UPDATE: Busy week here in Tonyteach world, with lots of exciting things lining up, but we can’t spill the beans just yet. : )

We are working away on setting up the Toon Boom Animate DVD: Anatomy of a 30-second Short – Animation from Thought to Finish Pre-orders on Indie GoGo. The date to place your pre-orders has been moved to this Friday, February 17th.

To create a successful story, you should be able to explain it in a single sentence. Example: Geeky teenager gets bitten by radioactive spider, and gains super hero powers.

With this in mind, we are announcing today the title and summary of our upcoming Toon Boom Animate DVD: Anatomy of a 30-second Short – Animation from Thought to Finish…

Beaver Cola: A soda company markets its product based on the fact that the primary ingredient in their beverage comes from the business end of a beaver.

By the way, the Beaver Cola company is a parody, but the ingredient “castoreum” is very real.

The DVD will show everything from the initial pitch, creating the piece in Toon Boom Animate, to the final 30 second short. We will be taking pre-orders via raising funds on Indie GoGo starting February 17. Our goal is to raise at least $1000, and the rewards will include being able to pre-purchase the entire DVD as a download for just $1! (limited to first 600 backers). The DVD will release March 30, 2012.

For updates, click here to sign up for our DVD newsletter

A walk cycle? With no legs??

In this premium Toon Boom Animate tutorial, we create a forward walk-cycle (no legs involved).

This tutorial is based on anime and old-school limited animation, like Scooby Doo. Whenever you would see a character walking toward the camera, they would only be shown from the waist up. This was used as an option, when time and budget were tight, as it takes longer to create a convincing forward walk cycle when the legs are visible.

This Premium tutorial is 26 min long, and regularly priced at $2.95, click here to purchase, OR, for a limited time, you can get this for $1 simply by Tweeting or posting on Facebook about our tutorial.

Just click the Pay With a Tweet button below, and once you share news of our tutorial, you will be sent to a page where you can purchase the tutorial for $1.

This is a secure, one-time tweet or post. Click and the button will send you to twitter, or facebook if you choose,  for authentication, and then automatically tweet or post this: “New Toon Boom Animate tutorial: Forward Walk Cycle, on Sale for $1!! #toonboom #animation @tonyteach http://bit.ly/zroRuq” Now, pay-with-a-tweet’s interface will say “free”, but remember, it’ll be $1.00.

By purchasing tonyteach premium tutorials, you are helping us keep the website, and all of our free tutorials, up and running. By helping us spread the word about tonyteach, you help us to keep our prices low, so we thank you in advance.

All the best-
Tony Ross

View the trailer:

Michael Doret is probably one of the top 5 reasons I got into the art business. I have admired his work since I was a kid, and earlier in 2011 I was blessed with getting to interview him. This post/interview, for personal reasons I wont go into, was delayed multiple times, and I am now FINALLY sharing it with everyone. Please enjoy

When I was in 2nd grade, and you were still allowed to have REAL parties in the classroom, the most popular albums you could bring in were those by the rock band KISS. This was the age where album cover art was king, and one of my favorite covers of all time (and I still own the actual album) was KISS Rock and Roll Over. As a kid, I even did my best at drawing Gene Simmons’ face from the cover using purple construction paper and crayons. The signature on the cover art, simply said – Doret.

Decades later, I had graduated art school and was teaching college, and I came across a piece of sample art work from Adobe Illustrator. It was a piece of album cover art for the Squirrel Nut Zippers. What stood out to me, besides its brilliant simplicity, was the signature of the artist… Doret.

I later went online to look up the artist, only to find out he was the same Doret who had created my favorite KISS
album from decades before! Michael Doret!

Without further delay, please take a listen to me interview one of the most influential designers, and considering his portfolio, a WAY humble dude, Michael Doret.

This Toon Boom Animate tutorial is a simple pose-to-pose animation exercise of a blob splitting off a baby blob. Traditional animation terms are covered like keyframes, breakdowns, and tweens. This tutorial, like the stick tutorial plays with idea of a basic way counting when animating – instead of 1-2-3-4-5, for this pose to pose exercise you count 1-5-3-2-4… watch the video, you’ll catch on. Enjoy.

Download the HD version of this tutorial for only .99¢!

This Toon Boom Animate tutorial is a simple pose-to-pose animation exercise of a stick falling over. Traditional animation terms are covered like keyframes, breakdowns, and tweens. There are two examples, showing a diference between animation, and motion graphics. Enjoy.

Download the HD version of this tutorial for only .99¢!