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“It’s the best job… if you told me when I was a kid that I would have a job where we come to work and throw rocks into frosting to see how it moves, I woulda kissed you.”
Those are the words of Rich Moore, the director if Disney’s recent hit movie Wreck-it-Ralph. He was referring to the creation of Sugar Rush, a video game world where tiny racers drive around a saccharine world full of gum drops and candy canes.
Well, that still probably doesn’t clear things up very much. Why were they throwing rocks at frosting? Well, the animators honestly had no idea what it looks like when you crash a race car into a mountain of frosting (why would they?), so they had to do their best to replicate that in the studio. That brings me to today’s topic: building an at-home studio.
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Sometimes, you’ve just gotta get up off your computer, grab something tangible, and experiment with props until you find something that looks good. That’s one of the reasons why small art mannequins are so popular. It’s really useful to have something tangible that you can use as a reference point before diving into your work.
Finding references for humans and everyday buildings is pretty easy, but things get a little bit more complicated when you’re talking about plasma cannons, wizard spells, and mountains of frosting. That’s why I recommend building a prop studio. Take a small room in your house, garage, or shed and fill it with all kinds of random props and gizmos.
Let’s start with a pretty simple example: water. Do you know what water looks like when an object is dropped into it? Of course, we all do. But just because we’ve seen it a million times before, that doesn’t mean that artists can replicate that effect from memory every time. Going to your studio to drop a few random objects in water can help you make a more convincing animation.
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And what about smoke? Do you feel comfortable setting something on fire in your office in order to study the smoke? Eh… I don’t know about you, but that’d make me a little uncomfortable. That’s why you’re so much better off using your garage or backyard shed as your studio, and going out into your backyard for really messy experiments. It won’t matter if you have a bunch of props lying around, and it won’t be the end of the world if you make a mess. Just be sure to keep a fire extinguisher nearby!
The only other alternative for animators is to turn to videos for reference points. If you’re trying to create convincing smoke effects, for example, then there are hundreds of videos on YouTube that show smoke billowing into the sky. The problem, though, is that you’re stuck with work that other people have done and you have less control over the final product. Do you want your art to be derivative of another artist’s work? What if you’re trying to replicate a certain visual effect and there just aren’t any videos of that subject matter?
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Listen, I realize that a bunch of readers out there don’t have enough room for a workshop. Some of you are probably stuck in apartments and don’t have access to a backyard, let alone a backyard shed. Don’t despair — the point of this article isn’t to get you to go invest in a workshop, it’s to get you out of the mindset of using digital media as your go-to tool. Digital effects artists are often so entrenched in computers and the Internet that it’s the first thing that we think of when we’re trying to solve a problem. Be willing to put aside YouTube as your main source of inspiration and go get your hands dirty. There’s no better reference point than real life!