Composition for the 21st 1/2 Century, 2 Volume set

Thomas Paul Thesen has spent six years in illustration at the University for Applied Sciences in Hamburg and then got his Master of Fine Art in Experimental Animation at CalArts in California. During his studies he was approached by Pixar Animation Studios to do inspirational character development on their feature film Ratatouille. After getting his MFA from CalArts he started to work as a character-animator for Dreamworks Animation and worked on the feature Shrek 2. He always wanted to go into visual development and switched departments to work on features like Bee-Movie or Puss-in-Boots. Since then he have been focusing on visual development, character design and illustration in his professional and freelance work. For eight years now he has been teaching animation for universities like SCAD, NYU Tisch, Hongik University or Hallam University.

Volume 1:

What is composition and design. Images and their content. Storytelling in images. The purpose of images: illustrations, comics, development art. The look of a film reversed. Deconstructing the animated short-film Duck Amuck. Objects and information. The frame itself. Magnetism of the frame. Creating different frame-shapes. The rectangular frame and its forces. Open and closed frame. On-screen and off-screen space. Case-study: on and off-screen space in Koji Yamamura’s Atama Yama (2002). Aspect Ratios. Aspects of Design.

Volume 2:

What is character design. Job of a character designer. Production pipeline of an animated feature film. Storytelling & drama. Personality. Message or theme. Pose. Shape. Form. Line of action. Anatomy. Weight. Forces. Tension and compression. Contrapposto. Movement & twist. Pivot point. Balance & tension. Silhouette. Perspective. Foreshortening. Tangents. Light & shadow. Vectors & directions. Facial expressions. Extroverted & introverted pose. Negative & positive space. Size relationship and body ratio. Contrast & texture. Line quality. Readability & simplicity. Believability. Composition of pose and image. Colour. Folds & fabrics. Attire and accessories. Character turn-around.