Learning, learning, learning

I just finished reading "Creating Characters with Personality" by Tom Bancroft.  The drawing style is very different from my own, but I learned new things from this book. A brilliant feature is the six guest illustrators, including Peter de Seve and Jack Davis, who all used the same written instructions to create a character.

I'm now reading "The Animators Survival Kit" by Richard Williams. Who knew how much thought went into animating a character walking? Not me. This book definitely lives up to its good reviews.

I also just started reading "Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation" by Francis Glebas.  I have high hopes for this one too.  All three of these books include a lot of very helpful illustrations.

I'm also reading (and doing) "Adobe Flash Pro CS6 Classroom in a Book" to learn how to create images for the iPad that move. I'm looking forward to the animation tutorials, but one step at a time.

Each Flash tutorial is supposed to take around 60-90 minutes. They end up taking me a lot longer because I start experimenting, pushing buttons to see what happens, creating my own versions, etc.

One experiment became a slide show of my work, which is now on the homepage of my site.  Take a peek! http://www.phylliscahill.com

I've been looking at software programs to create apps and trying to figure out what to use.

On the following websites you use their software and keep all your intellectual property rights:

Interactive Touch Books http://www.interactivetouchbooks.com   They take a 30% commission after third party fees and your app appears in the bookstore on their site. You can't publish the same content elsewhere. 

Moglue http://moglue.com  You pay a flat fee at publication (currently $199 for one app for iOS, $299 for one app for iOS and Android) which includes submission to Apple's app store. You keep all royalties.

Talespring http://www.talespring.com They take a 50% royalty on all sales based on the sales price.  It's $150 to publish, which includes submission to Apple's app store.  Your app also appears in the bookstore on Talespring's site.

Storybuilder http://www.littlerobot.com  They take a small commission (not clear how much) based on net sales.  You can publish to Apple's app store.  There will also be a bookstore on Storybuilder's site.  Things are still under development.

There's a definite advantage to easy-to-use software and the marketing exposure and tech support offered.  It's probably well worth the fees. 

At this point, what interests me is Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite.  It seems very flexible, though I'm guessing it won't be as easy as the animation effects available through the software above.

I already use InDesign and Photoshop.  I signed up for Adobe's Creative Cloud, downloaded Flash Pro and Edge Animate.  I bought some how-to books and watched some instructional videos.  I still have a LOT of reading and learning to do.

Regardless, learning new things (like animation) is exciting.  I'm thinking it should improve my drawing abilities.