Santa

TEST - Blender to 3DXchange to iClone

This is just a test to see how easy it is to export a stylised character from Blender, then import to 3DXchange and send to iClone. This is the first try for me to basically figure out how to do it, and where problems are going to occur. Here, it is obviously with the mesh, so it unfortunately back to Blender to sort that out.

Udemy, Skillshare and other Online Learning Communities.

Youtube and similar sites are excellent community-driven video sites which contains a plethora of learning resources on just about any subject. However, sometimes learning this way can seem disjointed and sometimes it is worth considering paying to learn.

Both Udemy and Skillshare are online learning communities and contain valuable courses for learning just about anything. This quick comparison is based on what I want to learn, in this case, it's mainly Art, Animation, both 2D and 3D, and that is currently about it.

Both Udemy and Skillshare cater to my needs, and both have pros and cons to consider.

Udemy charges per course. So, each course you want to learn you have to buy. However, this really isn't as bad as it seems as you never need pay more than about $12 for a course, just search for udemy voucher on Google. Once purchased you have lifetime access to that course for as long as it exists. There are also a number of free courses available.

Skillshare, on the other hand, charges via a membership charge, and you have access to ALL courses on Skillshare for the period of your membership. However, you lose access to the courses if your membership runs out. Skillshare also seems to mainly cater for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.

Both sites do have some of the same courses, as I have found. Having invested in a number of courses on Udemy, and then joined Skillshare, I realise I could have saved myself the cost of the Udemy courses. But, on the positive side, I will always have access to the Udemy courses I've purchased.

Let's also not forget other sites which sell courses specific to certain learning areas. Sites I have personally used include:

• Bloop Animation

If you know of any courses worth users looking at, add them to the comments section below.

Let's Rumba! Looped animation

Quick and Dirty guide to how this animation was made.

Character created in Blender 3.0, following along to a Skillshare Course: Blender 3D | Full 3D Character | Easy Workflow, by Juandre Lab - https://skl.sh/31YAnJA

Character, without rig, exported as an FBX file, and then imported into Mixamo ( https://www.mixamo.com/ ) where it was auto-rigged and had pre-made animation added.

Exported from Mixamo in FBX format, and dragged and dropped into iClone. Music added from Youtube Audio Library, and background imported onto a plane from Freepik.com

Voila!

As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a very quick and dirty animation in that the character is quite basic and could do with a lot more work, and there is no real camera work here. However, after creating the camera, the rest took less than half an hour.

Dog Walks into a Bar

Keeping my hand in with Cartoon Animator 4.

Gold Loop Animation - 1st try with Blender 3.0

I started learning Blender in version 2.79, but moved over to MOHO Pro instead. With the release of Blender 3.0, however, I thought I'd come back and give it a go. The below video was my first try of Blender 3.0 and for it I followed a course on Skill share: Blender 3.0: Your First Looping Animation

How to create arm and leg rigs using pin bones.

A very useful MOHO tutorial by Poptoogi.

MAAAARRHH by breebird33

 I came across this short animation by breebird33 on Youtube. Short, sweet, and brought a big smile to my face. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. This proves that sometimes it is the idea and the performance that makes a good animation rather than the package or graphics you are using.

Overcooked - by Tuxedo Cat Cartoons

 Created by Tuxedo Cat Cartoons in MOHO Pro 12

The Sperm Bank

Created in Cartoon Animator 4, sometimes the old jokes remain funny even if they are simple, crude, and rude.

FREE Moho Characters

 

Sometimes you find some really useful stuff searching about on Google. Today I came across these free characters for use in MOHO. You can get 3 characters for 3, or get the complete pack from Patreon, which I haven't done yet. I want to check out the freebies first!

Christmas on a Friday

Cartoon Animator 4 is ideal for making quick animations when everything works as it should. This animation took about an hour, but admittedly could do with some more polishing.

FIRE

Created in MOHO Pro 13.5 for entry into the October 2021 animation competition at http://www.animestudiotutor.com

Walk and Run Cycles

 I've added a page for Walk and Run Cycles showing the keyframes which are needed to obtain a half-decent result in a simple way.

Color Theory ( Choosing Colors)

 A great video on Colours / Colors which I come back to time and time again.

Manga Head created in Clip Studio Paint

 

Timelapse

Manga Head created in Clip Studio Paint - no hair

 

Timelapse

Quick cartoon head created in Clip Studio Paint

Timelapse

Cartoon Noses in Affinity Designer

 

Cartoon noses created in Affinity Designer.

Affinity Designer file: noses

PSD file: noses

Cartoon Eyes in Affinity Designer

 

Affinity Designer File: cartoon eyes affinity designer

PSD File: cartoon eyes affinity designer

Flat head in Affinity Designer

 

Affinity Designer File: flathead

Basic Chibi Boy

 Basic Chibi Boy Practise Drawing, from Chibi! The Official Mark Crilley How-to-Draw Guide.

Timelapse:

Clip Studio File: basicchibiboy.clip

Basic Chibi Girl

Basic Chibi Girl  Practise Drawing, from Chibi! The Official Mark Crilley How-to-Draw Guide.

Timelapse:

Clip Studio Paint file: basicchibigirl.clip

Chibi Head

 Chibi Head Practise Drawing, from Chibi! The Official Mark Crilley How-to-Draw Guide.

Timelapse:

Clip Studio Paint File: chibihead.clip

100 Ways to Walk

A very useful reference for all animators, whatever software you use.

Candy

So, this is the animation using the character created in the previous 2 posts. Enjoy.

MOHO and sound files available in a zip file: download here

Full character sketch

 

Affinity Designer file for the above image: shopkeeper

Character Head Sketch

 

This is the rough sketch for the head of a shopkeeper for use in my next animation.

Flat Design Character Head

 Created in Affinity Designer, following along to an excellent beginners tutorial for Affinity Designer by Affinity Revolution.

Affinity Designer file here: Head

Tutorial Video by Affinity Designer:

The Quiet Engine

Moho and sound files available in a zip file: The Quiet Engine

Always pay attention at tennis - Created in Moho Pro 13.5

Anyone for Tennis? - created in Moho Pro 13.5

Creepy music and stuff

 Just for something different.

Adding bone audio wiggle to Quad Warp test on a single flat image in MOH...

Perspective Warp test on a random image in Moho 13.5

Sing a Song of Sixpence (created in MOHO 13.5)

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Created in MOHO Pro 13.5 

This is my entry into the monthly competition for May 2021 at AnimeStudioTutor. The MOHO file for the above animation can be found at AnimeStudioTutor.

Lobster (Cartoon Animator 4)

Cartoon King

 

A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples.

- extract, The Golden Bird, The Brothers Grimm

The Long Pause

The Bite of '83 (Animation)

I like this type of character, nice and simplistic.

Make Characters Fast With The Skin Modifier || Blender 2.91

BEGINNINGS: Setting a Story in Motion

Michael Arnt, script writer for Toy Story 3, shares his process in this informative video.

How to Design a character in Anime Studio Pro - MOHO Pro

This is a most excellent tutorial on creating and rigging a character in MOHO Pro by Poptoogi. I followed along with this tutorial using a different character as the base. The next stage is to actually use my own character. The one below is the result of following Poptoogi's tutorial.

MOHO Eye Rigging in MOHO and Anime Studio

Here's a great little set of tutorials on eye rigging in MOHO created by Poptoogi.

Eye Rigging 1

Eye Rigging 2

Eye Rigging 3

Blowjob celebration. Created in Cartoon Animator 4

bb8 ver.2, created in MOHO 13 Pro

Bee Happy - created in MOHO

Show and Tell, Toys. Created in MOHO 13 Pro

How to Think When You Draw

 This is a brilliant resource by the Etherington Brothers on their Blog.

The Etherington Brothers: 300 FREE How to THINK when you DRAW tutorials!

The Super Mario Effect - Tricking Your Brain into Learning More | Mark R...

Webinar – Drawing with Perspective and Camera Angles in Clip Studio Pain...

Lazy Day t-shirt timelapse drawing

Timelapse of drawing single perspective boxes

Timelapse of Single Point Perspective Scene

Timelapse of practising perspective

Beginning Graphic Design: Color

Timelapse of Drawing Basic Heads practice

Brad's Art School

 This is a really good tutorial set for beginners.

Lesson 1 - Learn to Draw for Beginners

Lesson 2 - How to Draw Anything with Construcion

Lesson 3 - How to Draw Heads

Clocks

A small animation created in MOHO 13 Pro, for entry into the monthly competition at animestudiotutor.com

How to Draw Characters in Worm's Eye View | Drawing Lesson 8⚡

How to Draw Characters in Bird's Eye View | Drawing Lesson 7⚡

How to Draw The Figure in Perspective Pt 1 | Drawing Lesson 6⚡

How To Draw Figures in Perspective

Colour Blindness; Color Blindness; Colour / Color Vision Deficiency

 Whatever you want to call it, the inability to distinguish colours properly is a regular pain in the arse. Two Windows tools I use with this problem and which I both highly recommend are:

Colorpic

Ever tried using a color picker tool on a high resolution monitor? It's impossible. That's why this color picker has a magnifier attached. Grab palettes of up to 16 colors at once and use four advanced color mixers to select a spectrum of possibilities.

WhatColor

WhatColor identifies a color of the pixel on the screen of your PC. There are some similar tools to display RGB values to assist making HTML used in authoring WWW pages. WhatColor is different. It tells you not only RGB values, but also the name of the color of the point.

Let me know in the comments if you found these tools useful, or if you recommend any others.