(The studio that created Bob the Builder and rebooted Pingu).

In the early 2000s, I got a job at Hot Animation in Manchester. Then I eventually made a showreel for myself. I loved the lighting and detail of stop motion animation. I had done lots of drawing work, but there was something about seeing 3-dimensional stuff like Wallace and Gromit that appealed to me. At this point, I knew that I wanted to work in stop motion. He worked on several stop motion series and created a few, like The Treacle People and Tom and Vicky. While in my first year at university, I got a job designing characters for Martin Pullen. It’s there that I began learning how to animate using computer software. It was a great school for me because there I was able to learn more about the behind-the scenes-aspects of animating. Although the school is really well known now, it wasn’t when I attended. When I got older, I went to the BRIT School, which is a British performing arts and technology school. Then I would film the drawings at home, using a Super 8 camera, to create animation. I lugged it to school where I could sit at my desk and draw using my pencil and photocopy paper. My teachers knew about my interests, so they let me bring to class a makeshift lightbox that my Dad built me out of an old crate complete with a really hot light bulb inside. But initially, I didn’t attend an art school. Hi Oli! To begin, can you share a bit about your animation background?Īs a kid, I was always interested in art, and in animation as a career. Oli Putland created a tutorial for animating The Empress rig in Toon Boom Harmony Premium. We caught up with Oli to learn about his background as an animator, how he transitioned from working in stop motion to 2D, and how he approached creating The Empress rig. After spending months creating Empress, Oli wanted to share his research and the resulting rig with his Patreon and YouTube community: In September, he released a video tutorial that talks viewers through animating The Empress.

Ease of use for animators - whether with a stop motion puppet or a 2D rig - is the key to a smooth production. Creating a puppet is a time-consuming craft, which requires attention to detail. The art of designing character rigs in 2D has some parallels to building stop motion puppets. During this time he began exploring how to rig 2D characters. Before working in 2D animation, Oli spent years on stop motion productions, until he felt the urge to go freelance and focus on personal projects. His goal: design an easily animatable, but realistic, humanoid character using Toon Boom Harmony. Oli Putland created The Empress rig as a research project.

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