers.

Ok so my pride was shot with this one. Ian was like... MAKE A TREE FALL. DON'T WORRY ABOUT TRYING TOO HARD BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME... Yes thats right... he yelled it, with extream capital letters. Anyways, I took this as a personal challenge to prove him wrong. Long story short, I kinda finished about an hour after everyone else was finished. Afterwards Ian took me aside and told me, it is not the tree that I must make fall... but it is me... I must find my inner Tree. Well not exactly in those words, but if you are reading this Ian you will probably agree with me that it's a pretty good analogy for what you said.

So without further adu. The Falling Tree. *curtains open*


Falling Tree from Mitchell Druce on Vimeo.

HELLO people of my animations class and all others young and old. small and tall.. fat and fit.... Psychic and Swedish! I come baring gifts of greatness

I know what you're thinking... "Holy crab battle! It's christmas already?" And I'd like to say yes. I really would like to. But alas, it's only March. Shovanistic Saddistic March. Like the alcoholic uncle who makes you wear his dead wife's dressing gown, luring you to his rocking-chair with smarties and other various sweets.

Also, Gen, in all her wonderously inspiring ways, sparked an idea in me little ticker in the wee hours of the noon. We must create street-fighter-esque battle sprites of ourselves for the greatest fighting game in exsistance. All those who like this idea... Send me a reply with a picture of a kitten. But the kind you'd find on 4chan. Now fly fly my minions. Times a wastin'.