This post is not as the title suggests and original idea, I saw a blog post of a fellow student recently listing a few of the things that influenced him at a younger age (in terms of animation), and this struck me as a good idea so here is my version of that post. All credit goes to Richard Willock. I realise I had been raised on animation my entire life, with different styles being more prominant at different times. Up until the age of about 15 my family didn't own a tv license, just a tv and vhs player. So at a young age I have vhs of pingu, fireman sam and postman pat. These were the first animations I came into contact with and I loved them. Later on I would encounter Wallace and Gromit for the first time, which had a huge impact on my. As I grew up through my early teenage years I got really interested in drawing japanese anime and manga, I had always liked drawing and so this really interested me. All these forms of animation have influenced me a lot. There have also been disney animated films released all through my life time. But I dont think any of these animations influenced me quite as much as a few particular pieces. I think the thing that got me into liking animation was a cartoon that was given to me on video from the nhs to explain how the body defends itself against disease (this was during a time when my little sister was very ill) I was about 3 and there is a photo of my dressed of as a white cell (which were drawn to look like little knights defending the body) and from then on I think animation was always going to be my thing.
This is my first major influence, this was some of the first CGI I ever encountered, I cannot remember if I saw this before or after I saw Toy Story (another massive influence). This is the first episode of the first ever CGI tv series, called Insektors, and its awesome. I distinctly remember buying the vhs (and I still own it). But this tv series had everything I enjoyed at the time and the dialogue still makes me laugh. The characters are so funny (there are two krud guards whos one little chats and brilliant) various funny welsh accents and much more. The dialogue was re-written from the original french dialogue (which is apparantly even better) and it was also re-written again for the american audience (awful). But CGI, and war between eco loving and eco hating creatures, and a main character with a guitar that doubled up as a weapon was just what young me wanted.
I can thank my cousin for this influence. This is the intro movie to the playstation game Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. My cousing was in his mid to late teens when this was just out, so as a child of about 9 or 10 watching this left a pretty huge impression on me, it was awesome, and I bought the game when my cousin left his playstation to me. I've heard people describe the games story as rivelling that of classic gothic literature and I think they might be right. But this intro cinematic synched it for me I think, I wanted to do this without even realising it. Over the years many more game cinematics had a profound impact on me, mainly because they were only 2 or 3 mins long (which meant they could be much better graphics than the rest of the game, and also show off better graphics than a feature length animated film) meant that they always looked ahead of their time and blew my mind.
Other game cinematics that have influenced my in particular tend to be from the final fantasy series, particularly ones from games VIII and IX.
Made just 4 years after I was born (meaning that I am older than the fully CGI film industry), Toy Story was a fairly huge moment in animation and also my childhood. To say there was nothing like, is well stating the obvious, but the quality of the film, of the characters, of everything (the quality pixar would come to be known for) amazed me. Toy Story was probably the first piece of CGI I ever saw and well what a piece to be your first. The story's brilliant, you love every single character (except sid who was the scariest thing apart from Mr McGregor in peter rabbit I had ever seen) and it is perfect for all ages.
Toy Story was obviously a huge influence, for any child who was wowed by CGI, but game cinematics influenced me the most I think, particurly soul reaver, the dark nature of the cinematic and story really pulled me in. I think my influences can easily be split into two categories, stuff I should have been wathcing and stuff i shouldnt. But the stuff that was certainly aimed at an older audience stuck with me and I'm sure its why I now want to be a games artist
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