DramaManiacs.com

Here's another backdrop I designed for the kids drama school DramaManiacs.com Im always impressed how closely they match my design after blowing it up to 20feet long.

"I AM ART" is done

My new short "I AM ART" is done and out there for the world to enjoy. It's a satire on the FINE ART WORLD and different people who go to museums and art galleries. Please share it with who you think would enjoy a good laugh.

And don't forget to check out the behind the scenes of "I AM ART"

Stay up to date on what I'm doing by liking me on FACEBOOK
Follow me on TWITTER

Watch all my other creations at STODOESTUDIOS.com

A BUNCH OF NEW FRAMES from "I AM ART"

Hey everyone,
Here's some new frames from my latest personal animation
"I AM ART"  I'm on the homestretch now and can see the light. I think there's only about one more night of animation. Then I'm on to post production which really is to clean  up the sound a bit and publish.
I'll also be making another making of/behind the scenes, since you guys seem to be asking for that whenever we chat. 
Hope you guys like it. It's original. It's not a parody.................well it's a parody on some things. But not a movie.

 Don't forget to subscribe to my channel so you are notified when it comes out.

And I'm always on facebook as well to answer any questions  at all about animation, Even if you just want to say hi.

I AM ART: officially started.

I have officially started my new short cartoon entitled "I AM ART"

It's a lot different from some of my past stuff and I'm keeping it super rough.
Because the concept doesn't really call for a high level of polish.
It really works better as a rough animation.
It should be done within the month so keep your eyes open.

Be sure to subscribe on YOUTUBE so you find out when it comes out.


Can't wait to hear what you think. It's not a parody on a certain movie.
But it is a parody.

Here are some still from it for the time being.

Let me know what you think.

Doodling

It's wierd what you come up with at 2 in the morning. I just started doodling
Bigfoot for this sketch club I'm a part of.  Bigfoot was the theme for the month.  Don't ask me where I came up with this idea.   I just pictured Bigfoot longing to be normal and being able to wear what other people take for granted. Like lovely ladies shoes that he could never hope to fit into.

I was tired.

FUN FRAMES FROM "GAMES OF HUNGER"

Hey everyone.
Sorry I haven't posted lately. I've been raising a newborn baby and haven't had that much time to work on my own stuff.  Good news though. I just started my next cartoon this weekend. I recorded the audio which has proven to be difficult with a newborn screaming in the background. But it's all recorded now and I should be starting the backgrounds and animation soon.

In the meantime here's some fun EXTREME frames from my last cartoon GAMES OF HUNGER

It's always fun to look at these out of context and see what you don't get to see as it's flying by your eyes at 24 frames a second.

let me know what you think.

Dont forget to SUBSCRIBE to my YOUTUBE CHANNEL to be notified as soon as a new cartoon or video is posted.

Enjoy.

STODOE'S LATEST DEMO REEL

I haven't updated my DEMO REEL in years. So I thought I'd show you what I've been working on over the past few years. It's some older stuff from when I worked at Sony mixed with new stuff from my personal projects and Dreamworks. But it'll give you a taste of what I've been up to. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CprKqNw-yc

IS IT WORTH IT TO GO INTO ANIMATION?

Today I got a good question from a student about how worth it is it to go into the animation industry. There is a lot of concern from young people because they are scared of not being successful. This is my response to him.

That is a really important question. I totally understand your concern with the industry.
I will tell you this. In school you learn everything about making an animated film. Which means at the end of it you actually have a lot of skills and not just animation. You can use your art for so many different jobs. You understand story and storyboarding which is usefull in a lot of different fields. But what I will say is if you can only see yourself doing that. Then try it. You never want to wonder "WHAT IF?" It wasnt easy finding a job after school but I got one doing TV shows in Flash about three months after I graduated. My teacher was actually the one who hired me. What makes it hard to get a job isnt necessarily how well in the industry is doing. It's about your skills. So when you go to school. You work your butt off and really push to be the BEST you can be. When you graduate you'll have a lot more opportunities than people who just go to school because they dont really know what they want to do but animation sounded fun. If you really push for it you'll make it. Be honest with yourself. You'll know whether or not you can do it. Just don't waste ALL your time in school partying. Studios can tell who puts in the work. If you TRULY want to be an animator then I really believe you can be.

Best wishes to you.

Good luck

David Stodolny
(stodoe)

I will also add you may not get your DREAM JOB right out of school. I didn't but I was animating. Use your early jobs as learning platforms and stepping stones to get where you wanted. I was doing small TV shows and commercials and direct to DVD specials for 5 years before I landed my feature role on THE WILD. From that it gave me the experience to get hired at SONY PICTURES IMAGEWORKS where I then worked on a bunch of great movies. So you really have to keep growing. And who knows. Some people are lucky to get their dream job right out of school if the opportunity works out. Good luck to you all

THE MAKING OF "THE GAMES OF HUNGER"

In case you happened to have missed it, I thought I'd let you know that there's a 3 part making of featurette on "THE GAMES OF HUNGER"
It goes through my entire process of how I make my cartoons from concept to screen.
Take a look  and let me know what you think.








Don't forget to suscribe to my youtube channel stodoestudios.com so you'll be emailed as soon as a new video us uploaded.

And remember to follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well.

DRAMA MANIACS BACKDROPS

I recently did some designs for my friend Kim and Reston's Drama school "DRAMA MANIACS"  I was asked to design some backdrops for a couple of their plays that they have planned for the kids.  It's amazing how closely they replicated my designs.  They projected my drawings onto a giant screen and traced them with paint. I'm amazed at how good they turned out. Nice work guys.

Below you'll see pictures of Reston Williams (who was also my composer for GAMES OF HUNGER) painting the backdrops.

If you have kids in the LA area that enjoy acting check out dramamaniacs.com

THE GAMES OF HUNGER is finally finished

After 3 long months of working in the evening and ignoring my beautiful wife and our unborn baby, THE GAMES OF HUNGER IS FINALLY DONE!!!!
A huge thank you to Rebecca for putting up with me. And also to RESTON WILLAMS who went above and beyond to create the epic score that went with the animation.
I hope you all enjoy it.



Let me know what you think.

THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT

Thanks to everyone that came out to support us the PICTURE BOOK PROJECT this weekend at CTN Animation Expo.
We sold a lot of books and hopefully raised a lot of money to help the kids in GHANA.
If you didnt get a chance to make it out to the show please go online
and order your book here.

 http://picturebookproject.com/PBP/store.html

It's 66 animation artists creating a colouring book that's great for kids or for adults to enjoy the artwork.

Here's a picture of a couple of us signing the book this weekend

A COUPLE OF IMAGES WHILE I FINISH!!!

Hey everyone,
Thank you for being so patient as this has turned into much more work than anticipated.
But the good news is I should be done soon. I can actually say that with confidence now.
Just gotta do the FX and then sound.

Here's a couple of teaser images to keep you busy.  Thanks for all the great comments on youtube so far.   Hopefully you guys dig the final product.  Don't forget to like us on facebook and subscribe on youtube so you can be the first to see it when it's done.

 facebook.com/stodoestudios
youtube.com/stodoe

BOOK SIGNING AT CTN THIS WEEKEND!!

If you're going to be attending the CTN ANIMATION EXPO this Sunday the 19th, be sure to stop by the PICTURE BOOK PROJECT booth and say hi. I'll be there signing copies of the book that I contributed to with other animation artists. Be sure to get your copy. It's for a great cause.
 

http://picturebookproject.com/PBP/home.html

 

TOONBOOM INTERVIEW

So today I was checking the Toonboom site to see if there was anything new and interesting and I came across an article about myself. I did an interview a while ago with them but didn't know it was published yet. It's a little wordy but I don't sound like too much of a tool. Check it out and let me know what you guys think.

 Check it out here!

FIRST COLOURED SHOT

Well after a very successful meeting with my composer, RESTON WILLIAMS, I came home tonight and got the colour palette laid out and ready to start inking and painting my short. Here's the first shot that I coloured. Now I'm just going to plow through the shots while Reston is composing a kick-ass score to go with it.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Hey everyone, Sorry I haven't posted lately. I've been working long hours on my Hunger Games parody. Still trying to get it done. I'm happy to announce that I just got my rough pass of animation done on it. I'm about to start cleaning it up and then colouring it in. After that I'll do an effects pass on it then sound. In the meantime, if you haven't seen it already here's a video of a couple animated shots. I didn't post the whole thing obviously because I didn't want to give everything away. But it's enough so you can see what I'm doing. Enjoy.

HERE I GO AGAIN!!!

Tonight I finally got to the point where I started animating. It was nice to get back into it. Started off rusty and racking my brain trying to remember how to use the software. I find I wait so long inbetween cartoons that I have to re-learn the software every time. Thank goodness it's a pretty easy program to learn. Anywhere here's and image of the title animation for my newest short that I'm working on. Anyone have any guess as to what I'm parodying? HAHA. I'll try to keep on adding updates like this as I go. Enjoy. Thanks for your support and compliments so far. They keep me going.

FIRST BACKGROUND OUTTA THE WAY

Well I got the first background out of the way for my new cartoon. The good thing is this background will actually be able to be re-used about 12 times throughout the short. Thank god. It took a while tonight to finish but I think it came out pretty well. I started with a rough drawing of it and then did a rough colour key to make sure the colour was right before I committed to the final thing. Enjoy.

STARTING MY NEXT CARTOON!

Well, I've officially started. I figured one way to get my butt into gear was to actually post something. That way there was no turning back. SO here's my rough character line up for my next cartoon.

HULK TRANSFORMING key frames

Hey everyone. So a couple people have requested that I post a frame by frame image of when the hulk transforms. This isnt every single frame or that would be 30 frames or something. But here are the main key poses that I drew to make the transformation. You should be able to fill the gaps in with your imagination. Like I've said in the past I love animating transformations like these. They are so much fun to do in 2d because it's all up to you. It'd be really hard to do stuff like this in 3D for sure unless the rig was set up for you perfectly to do it.

P.S. some of you have asked where my facebook page is. The address is facebook.com/stodoestudios. Thanks for the questions and keep'em coming. Don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel so you don't miss any uploads. youtube.com/stodoe. Thanks for all the support everyone.

EVERYDAY HULK: in the bathroom

It's done. I would like to present "EVERYDAY HULK" Tell me what you think. I have a couple more scenarios planned and will hopefully start them within the week. I'm really surprised this cartoon only took me 5 days to do considering my "HARREY PODDER" cartoon took me 3 months. By the way Stodoe Studios is now on facebook so be sure to go on and "like us" to be sure to get all the up to date releases at facebook.com/stodoestudios Also be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel at youtube.com/stodoe Thanks again for all your support. I'm really enjoying working on these. I don't see it stopping anytime soon.

HERE'S A TINY PEEK.

Here's a little sneek peek at a little cartoon I'm working on right now. I'm going to be making a short series of these. The working title for it right now is "EVERY DAY HULK" It's a bunch of little short parody jokes, much like the Harrey Podder ones. The first one should be done by early next week. So make sure you subscribe to my youtube page (youtube.com/stodoe) and my blog to get the notification when it's done. Keep checking back. I have a lot of these planned.

"PUSH IT" starring the animators of Dreamworks.

Here's yet another silly music video done as a kick off video for Dreamworks' "Animation Day" which was an excuse to get all animators from the Glendale campus and the Redwood City campus together for a day. Did a bunch of activities and even Jeffrey Tambor from "Arrested Development" came in to head up an acting workshop for it. It was a great day. Steve and I were asked to shoot this video to start the day off with a bang. We joined forces with some of the PDI guys Rani Naamani, Scott LaFleur and Carlos Peurtolas. Enjoy.

I GOT MARRIED LAST WEEK

Last week I got married to my beautiful lady, Rebecca. We enjoyed a week away with our families and friends on the beautiful beaches of the Dominican Republic. The trip was beautiful and very inspiring. I came up with this image today because I've been really inspired to draw since the wedding. Hope you like it.

BID ON MY DOODLE!!

It's that time again. Just like last year, I was asked to submit a couple of doodles to auction off in a celebrity charity auction. All money raised by the sales of these doodles will go towards researching a cure for Neurofibromatosis. It's a very good cause as well as you can own original doodles by some of your favourite celebs. Like, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Nealon, Simon Pegg, Bill Nighy, Gillian Anderson, Rowan Atkinson, Martin Sheen, Betty White and MEEEEE!!!!. There are lots of great doodles to look through. Just visit doodledayusa.org for the full scoop. And don't forget to bid on my doodles. Here are the two that I submitted this year.

If my doodles aren't showing up on the website yet. Just keep checking back. I just mailed them in yesterday. They'll be up there soon. Thanks for your support everyone.

FOOTAGE LOOSE

Are you an animator? Have you ever had one of those days at work where things just aren't going well for ya. Then enjoy Footage Loose. A short film created by me and Steve Meyer (a fellow Dreamworks animator) With the help of our friends and loved ones we created this little short over the past 3 weeks for all you animators out there. Or really just about anyone who has had a crappy day.
Enjoy.

YOUANIMATOR TALKS WITH DAVID STODOLNY

YouAnimator.com
I spoke with DreamWorks Senior Animator, David Stodolny - who is one of the most humble and talented young animators in the industry. David spoke about the process of working on feature films and what it's like being in the world of feature animation.

YouAnimator: David, you have been given quite a few of the fighting scenes in Kung Fu Panda 2. How did you become the in-house “fighting expert?”

I would never consider myself the "fighting expert" at all but I did get a chance to do some really fun action scenes such as the shot where Po throws a wolf
into the air and is caught by Viper wrapping herself around the wolf, then landing on Tigress's back and then fighting off a pack of wolves with a sword. It was a lot of fun. I would say that I was given that shot based on the fact that I tend to get shots with a lot of characters done quickly. The shot had about 10 wolves in it as well as Viper and Tigress
and a number of different weapons and other constraints. I believe I was given that shot based on how fast I got another shot done in the movie involving 10 or more characters and a lot of crazy actions.
In this industry what you do early in the movie tends to stick with you for the rest of the project.


YouAnimator: Explain to us what the process of assigning shots to animators is at DreamWorks?

I would like to say that assigning projects and shots is very clear and predictable. However, it really depends on the team your working with and how you prove yourself from the start.
Dreamworks is such a big company that you get to work with a lot of different people. Even if you're the "acting guy" on one movie. You may very well become the "action guy" on another.
It totally depends on the team you have working with you and what they cast you on throughout the film.. Overall though it comes down to what shots are available or "in inventory" Everyone for the most
part works on a couple of acting shots and action shots throughout the movie. But it really does change and evolve over the project which keeps things fresh and exciting.

YouAnimator: Once you’ve received the shots – what process do you usually take to turn it into a finished piece?

Once we get cast on a shot we get "launched" by the director where he/she tells us what the overall feeling or point of the shot is.
We take those notes and inject any ideas we may have an then the whole team agrees on the best way to handle the shot. Then we go back to
our desks and block out our idea in rough version of the scene. We then show the director and our leads and in turn get more notes that narrow
down the performance. We continue to work through this over a couple of meetings. We add details until it's exactly what the director saw in his/her vision.
We get it approved and then it becomes part of the movie.


YouAnimator: You’ve had the chance to work on quite a lot of interesting shots thus far during your not-so-long career already. Do you have a favorite?

I honestly think my favourite shot of my career was in Surf's Up. The first time that Cody meets Lani. He's really uncomfortable and trying to act cool but
his inexperience talking to girls is evident. It was a fun shot to shoot reference for as well as animate. Whether or not I think this was the best shot I've animated,
I definitely think it's one of the shots I've had the most fun animating.

YouAnimator: I have noticed that Canada has a disproportional number of animators in the US industry? What is the secret?

Disproportional as in BIG? haha... I would agree. Canadian animators have always been a huge part of the industry. For years, Sheridan College which is in Canada
has always had a huge part in supplying animators to the industry. Although there are a lot of great schools now that are pumping out amazing animators, Canada has always been an incredible source of talent when it comes to the animation field. I mean it's cold as hell up there. We enjoy staying inside and honing our
animation skills and drawing and acting skills rather than playing outside in the snow........okay sometimes we miss the snow too.

YouAnimator: What short advice would you give anyone who is dreaming about working in the animation industry?

I would say if you love it........DO IT! There are so many of my friends in the industry that said their parents tried to stop them saying there is
no career in it. No Longevity in it. I'll tell you that if you work hard and stay with it there is a VERY successful career in it for you. For instance, I have a friend
who's parents told him he was wasting his time. He kept on applying to Sheridan anyway. He is now the director of a very successful TV show. I bet his parents
are proud as hell of him, as well as never admitting that they ever doubted him. Honestly if you love to create stories and characters, then stay with it. It really
is a really rewarding and exciting career.

David is one of the demo reel judges on YouAnimator. And if you're curious about his demo reel - here it is: http://www.youanimator.com/business-card/1893

MY LATEST MOVIE

Make sure to check out PUSS IN BOOTS this Halloween weekend. I saw it last weekend with the crew and it turned out amazing. The imagery is beautiful, the animation is incredible and it's genuinely enjoyable from beginning to end. Antonio Banderas steals the show again as Puss. The best thing about this movie is it doesn't feel like a sequel to Shrek. They don't even mention Shrek. It really stands on it's own as a great animation adventure movie.
Go see it and let me know what you think.

P.S. If you're curious about what I animated in it. I did a couple shots with the old crazy man in the prison, I did a bunch of shots during the wagon chase, the campfire scene, the golden egg scene, and the giant goose. I came on pretty late in the movie but I got a couple fun shots.

DAVID STOZOMBIE

So my friend Elaine Bogan has started drawing a zombie every day in honour of Halloween coming up (check out her blog in my links below) . She's been doing amazing work.
It got me inspired to draw and do my own profile picture of myself as a zombie.
I hadn't drawn in a while so it was nice to just sit and draw again. Hopefully now that I drew this it will inspire
me to get a move on and start my damn short.

SMEARS AND MULTIPLE DRAWINGS CONT'D

TRANSITIONS, SMEARS AND MULTIPLES

So a lot of you have been commenting about funny frames in my Harrey Podder short.
As most of you probably know when there's a really fast motion in 2D we don't have the
added benefit of motion blur in most cases like 3D does so we resort to drawing smear drawings
or multiple drawings in one frame to capture all the information that is happening in that tiny amount of time.
I actually wish we had this much control in 3D animation. I really enjoy doing this kind of stuff. This to me is the
most fun part of 2D animation.

I thought I would break some of my scenes down for you to show you in detail how I tackled these situations.
Probably the most fun was the transformation shot of Harrey into a bunny. I hope you enjoy looking at this stuff. I'd love to hear what you think or if you have any questions about my process please let me know.

Some of the images are really small on this page so be sure to click on them to zoom in.

My first published interview.

I was contacted by a friend that writes for Animation Career review and they posted this great interview with me.
Take a gander at it. It sorta sounds like I know something about the animation industry. Enjoy.


http://www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/dreamworks-senior-character-animator-david-stodolny-talks-animation

THE ROUGH ANIMATION STAGE

One thing I've already learned from this process is that a lot of people are genuinely
interested in the the process and then making of. Which is great. I know I always love the behind
the scenes stuff in movies.
Here's one step further.
Here is the entire short (minus titles and credits) in rough animation form.

This is the step where I don't worry about a perfectly clean line. I'm just drawing
roughly to try and get the motion and timing down for the animation.
I then take this and clean it up later after I'm happy with the animation.
When you're looking at 2D movies like Aladdin or Lion King. And you here the name of an "ANIMATOR"
this is what they are doing.
There are a bunch of other steps to go past the animator till it gets to the big screen.

YOU GOTTA HAVE A MAKING OF...

Here's a little montage I put together of the process of creating HARREY PODDER: Say the Magic Word.
If give you a little idea of what goes into the planning and execution of a short.
I'd love to hear from you and know what you think.

IT'S FINALLY DONE!!!!

In honour of the final Harry Potter movie. I give you....... HARREY PODDER: SAY THE MAGIC WORD.
Please comment and let me know what you think.

Finally starting to add some colour.

After coming to a complete hault on this project due to clean up. I finally was able to start colouring my Harry Potter spoof in. By the way it's officially titled. HARRY POTTER: SAY THE MAGIC WORD. Doing clean up was really tedious but it's finally done. I wasn't going for a perfectly clean line or anything. Just trying to draw lines to fill in. I'm trying to get this short out by the time the last Harry Potter movie comes out which is this weekend so I'm in full panic.speed mode right now. Wish me luck. There's no effects in this test yet. I just wanted to post an update. Enjoy.

A brand new official trailer for the movie I'm currently helping to finish. PUSS IN BOOTS.
It comes out Thanksgiving this year. I can't wait to see it. Let me know what you guys think.
Enjoy.

NEW CHARACTER

One of my ideas changed for one of the sequences in the short so I needed to do this last minute model sheet before continuing animation.