Resources
Creative Resources
MORE COMING SOON
For other resources , check out
the ericacrooks.com resources page
" Both media and the internet has influenced me both creatively , spiritually , and personally as deep as you can possibly imagion.
So my gratitude and thanks to this wonderful medium ,
As well as my like minded people out there ,
here are links relating to resources which I find influential . "
So my gratitude and thanks to this wonderful medium ,
As well as my like minded people out there ,
here are links relating to resources which I find influential . "
This is just out of the sake of " Word of Mouth " so it it's beneficial to everyone. :)
Puppetry
Puppet Building
BJ Guyer's ( Crank Yankers / worked for Henson and Muppets many times )
Puppet Tutorials on Stan Winston School of the Character Arts
as well as the other tutorials on Stan Winston whatever craft artist you may be
" THIS IS PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRY STUFF "
For Puppet Materials - you find stuff anywhere because puppets are a craft ,
you can make them out of anything. Even your old clothes.
( Don't you know that Jim Henson turned his mother's old coat and a ping pong ball in half for the very first Kermit ? )
Foambymail - is nice and cheap for polyurathane.
However I did notice that it's cheaper to buy felt and things at a store sometimes.
The craft stores I have been going to my life as an artists are
_ JoAnn's Fabrics
and
_ Micheals
O Neil Puppetry Conference ( Waterford CT ) : If you are ever interested in meeting professionals in puppetry or even puppetry theater or if you are there to see the 3 day shows , check it out.
I've been there many times personally.
As for learning how to puppeteer. The best advice I can ever teach you is dedicate your life away by enjoying puppetry and eventually you'll pick it up naturally with enough practice and effort imitating what you see.
Favorite Puppetry
If it's on DVD / iTunes but most people know that you can watch stuff on youtube and the internet for free if it's available.
My personal favorites and inspirations are as follows.
The Muppet Show
( and related stuff including Muppets Tonight , the original Jim Henson era stuff )
Classic Sesame Street ( 1970s - 1980s )
Spitting Image
Les Guignols De L'info
Dinosaurs
( especially the show within a show Television satires they had on there )
Apollo's Pad ( retired web series )
Meet The Feebles ( Dark Satire )
Puppets Who Kill ( TV series )
Greg The Bunny
Crank Yankers
( kind of lowbrow but hey , I mentioned BJ Guyer. These are his puppets )
The Happytime Murders
( It's the latest work of Brian Henson and Henson Alternative )
My personal favorites and inspirations are as follows.
The Muppet Show
( and related stuff including Muppets Tonight , the original Jim Henson era stuff )
Classic Sesame Street ( 1970s - 1980s )
Spitting Image
Les Guignols De L'info
Dinosaurs
( especially the show within a show Television satires they had on there )
Apollo's Pad ( retired web series )
Meet The Feebles ( Dark Satire )
Puppets Who Kill ( TV series )
Greg The Bunny
Crank Yankers
( kind of lowbrow but hey , I mentioned BJ Guyer. These are his puppets )
The Happytime Murders
( It's the latest work of Brian Henson and Henson Alternative )
Filmmaking
B&H is good for filmmaking however I just get stuff off of Amazon and eBay .
Rarely do I ever shop in stores anymore. lol
For script writing , I use the latest version of Final Draft
Celtix is a Very good cheap version of that in which I also highly recommend.
Celtix is a Very good cheap version of that in which I also highly recommend.
Adobe Creative Cloud basically has everything but it's subscription
So if you want to save money ,
Either you go find yourself open source software ( free ) that works well enough
to get the job done
OR
You invest in better alternatives
Here's my recommendations
Clip Studio Paint Pro ( Great alternative from Photoshop )
Get yourself a WACOM and MacBook Air and a WD External Harddrive 4TB
and a DVD burner with 100 DVD-R for your masters / mastertapes and digital storage originals then buy yourself a nice big DVD folder to store it all in.
And maybe a big bin to put all your important documents with you.
GET A SCANNER - Maybe first and foremost. Nothing beats original drawings.
GET A BIG or a few BIG packs of white paper from Stables or somewhere.
As well as a nice Leather office chair for good messure.
Seriously turn your room and apartment into a STUDIO / OFFICE !
I did it , you can too ! ;)
If you want to go further , build a nice DVD and Book library.
Esspecially when your internet and power goes out.
You just got to keep your mind working.
So if you want to save money ,
Either you go find yourself open source software ( free ) that works well enough
to get the job done
OR
You invest in better alternatives
Here's my recommendations
Clip Studio Paint Pro ( Great alternative from Photoshop )
Get yourself a WACOM and MacBook Air and a WD External Harddrive 4TB
and a DVD burner with 100 DVD-R for your masters / mastertapes and digital storage originals then buy yourself a nice big DVD folder to store it all in.
And maybe a big bin to put all your important documents with you.
GET A SCANNER - Maybe first and foremost. Nothing beats original drawings.
GET A BIG or a few BIG packs of white paper from Stables or somewhere.
As well as a nice Leather office chair for good messure.
Seriously turn your room and apartment into a STUDIO / OFFICE !
I did it , you can too ! ;)
If you want to go further , build a nice DVD and Book library.
Esspecially when your internet and power goes out.
You just got to keep your mind working.
Animation
Again just watch and enjoy the greats , get influenced
and figure out your spin in this stuff and how to create your very own
independent version of it.
and figure out your spin in this stuff and how to create your very own
independent version of it.
You can get a lighttable desk just like animator professionals but if it's out of your budget , don't worry about it.
BUT A WACOM IS A FREAK MUST LIKE A MAC ! PCs from my experience SUCK and I melted the harddrives of ALL of them just by multi-tasking. Macs are strong. That's where I see quality.
For Software , Adobe creative cloud has it all.
Toon Boom Harmormony is Standard in the animation industry
Anime Studio ( which is now known as MOHO ) : It's beating them all and I've been using it and upgrading since 2012. I highly recommend it.
Just watch my animation from 2008-2010 , then one from 2011 , then after
and you can see an improvement and that's just software .
FOR AUDIO , get yourself a
Snow mic.
Audio Autidion
But I use Audacity and it works just as good and it's free ! It's a must in my opinion
SAVE EVERYTHING AND FREAKIN RECYCLE and build up stock.
Professionals do it all the time. :)
Favorite Animation
The Ren & Stimpy Show , Doug , Rocko's Modern Life , Angry Beavers , Invader Zim , Ed Edd N Eddy , Courage the Cowardly Dog , Johnny Bravo , Saturday TV Funhouse , South Park , Classic Simpsons ( Seasons 4 - 8 or 9 ) , Futurama
2DTV , Spumco web cartoons ( The Goddamn George Liquor Program / Weekend Pussy Hunt ) , Webcartoons : Icebox originals like Zombie College , Happy Tree Friends , Joe Cartoon , Samanimation ( aka Taco Man ), Homestar Runenr , Bigfoot's Mario parodies from Newgrounds , the original Jibjab George W Bush parodies
The list goes on
2DTV , Spumco web cartoons ( The Goddamn George Liquor Program / Weekend Pussy Hunt ) , Webcartoons : Icebox originals like Zombie College , Happy Tree Friends , Joe Cartoon , Samanimation ( aka Taco Man ), Homestar Runenr , Bigfoot's Mario parodies from Newgrounds , the original Jibjab George W Bush parodies
The list goes on