Welcome to Active Art Animations

You have a small art display show in your gallery and are now looking forward to hosting the annual art show. However, you’ve received complaints of stuffiness and pet hair issues from some of your loyal clients. Since you don’t want to face the embarrassment during the major art event, you’re looking for ways to combat these issues. After reading through some articles, you discover the best vacuum cleaner for pets. However, since you don’t know anything about the types of vacuum cleaners, here’s a comprehensive guide to choosing pet vacuums. How to Choose the Best Pet Vacuum Cleaner When selecting the best vacuum cleaner to get rid of the pet hair issues in your studio, you need to consider these factors: The Type of Vacuum Cleaner You Need You need to be sure if you want an upright, canister, cordless or bagged vacuum cleaner. Upright vacuum cleaners, for instance, are perfect for large spaces, like your studio. What makes them the right fit is that you only have to push the vacuum in front and don’t have to bend down to clean. They also have the best turbo brushes. Bagged vacuum cleaners, on the other hand, capture all the dust in a disposable bag. The hoovers also feature larger capacities, so there’s less maintenance and contact with dust. However, you’ll have to purchase replacements frequently. Your Budgetary Options You might also want to consider your financial situation. How much can you afford to buy a vacuum cleaner? According to most experts, buying a pet hair vacuum cleaner would cost anywhere between $50 and $1000. Cordless vacuum cleaners tend to be more costly, particularly if you want one with exemplary battery life. Extra-Mini Tools You also need to consider the extra tools or accessories that come with vacuum cleaners. These

Your youngest daughter just graduated and wants to start a 3D animation studio business. However, she doesn’t have the capital required to start, and your older kids can’t help her out with the staggering economic recession. You’ve also checked your pension1savings and investments, and nothing seems to add up to the total amount she needs. You’ve seen her work and can attest to her prowess in the field, so this will be a fantastic investment. After failed attempts at getting the amount required, you suddenly get a light bulb moment – equity release. Equity release mortgage is a financial plan that offers you tax-free cash and allows you to continue living in your home till you pass on or move into residential care. To qualify for this incredible scheme, you only have to be 55 years and above, a UK resident, and own a home worth at least €70,000. Since you’re 60 and own a home in Edinburg, you only have to find out your estate’s worth since the estate market value keeps fluctuating. After some equity release advice from your financial advisor, and a visit from an independent surveyor, you discover that your home is worth €560,000. What’s the Equity Release Process? Well, now, you can start the equity release2 process and be closer to getting the cash to actualize your favourite daughter’s dream. The home equity release process is rigorous and offers you the opportunity to think through carefully about the plan. It involves several steps which vary from one equity release company to another. Nonetheless, the standard process involves: Selecting a financial advisor – Choosing a financial advisor is one of the most critical steps to take. Since you already have an advisor, you can go on to the second step. In case you don’t, you have

What are collector fairs/shows and what do I need to know? Collector shows are basically antique fairs which showcase collectable items. Collectables are deemed to be items made within the last 100 years (as opposed to antiques). Most of the shows I know of seem to have a mix between vintage and newer pieces. You may find some really special old and rare items, or have an opportunity to pick up that recent comic book or limited edition figure you may have missed the first time round. The shows consist of numerous stands of 50-500+ dealers selling everything from comic books, Disney Classics, X-Files, Star Wars, Simpsons, Felix, Bonzo, vintage character china, animation art (of course!), etc. It’s like visiting hundreds of terrific stores all located within the same place. I think that these shows are really terrific and offer collectors a great way to see what’s out there, meet other collectors, and find great stuff! There can also be special apperances by X-Files stars, or film and TV celebrities. There are a few wonderful fairs in England, and you may contact me in New York if you would like details of the ones I attend and think are relevant to animation. Rules of Thumb 1) There is usually a nominal charge of a few quid, which isn’t bad for a whole day of entertainment! There are sometimes gift bags of items worth the price of admission which are handed out upon entrance. 2) Get there early! These shows get crowded, so show up early for the best selection. Also, some shows have early admission for an extra charge. If you’re a serious collector, I recommend getting there early. 3) Bring cash. Some dealers may accept credit cards or cheques, but cash is king. It also increases your odds for

Whether you’d like to start formal studies in art and design, animation, concept art or a sequential arts program, it helps to learn more about how to prepare the portfolio required for your review. For an outstanding portfolio, we suggest that in addition to the required pieces asked for by the college, you should consider asking if you can include extras that you feel good about. These pieces can reflect some of your personality; your ideas, technical skill and interests. This helps set your portfolio apart from others when college admissions officers review it. TIPS FOR PREPARING A PORTFOLIO FOR ART COLLEGE The following tips and guidelines will help you prepare a better portfolio. Double Check the Requirements – One of the most basic, and biggest mistakes you can make is to miss something that is clearly stated in the college’s application requirements. If it isn’t stated, a rule of thumb is to include 10 to 20 pieces in the portfolio. And submit your portfolio on time! Pay Attention to the presentation: if you need to photograph some pieces, do it well! The best concept art ever can look terrible if it is photographed in poor lighting. Clean up your drawings. If you are showing your sketchbook, for example, use a kneaded rubber eraser to clean up smudged or messy pages. Organize the pieces so that is easy for the reviewer to check off required pieces. Double check that you have everything required for your application! What else did you need to include besides the portfolio? The care you take is an indication that you will be a serious, focused student who can follow directions. If the college does an in-person interview, get there a few minutes early. Think of this as a job interview. Be sure you are well groomed. Smile. Make eye contact… Introduce yourself.

I think that there still exists a lot of confusion about the different types of animation art. So here is a full-blown glossary that should be helpful. PRODUCTION ART Animation Cel A sheet of clear acetate or nitrate which is hand-painted and then placed over a background and photographed. The outline of the character (hand-painted or xeroxed) is applied to the front of the cel. The colours are hand-painted onto the back of the cel. Nitrate Material of older cels used up until the 1950s (1940s for Disney). Often show signs of aging such as rippling or yellowing. Acetate Material used in the present day. More stable than nitrate. 12-Field Refers to a size of a cel or drawing of 10 1/2″ x 12 1/2″. Is the most standard size of art. 16-Field Cel or drawing of 12″ x 16″. Pan (Cinemascope) Cel or drawing up to 12″ x 30″. Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty used this type of artwork. Sometimes the production backgrounds were of this size as well. One may find art from these films that were once pan size, but have since been trimmed. Courvoisier A Disney cel set-up created and sold by the Courvoisier Galleries in the late 1930s/early 1940s. Characters are most often trimmed to image, glued to the background, covered with a protective top cel. Most vintage Disney pieces from this era are of this nature. In the case of a multi-cel set-up, cels are always from the same film, but may not all correspond to the same moment in time. A number of distinctive backgrounds were used. Wood veneer, polka dots, stars, and hand-painted watercolour backgrounds. The original set-ups were almost always framed in an off-white mat, penciled name of the character written, and a “WDP” stamp. Labels were attached to

Some well-known popular 2D animations include: Looney Tunes (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd) Classic Disney (Snow White, The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid) TV shows (The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Rick and Morty) 2D animation is a traditional animation method that has existed since the late 1800s. It is one drawing followed by another in a slightly different pose, followed by another in a slightly different pose, so on and so on, at 24 frames per second. Traditionally, these drawings were put together in an amazing process where artists drew pencil drawings of every frame of film, then these images were painted onto clear plastic sheets called ‘cels’, and each of these thousands of hand-drawn and painted cels were photographed one at a time over a hand-painted background image, and those thousands of images compiled to run as film at 24 frames per second. Today, most 2D animators use computer software to one degree or another, with applications ranging from digitally coloring the cels to be photographed in the traditional method, to composing every single animation element in the computer interface. Some popular 3D animations include: Pixar (Toy Story, Frozen, The Incredibles) Dreamworks (Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon) Feature Film CGI (the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the robots in Transformers, pretty much everything in Avatar) 3D animation (aside from stop-motion, which can actually be either 2D or 3D animation) is completely done using software. Anything created in a 3D animation program exists in an X, Y, Z world. That means instead of a flat drawing of a globe, 3D animation produces a sphere that can actually rotate 360 degrees. 3D animation allows animators to create things that are impossible or extremely tedious within 2D animation. For example: 3D-animated objects, once modeled, can be treated almost as physical objects. You can light them differently, creating different shadows, and move