Check out this cool image I saw on Twitter. It was titled "Eyebrows make a BIG difference." Looks like he just removed the eyebrows. Crazy how much of a difference this adds. I thought this was great for animation as you can clearly see the power that these crazy little lines have! Not to mention how creepy people look without them. Ha ha!

Being a new dad I've been finding it hard to keep up with work, social networks, twitter AND blogging. The blog has definitely suffered due to this. I'm taking a "keep it simple" approach these days for staying up with the myriad communication channels.

I've been posting a lot on my Google+ (bobbyboombeck) page and Twitter (@bobbyboombeck) feeds. Not as much on Facebook these days, but still check it to see what's going on.

In short, I'm more inspired than ever, learning SO much about life, daddyhood, business, friendship and balance. I'm so very thankful for the life I have and I never want to take it for granted.

Coming back from CTN has given me a lot to think about in terms of where Animation Mentor is at and where I want to take it. I'm incredibly inspired with AM right now and believe in it more than EVER. I'm excited for what the new year has in store and excited by all the lessons learned each day!

-BOOM

The Animation Mentor CTNX schedule is posted here. We can't wait to hang out with everyone and share our love for animation! Hope to see you soon!

It's been a while since I thought about blogging. There's been a lot of other really great stuff going on in my life. Namely, my little baby girl (see pic above).

I've had so many incredible feelings and thoughts that have come over me in the last several months and I feel incredibly blessed to have such an amazing little squishy one :)

Before I became a parent, many people told me, "When you have a kid it changes your entire life." It always sounded somewhat negative. Now, after having been on this journey for just a short while, I see how it does indeed change everything. And I see that the changes have made my life so much more outstanding. Life is not just about me anymore, it's mega-multidimensional in such a cool way.

In this quick post I just wanted to share my initial thoughts on how amazing I think this step is in life and I'm sure I'll write more about it in the future, too. :)

This is one of the coolest videos we've done to date. Travis is such a great guy and it was so great of him to share his thoughts about how to maintain balance with family and school. Enjoy!

This entry is in response to a few postings we’ve seen on Facebook and Vimeo over the past week or so.

Animation Mentor supports animation all around the world, and we love to see student work.

We are flattered that students of animation are choosing to emulate Animation Mentor student and graduate work in their quest to learn how to animate, and we want to offer a few guidelines to help them in their journey:

1. If you want to receive feedback on your work, or use it in a demo reel, it should be ORIGINAL work. Please do not reference another animator’s work.
2. If you do reference another animator’s work for the purpose of practice and learning, and the work is a straight copy, it is my humble opinion that this work should not be distributed on the internet and called a show reel.
3. It's also an incredible amount of work to recreate someone's short film shot-by-shot AND light/render it. We'd much rather suggest you work on original work that is uniquely yours showing the value of what your voice has to bring to the craft.

The industry is super duper small and word travels fast when work is copied or plagiarizer and we encourage those folks, I'm sure their intentions were not meant with any ill will, to rather work on new, original works instead.

And a note to Animation Mentor students and graduates: Please remember that what you post online is often public, and not easily deleted. We appreciate supporting your fellow students, and we encourage you to keep it positive, professional, and supportive. Thanks.

Recently we had an two day offsite for the Animation Mentor senior team. Day two we brought in an outside facilitator to help us work on improving our communication. I'd say this was one of the most insightful and humbling days I've had in a long time and I'd like to share one of the big takeaways I got from that day.

Get Curious:
We did an exercise where we took a piece of paper and folded it in half. On the right hand column we each wrote a different conversation we had recently that frustrated us. Then, on the left hand column, we wrote what was going on in our heads during particular moments in that conversation. Our facilitator noted that not a single one of us asked questions when we got frustrated. Instead we acted on what our mind/assumptions was telling us. He urged us instead to ask questions and get curious in these moments as there is almost inevitably a misunderstanding in the making.

Throughout the day he worked us through real experiential moments and we each had many opportunities to practice our new skill of getting curious. We also got feedback from our peers after each conversation -- which was extremely insightful.

I LOVE learning and there were so many incredible breakthroughs that day. I wanted to share this thought around getting curious when you start to feel "triggered" or upset as, chances are, there may be just a simple misunderstanding -- and building this muscle to REALLY listen is pretty incredible. But more on that later.