MA3306 ASSIGNMENT 01

Simon Tolfield 

Simon Tolfield is a British animator who creates personal films known as “Simon’s Cat.” 

Simon first learned to animate by making flip-books and later went to study at Graphics and Animation De Montfort University. He also spent time learning new computer software by himself.

 He now works from his home, using Flash to create his short films. He gets all the ideas for his films from his four cats at home and his experiences with them. His first film “Cat-man-do” was based on one of his cats trying to wake him up in the morning. Thinking it would make a good story, he sat down to animate it. Later he had found that it had been posted on YouTube with an incredible amount of views and realized he needed to give it a name. He continues to make short films and is also making a book.

His official site can be found here, as well as his YouTube channel here.

Anya McNaughton

Anya McNaughton is an Australian artist who is currently in her 3^rd year of studying animation at Queensland College of Art at Griffith University.

The majority of her works consists of stylized animals and a couple of animated shorts. Unfortunately, there’s not too much I can find out about her background and how she decided to pursue art. On a few of her websites, however, it does mention she has a huge passion for creating films. Her latest film “Fire Tiger vs Acid Panther” took about four months to animate and about 2 years for pre-production.  To make it complete she used both Photoshop and ToonBoom to animate it.

When asked about the animation field and its available jobs, she advises, “I think getting a job just depends on how good/passionate you are. Freelance is fairly easy to get, but settling down with a 9-5 job is a lot harder. I’d recommend studying animation, though, if you like it. If you’re just ‘kinda’ interested, it’s probably not right [for you].”

Her personal art blog can be found here, and her YouTube channel here.

Ryan Woodward

Ryan Woodward is an animator, designer and storyboard artist. His works include different jobs in production for major films, free-lance, and his personal short films as well. On top of that all, he also teaches for Brigham Young University, in Utah, teaching courses like storyboarding, gesture drawing and animation. 

Ryan studied at Brigham Young University for his Bachelors and at Academy of Art University in San Francisco for his Masters. He knew from a young age that he wanted to pursue art; he always loved comics, books, and animation. 

When asked what he thought about the 3D animation field and the students heading in that direction, he responded, “I think that every artist/animator needs to follow what they are passionate about.  If they are passionate about 3d, then that is exactly where they should go.  The same goes for any form of art or any part of the animation process.  The trick is figuring out what that passion is and always strive to compromise with other influences.  At the end of the day, when you're in your death bed and your family is looking at you, you want to say to them that you followed your dreams.”

His personal website can be found here, and his YouTube channel here.