AnimationResources.org – Serving the Online Animation Community

Right now, it’s Back To School time at Animation Resources, and for the next two weeks we will be sharing reasons why students and educators should be a member of our important project. There is no better way to feed your creativity than to be a member of Animation Resources. Every other month, we share a Reference Pack that is chock full of downloadable e-books and still framable videos designed to expand your horizons and blow your mind. It’s easy to join. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…

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JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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Animation Resources is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization dedicated to serving the self study needs of animators, cartoonists and illustrators. If you are a creative person with an interest in the field, we hope you will choose to become a member of Animation Resources. Every other month, members are given access to a high resolution e-book and several DVD quality animated films, curated by the Board of Animation Resources.

This sample Reference Pack is designed to give you an idea of what Animation Resources has to offer its members. By the end of the year, our members will have been able to access downloads of SIX E-BOOKS totaling over a thousand pages of incredible high resolution scans, and over FIVE HOURS of rare cartoons. Membership rates are just $85 annually for General Membership, and $70 a year for full time students and educators. It’s the greatest bargain in animation. You’ll be inspired and learn too!

REFPACK 001: Sample RefPack

Below are the links to the sample Reference Pack. To download the files, RIGHT CLICK on the link (Mac users OPTION CLICK) and select SAVE TO DISK. We are delivering high resolution files to you. When you click, it might take several minutes to finish the download, so please be patient. If the link doesn’t work, refresh this page and try again. It’s best to download the files one at a time, rather than all at once. This will avoid timeouts.

PLEASE NOTE: This material may be protected by copyright and is provided to supporters of Animation Resources under Fair Use provisions for critical analysis, educational and reference purposes only. Permission to copy and print is granted for personal use only and these files are not to be distributed or shared with others. All rights reserved. After the period of availability, these files will be deleted from the server and may never be offered again. Downloading of this material constitutes agreement to these terms.

Over the past decade, Animation Resources has shared over 50 Reference Packs with our members. We have assembled two e-books and two video podcasts highlighting a few of the treasures our members have been able to download. During Back To School Days, we will be sharing these e-books and podcasts with the general public. We hope they inspire you to join us and be a part of building the foundation for the future of animation.

PDF E-BOOKS:

Best of The E-Books

A Sampler of the First 10 Years of RefPack E-Books

The creative world of animation has its roots in the art of cartooning, and the history of cartooning extends back centuries. Over the past decade, Animation Resources’ e-books have included thousands of pages of classic cartooning, illustration and art instruction, ranging from 16th century woodblocks to newspaper comics from the 1920s, to powerful political cartoons from around the world, to complete courses teaching the fundamentals of cartooning and caricature… all designed to broaden the horizons of both professional and student artists.

This pair of e-books gather together some of the highlights from the first 50 members only e-books. It is provided to the general public to give prospective members an idea of what they will receive when they join. Members and volunteers are the lifeblood of our organization and we appreciate everything that the hundreds of people who have contrinuted to our efforts have accomplished. These e-books are dedicated to them.

Best of RefPack 26-50 E-Book

Adobe PDF File / 187 Pages / 530 MB Download

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JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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VIDEO PODCAST:

Best of Videos 1 to 50
Sampler Reels of the First 10 Years of RefPack Animation Videos

Some people are under the mistaken impression that animation is a genre, best suited for children’s cartoons. They think that specific established styles and techniques are the only way cartoons should look. It’s easy even for animators to fall into the trap of making cartoons that look just like all the other cartoons on TV and in theaters. But Animation Resources encourages film makers to think of animation as a medium, capable of breaking new ground by doing innovative and great things. We encourage our members to think outside the box by sharing unique examples of powerful animated film making that exploit the best aspects of the medium.

In the past decade of Reference Packs, Animation Resources members have had an opportunity to see rarely seen films of all types, from century old silent shorts, to stop motion puppet films, animation from China, Poland, Japan and Russia; animated commercials from the early 1950s; classic theatrical cartoons; experimental animation and rare industrial training films… Our intent is not to bring back a “golden age” of animation. We encourage artists to build on the past as a foundation for surpassing it.

This pair of reels gather together some clips of the highlights from the first 50 members only Reference Packs. They are provided to the general public to give prospective members an idea of what they will receive when they join.

Best of 1-25 Video Reel

M4V Video File / SD / 48:06 / 456 MB Download

PLEASE NOTE: These video files are large. Please download them one at a time to avoid timeouts.

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JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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With every Reference Pack, we’ll be including a bonus video or e-book from one of our past Reference Packs. This time we are sharing a book and two rare wartime training films!

PDF E-BOOK:

Jack Cole’s

Plastic Man

Issues Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (1943)

Jack Cole’s “Plastic Man” debuted in Police Comics in 1941 and was an immediate hit. Cole’s offbeat humor and Plastic Man’s ability to take any shape gave the cartoonist the opportunities to experiment with text and graphics in groundbreaking manner, helping to define the medium’s vocabulary, and making the idiosyncratic character one of the few enduring classics from the Golden Age to modern times. Plastic Man gained his own title in 1943.

This PDF e-book contains the first three issues of Plastic Man comics and includes a biography of Jack Cole. It is optimized for display on the iPad or printing two up with a cover on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper.

REFPACK001: Plastic Man

Adobe PDF File / 183 Pages / 245.5 MB Download

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JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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DVD QUALITY VIDEO:

REFPACK001: Private Snafu in Gas

Army/Navy Screen Magazine (1944)

The Private Snafu training cartoons were produced by Warner Bros for the War Department during WWII. “Gas”, which deals with the importance of having an operating gas mask handy, was directed by Chuck Jones and written by Ted “Dr Seuss” Geisel. The voices were by Mel Blanc and Billy Bletcher.

REFPACK001: Private Snafu in Gas

M4V Video File / 4:43 / 77.5 MB Download

This DVD quality MP4 file is provided courtesy of Thunderbean Animation and is included in HD on Private Snafu Golden Classics.

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JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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DVD QUALITY VIDEO:

Aesop’s Fables: Circus Capers

Van Beuren Studios (1930)

Disney admitted that in the 1920s, his goal was to produce cartoons as good as the Aesops Fables series. However after the Fables introduced a boy and girl mouse that bore a strong resemblance to Mickey and Minnie, Disney filed suit and had the cartoons pulled from theaters. This cartoon is one of the most blatant Mickey ripoffs, and one of the funniest.

REFPACK001: Circus Capers

M4V Video File / 9:13 / 230.5 MB Download

This DVD quality MP4 file is provided courtesy of Thunderbean Animation and is included on Uncensored Animation from Van Beuren.

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Tell your friends to join Animation Resources!

More members mean we can bring you more special downloads.

CLICK TO JOIN TODAY!

Problems or questions? Email…
membership@animationresources.org

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Art is a language. You have to be exposed to it, analyze it, break it down and understand it if you want to create it. The best way to become a better artist is to challenge yourself and surround yourself with good examples and creative people. It takes work and energy. It isn’t necessarily something that you are born with, and it’s not something you can come up with in a vacuum. You have to open your mind up and let the ideas in.

Think about what it was like for artists in the past… Johann Sebastian Bach had to travel two weeks by foot to attend school. The artistic treasures of the world belonged to royalty and the upper classes- the average person had no access to it. Education was something that was reserved for the special few who could afford it, or the ones who could find a rich patron to finance their education.

Flash forward to today. We live in an era that provides tremendous opportunities to artists. The internet brings the entirety of human culture to us with the click of a mouse. We can interact with creative people on social media and learn from them by following their progress and reading their posts. Our work can be instantly distributed to the whole world for free over YouTube or Instagram. Artists can communicate directly with their audience and the audience can feed back to the artist in real time.

We should be living through a golden age of creativity, right? Well, why aren’t we?

The problem with modern day artistic culture is that people take it for granted. We’re surrounded by images, music, film, performance, architecture, in dozens of different media- websites, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, video games, television, cell phones, computers… the list goes on and on. People have become so immersed in art that they don’t value it. Imagine telling Bach that he could sit down at his desk and instantly access the greatest music from the past 400 years. What would that mean to him? Does it mean the same thing to you?

If you’re an animator, cartoonist or illustrator, the internet is awash in great reference material. How much time do you spend exposing yourself to new ways of expressing yourself? How often do you set aside time to break down reference to learn how it works? Which artists’ works have you studied carefully to try to understand and assimilate the things that made them great?

Be honest. How much do you use the internet to become a better artist, and how much do you use it to tweet pictures of your lunch or share kitten memes? The internet is the greatest thing to happen to culture in the whole history of mankind, but how much do we appreciate it and utilize it to move us and our art forward?

There are schools that teach animation and charge a hundred thousand dollars for a degree. There are archives that collect films and artwork, but they’re a thousand miles or more away from you. You might as well be back in the 1700s walking two weeks to school and not having access to art unless you are part of the upper classes.

What if you could become a part of a community of artists that is using the internet to create a new way of learning about art? Would you take advantage of that opportunity?

Every day of the week, Animation Resources gives you good, solid reference and inspiration. Every one of those things are reasons why you should be a member of our organization. We’ve told you about our podcasts, e-books and downloadable animated films. Obviously, there are a lot of great perks for being a member. But there’s an even better reason to join…

You should be a member because Animation Resources is the only organization that is using the power of the internet to create a culture of education, sharing and growth for artists involved in this field.

That should be enough, shouldn’t it? It’s just as important for working professionals as it is for students. When learning and growth stops, so does creativity. It’s not just about inventing. It’s also about reinventing yourself. If you stop doing that, don’t be surprised if the art form moves on and you’re left in the dust.

Animation Resources isn’t taking the potential of the internet for granted. And we aren’t charging you a hundred thousand dollars to take advantage of our knowledge base. We want to do a lot more. We want to bring our archive database to you. But we can’t do that unless artists pull together and all pitch in to support the organization that supports them. Lately, I’ve heard several artists say, “I’ll join your group when you have everything up on your site for downloading.” That totally misses the point of what Animation Resources is providing. We can go on tweeting our lunch and sharing kitten memes, or we can harness the power of the internet as a community. Self study and artistic growth is a process, not a destination.

Everyone talks about going back to the “golden age” of animation. Even though we share old animation with our members, Animation Resources doesn’t want to go backwards. We want to use the experience of the past and the technology of the present to create an future that surpasses everything that came before. Isn’t that what you want too? Then why aren’t you a member of our community?

It’s up to you. Don’t take it for granted.

Back To School Days At Animation Resources

Fall is time to join Animation Resources as a student member. Annual dues for full time students and educators is discounted. It’s the biggest bargain in animation at only $70 a year. Animation School is great, but it doesn’t give you everything you need to become a professional animator. You need to invest in self-study to be successful in this highly competitive field. That’s exactly what Animation Resources can help you do if you become a member. Each day we’ll be highlighting more reasons why you should join Animation Resources. Bookmark us and check back every day.

There’s no better way to feed your creativity than to be a member of Animation Resources. Every other month, we share a Reference Pack that is chock full of downloadable e-books and still framable videos designed to expand your horizons and blow your mind, as well as educational podcasts and seminars. It’s easy to join. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online.

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JOIN NOW!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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FREE SAMPLES!

Not Convinced Yet? Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

FREE SAMPLES!
JOIN NOW! https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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