This was from an article about CG Spectrum and the educational services they offer teaching 2D and 3D animation online. Here's the section that talks about me!
The 2D Masters
2D Animator Jim Richardson worked on Scooby Doo, Garfield, DisneyTV CG shorts featuring 101 Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid as well as commercials for M&Ms - grew up on a steady diet of Warner Bros, Hanna Barbera and Disney certoons.
His first attempts at making his own animation were clunky stop otion short films. He then moved onto flip books, hand drawn animation, claymation and animated magazine cut-outs inspired by Terry Gilliam and Mike Jittlov. He began the mastery of his craft with his own evolution of animation techniques.
“I love showing students classics from Lotte Reiniger, Tex Avery cartoons,
MGM Tom and Jerrys, Chuck Jones and anything else they need to know about. We have control now to study certain scenes frame by frame, learn how they made the drawings move, how they used dry brush and other techniques. There’s so much to learn from these films of the past.”
Jim sees a lot of anime influence in student work, and is amazed when he
sees an original style from a student. There are so many styles of animation to draw from, the trick to originality is to master those styles and fuse them to discover your own style. This takes time, practice, and patience, but it is the road to true innovation.
DisneyDemo from Toondini on Vimeo.
Disney Junior, 2D animation by Jim Richardson
