ANgiE tAYLoR 🧷

Category: Blog

Latest news from Angie Taylor

  • Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

    Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

    This workshop from author and animator Angie Taylor will teach you how to use Illustrator’s tools and features to prepare 2D files for animation in Adobe After Effects. You’ll learn how to make the most of Illustrator’s drawing tools and Autotrace feature, and to how use Live Paint and Kuler to recolor artwork. You’ll also get tons of tips and tricks for giving artwork a hand-drawn look and find out how to set up layers, aspect ratios, and transparency options for importing into After Effects. The lessons are focused and solution-oriented, and all the project files are included. Topics covered include:

    • Setting up your workspace for video and animation
    • Working with Autotrace, Live Paint, and Kuler
    • Using multiple artboards for creating storyboards
    • Taking advantage of views and workspaces

    Drawing freehand in Illustrator using a variety of tools including the new improved Eraser tool and the Blob Brush tool

    Buy   Reviews   Resources

  • Free video training & discounted classes

    Free video training & discounted classes


    I’m giving away lots of goodies this week. In this blog I’m offering you some free sample movies from my ‘2D Character Animation in After Effects’ workshop from video2brain. I’m also pleased to announce some fantastic discounts on my training courses in London in March.

    A one-off funding offer means that there’s currently a massive 80% off my Photoshop and After Effects courses at the Bridge Training. You can find out about these offers here. Just to give you an idea of the sort of savings on offer, my After Effects training 2 day training courses (Fundamentals, Intermediate and Advanced) have been discounted from the usual price of £504 to the incredible price of £108 for anyone based in the London Westminster area. Please contact The Bridge Training here to book a place.

    I’m so excited to be able to introduce a set of video training products specifically aimed at character animation in Adobe After Effects CS5. I’ve included a link to a free sample from this workshop here, just click on this link to watch it in HD. There are also some other free videos available here.

    As a freelance illustrator and motion graphics designer, I use After Effects every day to create artwork and animations of various styles. As a result, I’ve developed some powerful techniques for creating quick but compelling 2D animation, and in this workshop I share them with you. You’ll learn how to import layered files and paths from Illustrator into After Effects and how to animate flat vector artwork in both 2D and 3D space.

    Topics covered include:

    • Setting up After Effects for creating 2D character animation
    • Using input devices to capture motion and apply it to your characters
    • Creating animation and lip-syncing with audio files, using expressions and scripting to make the process easier
    • Applying grouping techniques and using parenting to create hierarchical animations
    • Following the best working practices for outputting your animations for the web, TV, and mobile devices

    All this is presented in a series of short, focused, and solution-oriented videos that steer clear of technical jargon. Whether you’re a motion graphic designer, animator, storyboard artist, video editor, or illustrator, if you want to create 2D animation from flat, vector-based artwork, this is the workshop for you.

    The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. This course also includes project files so you can follow along and try out new techniques as you learn them.

  • A busy After Effects week

    A busy After Effects week


    Wow, what a busy week. I’ve just finished the first day of Broadcast Video Expo 2011 where I’ve been presenting After Effects and the Production Premium workflow on the Adobe booth. It’s been great being back with the Adobe UK team again and seeing lots of friendly faces.

    I’ve also got a brand new product released today. My new Character Animation with Adobe After Effects workshops with video2brain are now on sale. You can check out some free sample movies here by clicking the link. Enjoy and please let me know what you think.

    Happy Keyframing!

    Angie

  • Premiere Pro – real-time for After Effects?

    Premiere Pro – real-time for After Effects?

    Quite a question – Is Premiere Pro a real-time engine for After Effects? Well this week I hope to answer it at Broadcast Video Expo 2011 I’ll be on the Adobe booth demonstrating and sharing my favorite tips and tricks about Adobe After Effects CS5.

    I’ll also be sharing excerpts from my books and DVDs, giving away a free copy each day of my “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” book and my “After Effects CS5 Learn by Video” DVD (Created with the amazing Todd Kopriva of Adobe).

    Those of you who have used After Effects will know that it isn’t really designed as a video editing application. there’s no real-time engine so it can be really tiresome editing footage there and waiting for previews. However, did you know that the Adobe CS5 Production Premium comes with a special, little known, real time engine for After Effects, it’s called Premiere Pro and I’m rapidly falling in love with it all over again!

    I’ll explain a little about why I describe Premiere Pro as a real-time engine for AE in a minute, but first a little bit of history (imagine wavy transition and spacey music, signifying time passing!) The first NLE I used was Adobe Premiere 4.0 on Mac, back in the mid-nineteen-ninety’s (Oh dear – showing my age there!). It was amazing to be able to edit video on a Mac and it opened video editing up to a whole host of new people after being a pretty exclusive domain, primarily owned by Avid at the time. Sadly Premiere never kept up with the pack and it’s reputation was almost destroyed with the disappointing release of version 5. Final Cut Pro also raised it’s rather sexy head at that time and it almost put a nail in dear old Premiere’s coffin.

    But I’m glad to say that Adobe have persevered and have battled to bring Premiere Pro back to being a serious contender in the bloody battle of the NLEs .They still have a way to go, to convince folks that it really can give FCP a run for it’s money. Many people are still cast under the Apple Marketing spell and many of the people who ‘dis’ Premiere Pro have never actually tried it so keep that in mind and make your own decision about whether it’s a worthy contestant. I’ve used it in real-world projects and have found it to be reliable, fast and creatively flexible. And I also use Final Cut Pro in my work as a freelancer so I know both applications well and am speaking from a real-world user point of view. Incidentally, did I also mention that the BBC are using it throughout the organization? ‘Nuff said?

    OK, back to the present! Why do I call Premiere Pro a ‘real-time engine for AE’? Well, as I said, working in AE can be a PIA (don’t you just love those TLA’s?). Often when working on music videos or opening title sequences, I’d want to edit a few clips quickly in time with music, add a few text animations, experiment a bit with the edit and timing. After Effects doesn’t facilitate this easily, you have to wait for things to render before you see them. But this is a perfect situation to use the Dynamic Link features in CS5 – you’ll get the best of both worlds by using Prem Pro and AE in conjunction with each other.

    Premiere Pro is excellent for real-time editing. You can even set up keyframe animation, time-remapping  and effect animations in real time, creating a rough cut of your finished piece. Adobe Dynamic Link then allows you to send this to AE, maintaining a live (dynamic) link between the apps, and whats more, it works!!!! The sequence opens in AE with no rendering required, ready for you to tweak and fine tune FX and keyframes. I’ll be demo’ing techniques using Dynamic Link (on a real world project) next week at Broadcast Video Expo. For those of you who can’t make it, here’s a few quick tips on the basic workflow & how it works!

    Create your project in Premiere Pro – capture or import all your source files into this project and save it.
    You can use the thumbnail view in the Project panel to create a rough storyboard for the piece before you bring footage down into the timeline, making sure that shot order and duration is roughly correct – this will save time later. Once you’ve done that, place your audio in the Timeline and then add the footage in the order it is sorted by using Premiere Pro’s amazing “Automate to Sequence’ button. So that’s the rough cut done.

    Still in PremPro, make any edit adjustments required. Keyframe any basic transformations, add effects if necessary. Once you are happy with the rough edit, and ready to jump to AE, make a selection of clips that you want to finesse in the Timeline, Right-click and choose ‘Replace with After Effects Composition’ to open the selected clips in a translated After Effects timeline. Here you can do whatever you need to do in AE.

    The beauty of this technique is that the link between the apps remains live so any changes made in AE automatically update in PremPro and visa versa, no need for rendering either way till the project is finally finished. I used this technique on the last project I worked on and reckon it saved me about 40% of the time it would have taken me only using AE.

    If you’re in the UK please pop along to Broadcast Video Expo later this month where I’ll be demo’ing this exact technique on the Adobe booth. Please say hello if you do. 🙂

  • Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

    Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

    I’m very pleased to offer my readers a couple of free tutorials from my very first video2brain workshop on Adobe Illustrator. This workshop will teach you how to use Illustrator’s tools and features to prepare 2D files for animation in Adobe After Effects.

    You’ll learn how to make the most of Illustrator’s drawing tools and Autotrace feature, and to how use Live Paint and Kuler to recolor artwork. You’ll also get tons of tips and tricks for giving artwork a hand-drawn look and find out how to set up layers, aspect ratios, and transparency options for importing into After Effects.

    I’ll share many of my techniques for using Illutrator’s extensive drawing capabilities to create characters for animation. Topics covered include:

    • Setting up your workspace for video and animation
    • Working with Autotrace, Live Paint, and Kuler
    • Using multiple artboards for creating storyboards
    • Taking advantage of views and workspaces
    • Drawing freehand in Illustrator using a variety of tools including the new improved Eraser tool and the Blob Brush tool

    Whether you’re a motion graphic designer, animators, storyboard artists, video editors or illustrators, if you want to create 2D animation from flat, vector-based artwork, this workshop will be an invaluable resource.

    The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. Also included are exercise files that give you an easy way to try out the techniques you learn.

    Click here to get an overview of the workshop and download free tutorials using the following links;

    Working with Live Paint

    Working with the Brush Tool

  • Is drawing important for designers?

    Is drawing important for designers?

    Drawing from Sketchbook © Angie Taylor 1999

    It’s a hot debate, as a designer, is it important to have drawing skills? I mean, you don’t need to draw anymore really? Surely computers can do it all for you now, download a few images, treat them with filters, composite them together in Adobe Photoshop – Bob’s yer uncle (as we say in the UK!)

    But drawing is not only a process used to create finished aesthetic imagery to include in a finished design, it’s much more than that. It’s a learning process that is an important stage in the development of a confident visual language. When you draw something you learn to see with a different, more focused awareness. You start to question why things appear in a certain way, as a result you can understand how things are constructed, how light interacts with surfaces and how colors affect each other. Things that may not occur to you by just simply looking at an object. you need to truly understand these things to make your drawings work. Even if you don’t like your finished drawings, that really doesn’t matter, it’s the process of losing yourself in the craft of drawing that matters.

    And it’s never too late to learn, in the Drawing chapter of my book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist I talk about my mother who didn’t start drawing till she was in her 70’s. It has made a huge difference to her life and now she can draw and paint like she would never have thought. You can check out excerpts from this chapter using Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature now. The chapter also contains some of the exercises that helped me learn to draw during my time at Art College. There’s also a resources section on this website that contains some tips, tricks and links to useful tutorials, websites and a complete reading list.

    Drawing Exercise from Design Essentials book - draw 6 circular objects with the same drawing implement achieving different textures for each
    Drawing Exercise from Design Essentials book – draw 6 circular objects with the same drawing implement achieving different textures for each

    Writing this book inspired me to include more about drawing in my software tutorial too. I recently recorded a new video training workshop for video2brain on Animation Character Design in Adobe Illustrator which will be available soon. In this tutorial I showed that you don’t need to limit yourself to using traditional drawing materials. In one of the tutorials I show how to create body shapes from primitive shapes and then use Illustrators fabulous drawing tools to sculpt these into more organic shapes, it’s an addictive and very creative process.

    So, I hope that you’ll give drawing a chance, pick up whichever implement inspires you to make marks and get sketching! don’t worry about the outcome, just enjoy the process!

    Using primitive shapes in Adobe Illustrator to create complex body shapes © Angie Taylor 2010
    Using primitive shapes in Adobe Illustrator to create complex body shapes © Angie Taylor 2010

  • Employment versus self-employment

    Last month I made a life-changing decision to resign from my post as Creative Director of GridIron Software and return to self-employment. This was not an easy decision to make, particularly at this time of economic uncertainty but sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and do what you feel is right, deep down in your heart, despite the difficulties that it may create for you along the way.

    I’ve been with GridIron Software for two years, working with a fantastic team on some truly ground-breaking products. It all started at IBC 2008 when I worked with the GridIron gang for the first time. They were a great bunch of folks – a really creative and inspiring team. I was doing some freelance work for them when Steve Forde (The CEO at the time) offered me the opportunity to see if a full-time role in the software industry was something that I’d like to pursue. I couldn’t imagine a better team to test the waters with. The GridIron gang were not a typical corporate software company, they were a bunch of engineers, stars of creative media business and designers who got together to try to break the mould and create something truly unique, which they did.

    Before GridIron I’d worked as a freelance designer and animator for sixteen years and before that worked at various jobs including deejay, cartoonist and modelmaker. But self-employment can be exhausting and can take its toll. You end up diversifying to make a living and I had somehow become sidetracked into spending over 50% of my time working in the software industry for folks like Adobe and Apple as a demo artist. I felt divided at the time, as if I was being a jack of all trades, trying to split my time between two related but fundamentally different careers. Neither career was getting the full attention that it needed to make it blossom and I was literally exhausted from trying to make it work. So I decided to grab the opportunity with both hands in order to find out if working full-time was really something I wanted to do. I gave up self-employment after about twenty years of being my own boss and began working as Creative Director at GrdiIron.

    I have learned so much during my time at GridIron and have made some life-long friendships so I don’t regret joining one bit. I learned about marketing and was amazed to find that it was something I actually enjoyed. I did some visual UI design which was something I’d always wanted to do but never thought I could – and I loved it. I learned more about software development and how the whole process works. I wrote user guides, web content, marketing copy and collateral. I learned the importance of creating good working structures, using statistics and listening to other people’s opinions.

    But I’ve also learned a lot by looking back at my previous periods self-employment from a different perspective and recognizing both the aspects that I missed, and the ones that I didn’t. I learned that I really do need to have a creative aspect to my work. I need to work with lots of inspiring people from different walks of life and from different creative industries. I want to help other creative people to succeed in what they do. But most of all I want to feel truly independent and be able to say what I want, when I want. I have so much that I want to communicate with people and I need to do it my own way. I also learned that I want these things so much that I’m prepared to take a risk. Things have certainly changed since my last period of self-employment – it’s not as easy to find work now as it was back then. But the other thing I love is a challenge. I’m going to take a bit of time out to recuperate from a very busy year, get my thoughts together and then put everything I’ve learned into action. So watch this space – here goes! Head first into the deep unknown! Wish me luck I’m going in!

  • RIP Ari Up

    RIP Ari Up

    The Last picture I took of Ari on Brighton Beack earlier this year.

    It was with a huge amount of sadness and shock that I heard about the death of my friend, Ari Up this week. I first met Ari in Aberdeen in 1978 when I was 14 and she was 16, fronting my all-time favorite band, the Slits. She was my hero back then, I totally looked up to her. I’m honored to say that she also became my friend, and what a caring, compassionate and life-enhancing friend she really was! She made me feel OK about who I was – a strange, bespectacled, gay, noisy, ugly-duckling with frizzy hair – not your typical girl!

    I had become immersed in the punk movement because it initially represented originality, individuality, anarchy, creativity, chaos, inventiveness but had become disillusioned when it all started to change into conformity to it’s own set of established rules. The Slits were a proud exception, they never conformed to the male-dominated, tribe-like constructs of punk. Instead they truly stuck to it’s core principles, ignoring it’s prescribed fashions and making it up themselves as they went along their merry, musical way.

    Ari and the other Slits had immense musical talent and originality which was sadly never fully recognized by the mainstream industry while Ari was alive. Their seminal album “Cut” is listed in many high-profile lists of all time top albums, and it received well-deserved critical acclaim. But their music was often too challenging, uncomfortable or simply unfashionable (a term often used to describe art that is ground-breaking). But they produced so much more that remains largely ignored, including the amazing Earthbeat with it’s wonderful tribal meanderings. Give their music another listen – I dare you!

    Ari at the last Slits gig in Brighton

    Throughout the last few years I got to know Ari better. We worked together on some filming I did for The Slits and Ari’s other band, the True Warriors. I still have footage that we always planned to get out there but I never had time to edit. So, keep your eyes peeled and watch this space. My next project will be to edit the interviews I did with Ari and cut some of the concert footage, as a tribute to my friend.

    A still from the videos I shot at the Underworld gig in Camden

    Ari was never afraid to stand up for what she believed in. She always stuck up for the down-trodden in society and accepted people whoever they were. She was always gracious and kind-hearted to her “fans” and made everyone around her feel special. She was truly on-in-a-million and I will miss her so much.

    Love you Ari – big style!

    Here’s a link to “Heard it through the Grapevine” that we shot at the Meltdown Festival a few years back.

    And FM from the Camden Underworld gig.

  • Adobe After Effects Training DVD and book

    Adobe After Effects Training DVD and book

    Well, it’s all happening this week! My new book, “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” finally went on sale. I’m so excited and can’t wait to hear what people think of it – waiting for the first reviews is always an anxious time!

    As well as the book, I also have a new training DVD on the way which I worked on with the amazing Todd Kopriva from Adobe. “Adobe After Effects CS5 – Learn by Video” was produced by the brilliant team at video2brain and is available to pre-order now.


    As a little taster of what’s to come is available to view completely free now. Adobe After Effects CS5: Frequently Asked Questions – Zip Past Common Hurdles
    In this free course, Todd Kopriva, co-author of Adobe After Effects CS5 Learn by Video, helps you avoid common After Effects hiccups with a collection of answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Whether you´re having audio hiccups, getting pixelated vector graphics, or getting oversized files or jerky playback, Todd equips you to zip past these common hurdles and get back to creating great effects. I hope you enjoy these free tutorials and look forward to hearing your feedback.

  • After Effects CS5 – Learn By Video by Angie Taylor and Todd Kopriva

    Well, what a busy old month I’ve had! I’ve crossed several time zones and been on more flights than I care to mention. But all for good reason.

    Earlier this month I went to Graz, Austria to record an After Effects training DVD for the amazing folks at Video2Brain. It was really good to be back providing training for After Effects again. I’ve been looking for a new method of delivery since I stopped updating my “Creative After Effects” books and Video2Brain provide the perfect vehicle for it.

    I’ll also be recording some more Video2Brain titles very soon and will keep you posted on those too. The DVD is available for pre-order now. 10 hours of me and Adobe’s own Todd Kopriva teaching you all we know about our favorite motion graphics application, Adobe After Effects CS5! Order it today and save 37% off!

    GridIron Software have been very supportive too. It’s so refreshing to work for a company that actively encourages employees to keep real contact with the creative industry it services. I must say it’s too rare. There are so many occasions where I’ve seen creative people join software companies, only to be consumed totally by the business aspect of their job till eventually they struggle to use the products in a creative way or even understand the customers requirements. I’m very grateful to GridIron Software for having the foresight to avoid these problems and for allowing me to remain in touch with the creative aspects of my role.

    I’m also happy to report that Adobe have also adopted a similar approach. I shared the training delivery with the amazing Todd Kopriva from Adobe. Together we recorded almost 18 hours of video based training in just over a week. It was intense but very rewarding. I really enjoyed working with Todd so thanks to Adobe too for allowing him to be involved in such a great project.

    So I left Gratz, via Frankfurt, got home to Brighton and slept for a few hours and was then whisked off to Ottawa (via Halifax) the next day to meet with my new colleagues at GridIron Software. It was really great to meet the new team and have some face to face time with colleagues that I usually only meet remotely with.

    On my way to the airport after four days of meetings I was then kidnapped by my friends and taken to a lovely cottage in the Canadian wilderness for a perfect wind-down weekend of swimming, fishing, eating and campfire singing. It felt very good to finally have some time off after four consecutive weeks of work.

    I finally got home last Tuesday and it’s taken me a whole week to unpack and settle back into home life. It’s good to be home and be able to focus on my work again.

  • Beauty Box for Photoshop released!

    Stop press! Digital Anarchy have released Beauty Box Photo for Photoshop. This is fantastic news, means I don’t have to process all my photos in AE anymore, I can run exactly the same software directly in Photoshop! :-)

    It provides easy digital retouching for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements users. It allows you to quickly and easily erase skin blemishes and even out skin tones – achieving a consistently professional result in seconds.

    Beauty Box PS uses advanced skin smoothing techniques that can also be found in the AE/ FCP/ PremPro version of Beauty Box for video that I blogged about last week. Check out the free trial, you’ll be amazed at how good a job it does! Oh, and, did I mention it’s on sale as an introductory offer at $79.00, bloody bargain if you ask me! ;-)

  • Creative After Effects 7

    Creative After Effects 7

    This Creative After Effects book helps you to realize your creative potential with a working knowledge of After Effects 7.

    Renowned artist and designer Angie Taylor demonstrates professional workflows and inspires with practical tutorial lessons that help put the theory (and you!) to work.

    You’ll learn from a comprehensive survey of the new interface and features, with illustrated techniques for animation, visual effects and motion graphics.

    Practice exercises to reinforce essential techniques, and continuous projects challenge you with fantastically creative uses of the application. The companion DVD includes everything you’ll need to complete the tutorials as well as an array of bonus plug-ins and demo software.

    • A comprehensive survey of the new After Effects 7 interface and toolset
    • Illustrated techniques for animation, visual effects and motion graphics
    • Practical tutorial lessons that demonstrate professional workflows
    • A companion DVD with tutorial media and valuable plug-ins.

    Reviews

    “Today’s software is so creative and seductive that it is easy to think that’s all there is to creating engaging content. Angie Taylor’s book shows the other side of the story: the visual techniques and design principles that underpin digital moving image making. In this comprehensive guide she has assembled a wealth of tips and exercises in topics such as drawing, composition and typography that will be required reading for all up-and-coming motion media artists.”

    Birgitta Hosea, Artist and Course Director of MA Character Animation, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London.

    “Of all the After Effects books I looked at whilst trying to learn it,
    I found Angie’s was the most user friendly and creative.”

    Chris Cunningham, Director of music videos, commercials and video art.

    “…a worthwhile investment for animators and artists who want to
    focus on creating their designs and not get bogged down in
    technical jargon… Angie has a knack for demystifying the intricacies
    of After Effects and coming up with creative uses of the features.”

    Steve Kilisky, Senior Product Manager, After Effects, Adobe Systems Inc.

    “Angie Taylor’s work is inspired. She is a highly creative animator – inventive, witty and naturally sympathetic to individual programme styles”.

    Carys Edwards, Director, Children’s BBC

    “Angie Taylor is the best After Effects teacher I know. She goes beyond technical descriptions of features, and shows you how to best use them in real world projects.”

    Bruce Bullis, Senior API Engineer, Adobe Dynamic Media, Adobe Systems Inc.

    “This book takes you on a rollercoaster ride through the world of creating animation and special effects with Adobe After Effects. It is much more than just a software manual, Angie Taylor seeks to stimulate the creative use of computer animation. Complex technical issues are clearly and concisely explained, making it suitable for beginners as well as the more advanced users”.

    Birgitta Hosea, Course Director, London Animation Studio, Central St. Martins College of Art and Design, London.

    “…one of my favorite demo artists in the industry. Her tutorials
    are always compelling, well-designed, and worthwhile.”

    Brian Maffit, Creative Director, Total Training

    “Angie is an outstanding guru of After Effects…her seminars
    brings gasps of awe from seasoned and beginner audiences
    alike… you will enjoy this book immensely.”

    John Keedwell, GBCT, GTC. British Cinematographer