Animation Vs Illustration

Continuing our feature on the relationship between animation and illustrattion we hear from fabulous picture book editor Fiz Osbourne who has worked with several animator / illustrators and also Damien Jones, who has worked on several high profile animations and who will soon publish his very first picture book. 


A word from Fiz who recently worked with animator Jim Field on his latest collaboration with Michelle Robinson 'There's a Lion in my Cornflakes' ...

I feel animators are well-placed to illustrate children’s books. Their storytelling skills seem to translate organically into book illustration, injecting energy, emotion and movement into their work. Animators are well-versed in receiving and responding to feedback (there can be lots of this in children’s books) and are also used to working to tight deadlines (there can be lots of this in children’s books, too!), so the transition from animator to book illustrator can feel like a natural one.

Follow Fiz on Twitter! 

Damien Jones ...

I fell in love with animation from a young age and especially traditional hand drawn animation - While studying at university I loved so many aspects of the animation world - storyboarding/ colour boards/ character design/ and the flicker of paper and blue pencils creating expressive rough animation. 

Traditional animation was all but dead when I graduate, I was lucky enough to work with some great people of the Illusionist film, a film completely hand drawn. After this I struggled to find work that gave me the same fulfilment and storyboarding was the closest thing I could find until I fell into the illustration world.   

Here's a short but utterly delightful visual snippet of Damien's animation work... 

Picture books to me seem like wonderful animated shorts - they can be in a wide range of wonderful creative styles - and combine all the elements of pre production animation films and you get to be the director of it all (with guidance from the publisher) and I feel I finally have found a stage to which to unload my random day dreams in the form of storytelling and illustrating. 

Check out Damien's Facebook Page HERE!