We will be tabling at Denver Pop Culture Con 2019! Woohoooo!!!

What is Denver Pop Culture Con, you may ask? Held in Denver, Colorado, and formerly titled Denver Comic Con, DPCC is a 3-day family friendly pop culture convention that features some of the best in pop culture entertainment. This year, it runs from Friday May 31st - Sunday June 2nd at the Colorado Convention center.

We’ll be at booth CC11 promoting the show, selling special DIYA stickers, and geeking out with people about animation (of course!). Jess will also be selling some prints and commissions for those interested!

To hear more details - including a special secret code for convention freebies that you won’t want to miss - check out the audio recording!

Let us know if you’ll be there! And if you can’t, never fear! You can check out our social channels during the convention for photo bombs and general convention shenanigans (@DIYAShow on Instagram and Twitter). And a post-convention blog will go up in June featuring photos from the trip, stories, and who knows what else!

Today we bring you Part 2 of our uplifting interview with Creator & Director Cinzia Angelini and Producer Andrea Emmes, all about their high-quality 3D short, “Mila”, raising awareness about children impacted by war.

In case you missed it, in part 1, we talked about...

- Mila’s real-life origins, drawn from the childhood experience of Cinzia’s mother during WWII

- The realities of running a professional studio on donations, an Indiegogo campaign, and a GIANT team of international volunteers

- All whilst also cultivating a fulfilling working environment for those volunteers

Cinzia and Andrea have such great drive and courage, enabling them to make a real impact for such a poignant issue. With these two at the helm, Mila looks like she’ll have a very bright future ahead of her.

So Today, in Part 2, Cinzia and Andrea share:

- Tips for finding projects like Mila to work on, regardless of your location

- Why you should choose a story that’s significant to you for your own animated project

- Technical advantages of scripts vs. storyboards, and how to best balance the two during production

- Why the hashtags #letschoosehope and #letsmakeadifference are Mila’s calling-card

- Tips for telling a serious story with sensitivity and focus

- And, of course: The one most vital thing a DIY animator needs!

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

Our theme music is provided by Azureflux.

We’re here with Writer, Director, and Creator Cinzia Angelini and Producer Andrea Emmes to discuss 'Mila', an incredible 3D short film raising awareness about children impacted by war.

Cinzia has a personal connection with this short film - Mila is based on her mother’s own childhood experience of bombing raids in her hometown during World War II. With Andrea Emmes on board as Mila's producer, these two have become an unstoppable team that has grown to a world-wide production.

A 350-volunteer, 35-country spanning, high-quality CG short film, Mila has thrived since 2011 with no studio backing and just a modest funding campaign to cover the film’s bare essentials. A community of volunteers, a few sponsors, many hours, and a whole lot of love made Mila possible.

Today in Part 1, Cinzia and Andrea tell us about:

- The story of Mila’s real-life origins

- Running a professional studio on volunteers, donations, and an Indiegogo campaign

- Managing a GIANT team spread across the whole planet

- The best places to spend what money you do have once you've raised it

- And how to create a healthy working environment for your volunteers through paying it forward

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

Our theme music is provided by Azureflux.

In today’s episode, we dive further into Collin's Part 1 mic-drop - how limitation is the mother of creativity - this time from the lens of fan art and fan creations, as well as talking shop and getting into the nitty-gritty technical aspects of his animations.

Here are some of our favorite points this episode:

- Collin’s thorough break-down of elements for engaging animated action choreography

- The understanding, use, and legality of fanart

- The structural similarities between jokes and fight scenes

- The importance of representation in media

- Technical overlaps between comics and animation

- And Collin’s take on “the one most vital thing an animator needs”

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

Our theme music is provided by Azureflux.

Happy New Year and welcome back! We're continuing Season 3 today with a new guest - the indefatigable Collin "Skipperwing" Byrd, creator of action-packed, animated webcomic, The Crimson Fly!

Originally debuting in 2015, Collin’s ‘Crimson Fly’ is an examination of the intricacies of being a superhero, and combines the freedom of animated movement and the storytelling of comics to tell his story in the most complete way possible, as he meets any obstacle this unique artform throws his way with full gusto.

We are also excited to announce that Collin is revamping his comic in full - from its visuals to updated coding - and has treated us to a teaser of the new animation! Find a link to a sneak peek in the blogpost for this episode diyanimation.show/diya16 , and keep an eye out for the revamped ‘Crimson Fly’ to debut sometime in the very near future!

Today with Collin, we talk about:

- The origin and evolution of the Crimson Fly

- Negotiating and creating an intuitive animated reading experience for your audience

- A thorough overview of his entire process for making his animated comic

- His social promo process

- How limitation is the mother of creativity

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

Our theme music is provided by Azureflux.

Happy Holidays! Today we ask each other the questions, reveal Lauren's ultimate Ugly Christmas Jumper, and discover just how many Tamales Jess can eat over Christmas. So grab a cosy sweater (ugly or non-ugly), some tasty treats and join us for a chilled Christmas hangout!

<3 Jess & Lauren

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

Big thank you to Antisocialite and SadBunny for this episode’s Holiday-themed music.

Intro: Antisocialite - https://soundcloud.com/antisocialite/8-bit-wish-you-a-merry-christmas

Outro: SadBunny - https://soundcloud.com/sadbunny/sadbunny-christmas-chiptune-medley

Following on from Part 1 of our interview with Jocie Juritz (our first conversation, recorded back in 2016), today’s episode sees us catch up with her earlier in this year, 2018.

Jocie had a lot of promising projects in the pipeline last time we spoke, and has been up to so much in these two years.  If you follow her on Instagram, or her other social media, you'll know how she's consistently playing with animation, DIY-ing it, keeping that spirit of experimentation and curiosity, and ensuring her voice is at the core of all she does.  So we couldn't wait to hang out again, pick her brains about her latest projects and soak up more of her deep cogitations on animation.  It's another bumper episode!

Today, in part 2, we have a brilliant, eye-opening conversation about:

- How she handles her client work

- How animation is perfectly poised to broach sensitive topics

- Brain compost (yes, you read right)

- Facing her fears about analogue traditional animation

- The pros of drawing badly

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

Our theme music is provided by Azureflux.

Tell us… are you sitting comfortably?

We bring you a special episode of The DIY Animation Show this Halloween...  A spine-chilling collection of astonishing Animation Horror Stories!

Every interview, we ask each of our guests for a horror story - either a spooky thing that happened, or (more often than not...) an occasion when things just went horribly awry… (we’ve all been there).

And guests Alex & Lindsay Small-Butera, Jim Lujan, Todd Favela, Adam Floeck & Nate Swinehart, and Jocie Juritz share with us their tremendous Tales of Terror!

We're sure lots of these stories will sound familiar, but if they don’t...

Animator -- BEWAAAAARRREEEE!

Without further ado, we present to youuuu...

Animation Horror Stories!

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

The music for this episode is provided by Azureflux - 'Wizard House' from 'Mean Machine', and 'Haunted Woods' from 'Eighth Chip Tangent'.

It's the Season 3 premiere of the DIY Animation Show!

...and what better way to kick off this Season with none other than Animation director & Experimentalist, Jocie Juritz!

Professionally, Jocie crafts beautiful 2D animated projects with a gorgeous hand-made look. She specialises in PSAs and documentaries dealing with pertinent topics, interesting factoids, even book trailers, and teaches animation classes in her spare time. In her personal work, you’ll find slice-of-life gifs, featuring her cats, plants, and other joyful things.

We were drawn to her colourful, soulful work, and enjoyed an engaging, thoughtful conversation with her, discussing animation on a fundamental, artistic level. It’s like a soothing balm for the creative soul.

We first spoke to her in 2016, and so enjoyed our conversation

Timeless insights still hold up two years later.

Today, in Part 1 of Jocie’s interview, we discuss:

- Designing movement and emotion with shapes

- Emphasizing narrative over animation principles

- Constructing the optimal gif

- Freely using trial and error as a tool of development

- Her approach to colour

- And the one most vital thing Jocie thinks a DIY Animator needs

This episode is an indie production from your hosts, Jessica Doll & Lauren Morse.

Our theme music is provided by Azureflux.

What makes Toy Story a timeless classic? In this short video tutorial, I share three lessons to help you create stories that resonate – to infinity and beyond. [ download the video ] [ download the transcript ] Lesson 1: The Premise Is Universal Almost every child wonders, at some point, if their toys come to […] The post 3 Lessons For Writing Timeless Stories :: “Toy Story” Edition appeared first on ChrisOatley.com.