Happy New Year!!

Okay... New Years resolution... write on this damn blog once in a while haha.

As an update to my last post on the CTN Expo 2012, I wrote a post on it for my Traditional Animation website. I may do a more detailed post on it later on, but for now, that'll have to do.

Well, it's 2013 and it looks like it's going to be a great year. I really need to get a decent demo reel together and start applying for jobs. I've put that off for way too long. And since the world did not end for the fiftieth time this year I have no excuse.



In the mean time, I'm back in school. Got a full schedule this semester: Digital Imaging Fundamentals, Web Essentials, and Developmental Math (yuck). Then I have my Digital Storytelling class starting up in February. I think that's the class I'm looking forward to the most because it covers storyboarding and the pre-production side of things which I really need to study.

Anyway, more posts to come soon. Have a great 2013!!

CTN Animation Expo This Week!!

I am so excited!!! This will be the third year in a row that I will be attending the CTN Animation Expo in Burbank, California. I have a nice long flight tomorrow afternoon... taking off at 4:20pm and arriving in Burbank around 10pm-ish (California time).

I HAD A BLAST last year (and the year before) and I met so many amazing and talented artists, many of whom I'm still in contact with.

Grayson Ponti, my Dad, and I even got to tour the Disney studio and have lunch with some of the best animators in the world! That was one of the major highlights of the trip (even though it wasn't part of the Expo).

Left to right: James Nethery, Bert Klein, Eric Goldberg, Nik Raneri, Grayson Ponti, Mark Henn,
David Nethery, and Ruben Aquino.

I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures and a full rundown of the conference when I get back next week! Lots of panels and workshops. I spent about an hour and a half planning everything out tonight and setting up alerts on my phone so I don't miss anything!!

Pictures from years past:

Picture I took on the airplane last year. I actually was able to get internet access and have one of my Animation Mentor Q&As ON THE PLANE. That was cool and it was the first (and last?) AM in-flight Q&A that I know of!

A great drawing by the amazing Jim Smith (who is known mostly for his work on Ren and Stimpy with John K and his Spumco studio) done on my Modbook (which he really liked). My dad and I had the pleasure of sitting down and having some iced tea at the hotel with Jim and talking to him about his work. It was awesome. 

Actually, John K will be at CTN doing a workshop this year... I wasn't able to sign up for it but I think he'll be around the Toon Boom booth... looking forward to meeting him.

Also present at that same meeting with Jim Smith was the great animator Mike Polvani. He did this great drawing of Hades for me (he worked on Hades under Nik Ranieri).

I have more pictures from 2011... I need to upload them though. Here's a few pictures from 2010:

I met Ken Duncan for the first time in 2010... and I was thrilled to death that he remembered me when I came back in 2011. Ken is one of my inspirations. His animation has such a unique style and feel to it... you can spot it a mile away!

I love this picture. This is me and master animator Jason Ryan. 

Jason, as you probably know, runs the excellent animation "school" (or rather, training program) iAnimate.net. I just thought it was kind of funny having both the iAnimate and Animation Mentor shirts in there. RIVALRY!!!!

Here's Eric Goldberg animating at his demonstration... yes, he actually brought a scene from work and was ANIMATING IT RIGHT THERE in front of about 50 people. I got to ask him a lot of questions which was awesome.

Thats all for now I think. I'll post pictures soon!!! 

Time to start blogging again...

Welcome to the third reincarnation of my blog! Wow, I haven't updated this in forever. It's been empty for so long...

It's a bit empty right now design-wise but I'm working on getting more stuff added like a custom blog header, etc.

A bit about myself: my name is James Nethery, I'm from Orlando, Florida and animation is my passion.

I went to school for animation at the online school AnimationMentor.com which was an amazing experience in every sense of the word. I learned so much and I feel like I'm still learning every day. Everyone at Animation Mentor has been incredibly nice and supportive to me and I'm eternally grateful for the education and the amazing friends I've made through the school.

Right now I am developing a 3D animated short film with a few of my friends from Animation Mentor here in Florida (Florida animators unite!!). I want this to be a big collaboration with Animation Mentor students around the country.

This is the Animation Mentor student showcase for 2012 (I graduated in 2011, none of my work is in the reel). Amazing work, right?



I am also a writer and editor, along with Lavalle Lee and Les Carpenter, over at Traditional Animation, a website dedicated to all things hand-drawn animated. Even though I am pursing CG animation as a career, I still have a soft spot for hand-drawn animation and will always love it as an artform.

All animation is (or should be) rooted in traditional animation principles  and it's still super important to study the great traditional masters and the principles of animation they helped develop, even when you're doing CG or stop motion where no drawing is involved in the actual animation process. I always find that drawing my poses beforehand to the sound in Toonboom, TVPaint or some other software where you can animate to the dialogue always speeds me up. "Animated thumbnails" to quote Jason Ryan.

SHAMELESS PLUG: Check out and "like"the Traditional Animation Facebook page! Awesome hand-drawn artwork posted (mostly) every day!!!

I also run a website and YouTube channel that focuses on making silly web-cartoons (not high art my any means but it's fun to do anyway) using Toonboom Animate Pro.

I am also, at the moment, back in college for an A.S. degree in Digital Media with a focus on video editing and motion graphics at Valencia College in beautiful Orlando, Florida. Even though animation is what I ultimately want to do, I feel like it's a good idea to have a back-up and I love video editing almost as much as animation... almost.

So far, being back in college has been great. I've been learning a whole lot this semester and I'm finding that my animation skills, especially my sense of timing, transfer beautifully. But more on that later.