Animation

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 137

The bible of animation movement

The Animator’s Survival Kit

I have no words for the depth of this master class in visual animation. This is the definitive source for learning how to perform — as in act — by drawing; how to create emotion with a series of subtly modified images. There’s lots involved in animation these days: this book is focused on a single thing: teaching you how to make animated movement come alive. Make a stick figure walk cautiously. A table lamp cower with fear. A robin soar. A car that makes you cry. Hundreds of tutorial illustrations show you how. Applies as much, or more, to digital animation as to pencil drawings. KK

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Easy stop-motion and time-lapse video

iStopMotion

This is a very cool application that creates stop-motion and time-lapse videos. For years my kids and I have been making claymation episodes, doll and figure animations, paper cutout sequences, and fun time-lapse movies with our family handy-cam, but our primitive method of simply blinking the on-button has always been less than satisfactory. Our brain-dead way creates three problems: the interval is too long (jerky movement), you can’t see what motion should be next, and you can’t edit out goofs when you make a boo-boo — which is 100% certain.

iStopMotion software is a much better way to do animation, and it solves all three problems. You connect a live video feed from your camera to your computer (via USB or Firewire) and then you control the film from your keyboard — or this is cool — via voice command! After you capture a frame, the program overlays that frame as transparent layer over the current camera view so you can see exactly where you need to move next. You can even request the last 5 frames (onion skinning animators call it) to get a sense of direction and trajectory, which allows a very fine tuning of the motion. And you can edit mistakes, and do redos on the fly. All this is simple enough that my 7-year-old could instantly manage it. Yet it is sophisticated enough that film students use this software for thesis projects. Making time-lapse films is even easier.

The joy of this tool is that your computer screen rather than your camera screen drives the animation. To overcome the downside that you need to do all your filming within cable reach of your laptop iStopMotion now comes as a phone app, too, so you can view your work on your mobile. There’s also an iPad version for filming with this tablet (which needs to be steady). All are aimed at letting kids do animation quickly. But its good enough for slow adults like me.

There are three programs in this genre. I’ve tried all three (iStopMotion, FrameThief, and Stop-Motion Studio) and iStopMotion is by far the superior. It has the most features, ease of use, speed and stability. It is also the best designed. — KK

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Desktop animation how-to

The Complete Animation Course

All films will become animations. That prediction is based on the rate at which special effects become standard effects in big-budget films. Even a “live action” movie these days is composed frame by frame, and the skills and logic of animation take over. An ordinary digital camera, a hi-end PC or Mac, with iMovie software or equivalent, gives anyone the tools to do cinematic animation without tears. The Complete Animation Course is the best of many recent books riding the re-newed popularity of animated films. This guide is a great how-to orientation for making your own animated film using affordable technology. It introduces you to classic animation basics, and the many methods which combine old fashioned techniques (cartoon, paper collages, claymation) with computer based tools. I found it had just the right level of detail — sufficient to get you going without bogging down in how to do what’s already been done.

Twelve Principles of Animation

1. Squash and Stretch.
2. Anticipation. This is setting up the action before it happens, usually with a slight movement in the opposite direction to the main one.
3. Staging. This is related to the way the film as a whole is “shot,” considering angles, framing, and scene length.
4. Straight-ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose. Straight-ahead action starts at one point and finishes at another in a single continuous movement, such as running, whereas pose-to-pose is a variety of actions in one scene requiring clearly delineated key frames to mark the action’s extreme point. How the in-betweens are executed can alter the whole rhythm of the action.
5. Follow-through and Overlapping Action. Follow-through is the opposite of anticipation. When a character stops, certain parts remain in motion, such as hair or clothes. Overlapping action is when the follow-through of one action becomes the anticipation of the next one.
6. Slow In — Slow Out. This means using more drawings at the beginning and end of an action and fewer in the middle. This creates a more lifelike feeling to the movement.
7. Arcs. These are used to describe natural movement. All actions create circular movements because they usually pivot around a central point, usually a joint. Arcs are also used to describe a line of action through a character.
8. Secondary Action is just that, another action that takes place at the same time as the main one. This may be something as simple as turning the head from side to side during a walk sequence.
9. Timing. This is something that can’t be taught. In the same way that comedians who rely on it to get the most from their gags have to learn it through experience, you too will get it right only through practice. Timing is how you get characters to interact naturally. Timing also has to do with the technical side of deciding how many drawings are used to portray an action.
10. Exaggeration. This is the enhancement of a physical attribute or movement, but don’t make the mistake of exaggerating the exaggeration.
11. Solid Drawing. This conveys a sense of three-dimensionality through linework, color, and shading.
12. Appeal This is giving personality to the characters you draw. If you can convey it without the sound track, you know you are on the right track.

These are not hard and fast rules, but they have been found to work since the early days of animation. Bear them in mind at the storyboard stage and your animation will definitely have more fluidity and believability.

05/12/25

Come From Away/Pocket radio/True country sizes

Recomendo - issue #461

Uplifting musical

I really enjoy Broadway musicals but I rarely get to New York or London, so I was delighted to watch this filmed Broadway musical on the streams. Come From Away is a fun, sweet, uplifting musical based on a real event: after 9/11, all the planes mid-air bound for the US were diverted to a small airport in Newfoundland, Canada, where the outnumbered locals welcomed the 7,000 stranded passengers into their homes and small town. The musical celebrates the best of human kindness triumphing over the worst. It is also a touring live show and you should catch it if it comes your way. — KK

Pocket radio

It’s been so long since I’ve used a portable transistor radio that it feels like advanced technology. The Prunus J-166 is an impressively capable pocket AM/FM radio for $10. It’s about the size of an iPhone and has just three simple controls (tuning, volume, band switch) that make it intuitive to use. It also has a tuning indicator light, headphone jack, and battery indicator. Requires 2 AA batteries (not included). — MF

True country sizes

My mental image of country sizes has been wrong. The True Size Of… is an interactive website that lets you drag countries around a world map to compare their actual sizes without the distortion caused by standard map projections. It’s shocking to see how countries change shape as you move them — drag Greenland into Africa and watch it shrink to a small fraction of its map projection! — MF

101 Rules of Effective Living

Esoteric author Mitch Horowitz recently launched his Substack newsletter, Mystery Achievement, where he shared a list of 101 rules for effective living, distilled from more than 30 years of reading “nearly every major work of inspirational literature produced or translated into English.” You can find the full list here. Below are some of my favorites.

6) Be willing to clean toilets and wash floors.
20) Get away from cruel people—at all costs.
38) Look people in the eye, recognize them, acknowledge them.
65) “To feel brave, act as if we were brave.” (William James)
69) Know your preferences, even if you cannot act on them.
77) Do your absolute best to carry your own load before bothering another.
81) “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” (Christ)
83) Boredom invites trouble.
94) Accept paradox.

— CD

AI domain name generator

Name Wizard is an AI for generating new domain names based on your idea or concept and finding out if they’re available to register in one click. It’s fun to play with, and free to try out 5 searches without a subscription. — CD

More quotes to ponder

I am always on the lookout for sentences that make me think. Here’s a recent collection:

If you want new ideas, read old books. — Shane Parrish

To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion. — Stephen Hawking

Thousands of people don’t like what I do. Fortunately, millions do. — James Patterson

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again. — André Gid

Scarcity is the one thing you can never have enough of. — Marc Randolph

The most selfish act of all is kindness, because it’s payback is so much greater than the investment. — Tom Peters

The illiterate of the 21st century will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. —Alvin Toffler

Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once… and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you. — Susan Sontag

There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns. — Octavia Butler

I write these down to be reminded. — KK

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05/11/25

Gar’s Tips & Tools – Issue #198

Access to tools, techniques, and shop tales from the diverse worlds of DIY

Can We Admit That “Robbies” Are Superior Screws?

In this Stumpy Nubs video, James details the history of the Robertson screw (aka “Robbies” or “square drive”) and why they are believed by many makers [raises hand] to be superior to Phillips and (horrors) slotted.

10 Workshop No-No’s (According to Van Neistat)

Van Neistat goes over 10 of his no-nos in the shop, including: No bare feet!, avoiding trip wires (poorly organized/placed power cables), no fixing cheap garbage (reserve time, tools, and attention for meaningful, well-made stuff), don’t Rob Peter to pay Paul (no taking a tool from one toolbox, e.g. the car box, for work in another location — get duplicate tools), never use the last of anything (reorder before you’re out), and many other wise, well-earned nuggets of wisdom. Here’s one that was new to me: No using a straight edge to guide a razor knife (when making straight cuts, guiding with a straight edge tends to cause slips. It’s better to freehand along a drawn line for safer, straighter results). I need to try this and see how well it works.

8 Non-Hobby Hobby Supplies and Materials

In this episode of Black Magic Craft, game-crafter Jeremy Pillipow runs down eight of his most trusted unconventional hobby supplies. He lists old faithfuls like baking soda and super glue and coffee stirring sticks (for making wooden flooring, fencing, etc.), but also covers a few more obscure items, like inkjet printers (for printing out pictures of flooring, DIY decals and miniature poster, even full terrain pieces — printed on sticker paper and adhered to foam core). And, anyone who’s watched Jeremy’s channel knows that he’s fast n’ loose with the latex caulk (for sculpting, ground effects, and other terrain-making applications).

Unconventional Creativity Tips

In this idea-packed video, “artistic woodworker” Dave Picciuto, challenges conventional creative advice by presenting 10 (actually 20) unconventional design “hacks” aimed at unlocking your creativity. From working under absurd constraints and sketching badly (on purpose) to seeking inspiration in flea markets and other unconventional places (instead of Pinterest), Dave emphasizes that creativity is a muscle that you can develop through consistent, intentional practice. With additional advice on remixing past failures and giving yourself nonsense rules to constrain your designs, there are a lot of good (and uncommon) ideas here for makers eager to break through creative blocks.

I especially endorse his daily sketching advice and giving yourself permission to draw badly. We tend to do things like write or draw as if someone is standing over our shoulder, judging our work. But if you’re drawing (or writing) for yourself, ditch the invisible judge. Draw for yourself, to express ideas, not to enter an art or drafting contest. Working those muscles for expressing yourself is a true superpower that only takes one thing: Time. Might I recommend the Maker’s Notebook as a place to record your DIY ideas. This was a project I spearheaded when I was at Make:. Dave also offers a free poster and PDF reiterating the 10 main points in the video.

Dollar as a Ruler

I found this image while cleaning up my office recently. I think it’s from Family Handyman. It shows how you can use points on a dollar to measure 2”, 2-1/2”, 3”, and 6”. Handy in a pinch. I’ve written before about knowing the measurements of your hand (width, length of fingers, between joints) and eyeballing teaspoon, tablespoon, and cup measures in the palm of your hand. Now you can add the measures of George to your impromptu ruling.

Fire Blankets

Luckily, so far in my time down here on the Big Blue Marble, I’ve never had to use a fire extinguisher. But I’ve always known how and always had a number of them around my workshop and kitchen. That said, I’ve also never gotten one serviced and have always wondered, in a real fire situation, if that dusty extinguisher on the wall or under the sink would actually function properly. Several years ago, I added fire blankets to my fire suppression tech and I feel way more confident in them. Of course, they have limitations over an extinguisher: You have to get up close and personal with the flames, the fire needs to be small, and you can’t suppress fire in an area that you can’t reach with the blanket. So, while you’re stuck with needing both, I feel more secure knowing there are blankets at the ready in the kitchen, garage, and my wife’s art studio.

Shop Talk

Readers offer their feedback, tips, tales, and tool recommendations.

On Cool Tools, in response to the Inspired Objects conversation, and a recommendation for Slice-brand cutters, yankinwaoz wrote:

The Slice cutters are great. I have two of them. But not the ones mentioned.

I like their manual mini cutter. It also has a magnet. Ours sits on the fridge where it’s easy to grab to open a package from the grocery store or Amazon.

And, as mentioned, they’re great for cutting open that thick plastic clamshell packaging. It’s a lot safer than a pair of scissors. You aren’t going to cut the produce inside. You just run the blade along the fold, and bend it open.

The other one is their manual box cutter.

This one sits on the garage fridge handle. It is shaped like a hook so you can hang it, which makes it very convenient. This one is perfect for breaking down boxes and packaging to put into the recycling bin. We’ve had ours for years. They have never gone dull. Never rust. Never had an issue. Can’t recommend them enough.

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Consider a Paid Subscription

Gar’s Tips & Tools is free, but if you really like what I’m throwing down and want to support it, please consider a paid subscription. Same great taste, more cheddar for me to help keep me plastic razor blades. I will also pick paid subscribers at random and send them out little treats on occasion.

Special thanks to all of my paid subscribers so far and an extra special thanks to Hero of the Realm, Jim Coraci.

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Gar’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.

05/9/25

Packable USB Mic/Flight Price Drops/Global Travel Trends

Nomadico issue #154

* Quick note from me: I’ll be having a live Q&A call on travel deals, living abroad, and the nomadic life for paid subscribers on May 20. If you’d like to upgrade and join us, please do so before then (starting at $8 a month). More about me and my work here. – Tim Leffel

Travel-sized Laptop USB Mic

I have a regular quality USB microphone for sounding good on podcast interviews and video calls, but it’s another sizeable thing to carry around when traveling, especially with a carry-on. So I recently bought this tiny gooseneck USB mic that fits in a little pocket-sized pouch and weighs next to nothing. At $17 it’s not pro quality of course, but better than the built-in mic on most computers and it’s easy to keep off-screen too.

Welcome Airline News

Frequent travelers got two pieces of good news this week. First, Thailand flights can now go direct to and from the USA after meeting safety conditions, something that hasn’t been possible for a decade. Second, one silver lining from the huge drop in visitors to the USA is that flight prices dropped 5% year-over-year in March and look to be down even more for April onward. This is a great time to look at every column when searching international fares. I just snagged one-way biz class seats from Tampa to Leon/Guanajuato in Mexico for $425 in July, only $90 more than the worst economy ticket available.

Global Travel Trends

This questioning part of this travel trends survey from American Express took place before all the negative disruptions in Washington DC started, but it’s still an interesting look at what regular travelers around the world are thinking about (more meaningful souvenirs) and acting on (like stacking points and miles) for upcoming vacations. Looking at different age groups and how they travel, it dives into attitudes about social media, AI answers, traveling for events, and letting the kids choose a destination.

100 Years of Solitude

The best-known novel from Latin America is probably the Gabriel Garcia Marquez classic One Hundred Years of Solitude, set in a mythical Colombian town in the 19th and early 20th centuries. If you found the 422 pages of “magic realism” and a century’s worth of characters hard to keep straight, I’d highly recommend the recent 8-part miniseries on Netflix covering the first half of the book. (The rest is going into production now). Seeing the people on screen makes them much easier to track and the pacing feels just right. The cinematography is impressive too, mostly done within a purpose-built town that evolves through the ages.

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A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

05/8/25

What’s in my NOW? — Daniel Olshansky

issue #212

I’m a 32-year-old single male and have been living in Bellevue, WA for the last couple of years. I strive to achieve my full potential in every aspect of life. One day, later in my life, I’ll dedicate my time to helping others achieve their full potential as well. Today I do so through reading, writing, building, following my curiosity, and leading the engineering team at Grove. Most of the time I’m either out in nature, in front of my computer, or having a long deep discussion with interesting people over dinner or a long walk.

My website links out to my social media profiles, but I’d suggest following me at either Olshansky’s Newsletter or olshansky.medium.com if you’re interested in following some of my writing.

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PHYSICAL

• TRS Gemini – As someone who lives with an L5/S1 herniation, this is a tool I always keep in my backpack. It’s like a foam roller that meets a couple of lacrosse balls and can be used as lumbar support (e.g., on a plane), for soft tissue manipulation (when training), and self-adjusting your upper back (when there’s no chiropractor around).
• Instant Coffee Packets – I love a good iced coffee as much as the next person, but paying $10 each time is getting excessive. As long as you have a bottle, most places will provide free ice and have milk or creamer available, creating a very convenient and cost-efficient way to get an iced coffee on the go. This way you save the $10 coffee with a croissant for those special high-quality occasions. There are tons of different flavours, but I like this one in particular because I get some vitamins in as well.
• Battery Jump Starter – Your car’s battery is likely going to need a jump start at the worst possible time (travelling, in a rush, etc.). If you have cables, another driver might be able to help you out. If you have insurance, you can call them in. But keeping a battery jump starter keeps you self-sufficient and going in less than 5 minutes. There’s no particular brand I’m attached to, but I do suggest having a quarterly calendar event that reminds you to charge it up.

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DIGITAL

• Snipd – This app transformed how I consume podcasts. I listen to podcasts at 0.8x speed and would always open up the notes app on my phone to jot down key moments. This was annoying and distracting, especially if I was listening to the podcast while at the gym. With Snipd, I double-click on my headphones every time there’s a key moment I want to remember, and have all my snips sync to Notion and Obsidian. It makes it really easy to keep track of everything I listen to and refer back to key moments I’m looking for.
• Todoist – I tried nearly a dozen different ways to keep track of my TODOs, but after discovering Todoist 5 years ago, I haven’t looked back. I use it to plan my day, capture my ideas, as a calendar, and generally just organize my entire life. Can’t live without it.

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INVISIBLE

Figure out what you want-to do instead of what you want-to want-to do. Now go and do it.

Sign up here to get What’s in my NOW? a week early in your inbox.

05/7/25

Pop Gun War / New Deal Photography

Issue No. 65

POP GUN WAR – WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BOY IN A SEEDY WORLD FINDS ANGEL WINGS IN THE TRASH?

Pop Gun War Volume 1: Gift
by Farel Dalrymple
Image Comics
2016, 144 pages, 6.4 x 10 x 0.5 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

A boy pulls a pair of discarded wings from a garbage can, placed there by the tattooed angel who paid to saw them off. In a city where giant goldfish are used like poker chips in seedy bars, gangs roam the streets and life is hard. The boy straps the discarded angel wings to his back, and after being knocked from it by a rock-throwing hooligan, he gingerly takes flight from a rooftop apartment building.

Amidst a gritty urban landscape and surreal images, Pop Gun War: Gift is grounded in reality and touched by dreams, and dreams of dreams. Characters grow to enormous height. A puppet master lures the city’s children to his puppet theater to keep them safe. An oversized goldfish clad in nerdish glasses levitates. A man gives everything a label because people don’t always know what things are. A cloak-clad monk hides the fact that he is burdened by chains. A woman’s severed head hidden in a handbag cajoles kids into littering and smoking. Incensed by a flying child, people inexplicably, violently smash car windows with baseball bats.

With sparse dialogue, non sequiturs, and a stream-of-consciousness storyline, Pop Gun War: Gift’s boldly drawn black-and-white drawings and full-page paintings in colorful oils illuminate a thoughtful tale of a young boy who found the wings he always had. – S. Deathrage

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TASCHEN’S HEFTY NEW DEAL PHOTOGRAPHY GOES WELL BEYOND FAMILIAR DEPRESSION-ERA IMAGES

New Deal Photography: USA 1935-1943
by Peter Walther
Taschen
2016, 608 pages, 5.9 x 7.9 x 1.7 inches (hardcover)

Buy on Amazon

If you purchase a copy of New Deal Photography: USA 1935-1943 by Peter Walther hoping to find iconic Farm Security Administration images, such as the migrant mother by Dorothea Lange or the father and his two sons running in a dust storm by Arthur Rothstein, you will not be disappointed. With almost 400 photographs filling its 608 pages, including numerous gems by Walker Evans, there’s plenty of room for the expected. But New Deal Photography goes well beyond these familiar images, powerful though they may be.

The book’s geographic organization forces us to consider Depression-era life in the Northeast and South, too, pushing our perspectives beyond the more familiar locations of Oklahoma and California. In addition, Walther’s collection of images features numerous color photographs by Russell Lee, Jon Collier, and Marion Post Wolcott. Again, we are used to seeing the era depicted in black and white, but seeing it in color confounds many of our expectations about what rural America actually looked like during those desperate years.

Walther’s essay for the book, which is printed in English, German, and French, presents a brisk but useful overview of the Farm Security Administration, from its founding mission to relocate Dust Bowl farmers in Oklahoma to greener pastures, to the photographs that were initially commissioned to document the relocation process. That might have been all the FSA did, but Walther introduces us to an FSA economist named Roy Stryker, who understood that photographs would do a much better job of telling the story of rural America in the late 1930s than any economic report ever could.

And Stryker didn’t just hire photographers to take the FSA’s pictures – he also hired artists, which is why painters like Ben Shahn were given Leica cameras and sent into the heartland of America. In the end, more than 10,000 photographs were shot, printed, and captioned, but there could have been a great many more. Apparently, Stryker punched holes in as many as 100,000 negatives he deemed unsuitable for the FSA’s collection, which means Walther’s New Deal Photography could have been even bigger. – Ben Marks

05/6/25

What’s in my NOW? — Daniel Olshansky