Wacom & Vancouver Capilano College & TVPaint

[Fabrice]

Here is a nice video from Wacom, introducing Don Perro at Vancouver Capilano College + both TVPaint and Cintiqs.



Congratulation !

[CartoonMonkey]

Great video!

[schwarzgrau]

How nice, that they not only mentioned the Cintiq but also TVPaint, several times. But why they use a 21 UX in a new video?

[CartoonMonkey]

It must be what the school bought. It's too expensive to replace the hardware, when the 21ux works fine for them, is my guess.

[schwarzgrau]

Yea, you're absolutely right. I'm just not familiar with seeing the last product in a commercial, instead of the newest.

[dperro]

It is too expensive to replace the Cintiqs every year with new models. We replace them when we need to, however in the last 7 years, we have never needed to...they never break! Our 2nd year classroom has the 2nd generation (black) 21 UX and the instructor stations have the new 22HD. The taller 21UX has some advantages over the wider 22HD...your hand doesn't have to move as far.

Every year, Wacom donates a new 24" HD touch (Wacom's top model) as the prize to the student who shows the best qualities of a leader while creating excellent work. You can link to the current portfolio blogs/websites of our alumni (going back to 1997) at http://capgrads.blogspot.com

Yes, I always promote TVP whenever I can.....it's the best tool for creating a "pencil on paper" look and it's a great tool for teaching animation principles and design. In North America it's taken a few years but people are starting to catch on and use it in studios. It was used on the feature, “Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet”, which will be presented at Cannes this year. http://variety.com/2014/film/news/canne ... 201180019/ I was a consultant and animator on that film.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Interesting to see Bill Plympton in the Variety article lineup. He has been resistant to my TVPaint lures for years and has refused to even let me demonstrate for him. Has he softened up?

[dperro]

The independent artists each did their own sequences in their own styles, so Bill may not have touched TV Paint. Too bad.....I've had my share of reluctant people not wanting to learn new software or even have me show them the benefits. But that's their problem. It's like a house builder not wanting to try out a pneumatic hammer instead of his carpenter's hammer. They'll eventually catch on.....

[Paul Fierlinger]

Michael Sporn never got it and I could probably come up with more than a few others if I gave it some thought. New York City is filled to the brim with Luddites. Coming to think of it, how many NY city animators are there around here?

[D.T. Nethery]

Michael Sporn never got it and I could probably come up with more than a few others if I gave it some thought. New York City is filled to the brim with Luddites. Coming to think of it, how many NY city animators are there around here?

I have also had conversations with some other traditional animators reluctant to try using TVPaint , but then what puzzles me is that none of these animators (except for two I can think of , who started their films years ago , so they are finishing them on cels) are still using cels or shooting their work on an Oxberry camera ... they will all happily scan their pencil drawings to Photoshop , color the drawings frame by frame in Photoshop , then export to After Effects to composite with the Backgrounds (sometimes traditionally painted BGs , but sometimes the BGs also painted in Photoshop) and output the final images , so obviously they have no inherent bias against using computer programs as part of their "traditional" animation workflow. So , I wonder : why not save a lot of time and awkward workarounds by using TVPaint to do all this ? Then on the other hand I have found that when they will actually take the time to sit down and learn how to use TVPaint most of them love it !

[CartoonMonkey]

Interesting to see Bill Plympton in the Variety article lineup. He has been resistant to my TVPaint lures for years and has refused to even let me demonstrate for him. Has he softened up?

I know Bill, and have also tried to talk him out of Photoshop and into TVPaint for years. I'm glad he's come around! He did marry a French woman. She is also a very talented artist as well.

[neonnoodle]

From my own experience, there is something intangible that is lost when drawing with tablets -- even the Cintiq. The tablet/TVP combination is completely indispensable for doing quick tests, roughing things out and seeing them move right away... but the feel of drawing on paper is lost. I have been searching for some way, ANY way to bring the two experiences into closer parity: textured screen protector for the Cintiq, different nibs for the stylus, even taping a sheet of Duralar over the screen to give it some tooth (and making it semi-opaque in the process ). Nothing really makes it like paper.

It's particularly troubling for me because I like to do really really rough ruffs, the kind of thing where you practically scribble the first pass. I like using the side of the pencil and holding it in violin-bow grip, not in precise writing grip as you must hold the Wacom stylus. Again, difficult to make it translate in terms of what the experience of doing it feels like, even if it's possible to replicate the look exactly.

[Paul Fierlinger]

My suggestion is to just let go and start animating with a fresh mind and hand. Your style will change because as you already know, the drawing instrument is so different, but if you let go of the old ways there's a huge reward at the end of about the third day or first week: you will discover how much better you can suddenly draw; different but better.

Look at it this way: have you ever wondered what your drawings might look like ten years from now? Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could be let in on that secret just for a minute? If you follow the new technology, you'll know the secret in a few days -- it will be that great a leap.

[slowtiger]

When I got my Cintiq I had the same problem, but adapted quickly. I'd still prefer to animate on paper - nothing beats the expression of a fine pencil line, nor does anything (even in TVP) substitute the sheer variability of it. But scanning is slow. (In my new workplace they have a document feeder scanner, but even that seems slow to me now.)

But I traded accuracy and expression of line for speed and immediate playback, and that's worth it.

The irony is that I teach my students to go out of their comfort zone and draw differently (and with different tools) all the time, but cling to my own style and workflow so stubbornly ...