What this blog is all about

In my never ending endeavor of learning about character animation one of my central concerns is to become less dependent on stock movements/gestures and especially facial expressions. While absorbing everything about animation principles and acting it is always hard not to follow the heroes (such as Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Bill Tytla, Dave Hand, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Ken Harris, Rod Scribner or Bob Clampett to name but a few) too closely and ending up with inferior copies of their once original poses. It has often been said that character animation is mostly inbred and not inspired by real life as much as it could be.
I certainly believe in analysing great animation and practicing the basics. But in order to force myself not to use too many stock expressions I’ve decided to start this blog posting expressions I derived from live-action movies and other sources. I’m still trying to get a grip on this, so don’t expect any miracles…
This way I will hopefully create some kind of a library of specific expressions for myself as well as inspire others to do the same or simply criticize my work in the comments.

Since I know that I won’t be able to have drawings to post too frequently, I’ve decided to also include reviews and analyses of animated movies. Since I’m certainly more advanced as a scholar of film than as an animator, there will be a lot more on that side. Among other things my focus here – as this is mostly overlooked in many reviews – will be on color in animation. Hence the title of this blog: Colorful Animation Expressions.