Note from Shawn Kelly, cofounder of Animation Mentor and senior animator at ILM

Just wanted to send a big hello to all you Blender Nation folks! I had the opportunity to meet Ton Roosendaal last year at Siggraph. While we were talking, I remember mentioning that with the power of open-source communities like yours, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the world was stunned by a true blockbuster film someday, created by people collaborating in their garages all over the world.

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Eunice Park of Animation Mentor now on BlenderNation

I’m happy to announce that Eunice Park of Animation Mentor will be writing for BlenderNation about the industry and as a liaison to AnimationMentor.com. She will be giving us first hand information such as news letters , tips and tricks from Shawn Kelly and others at Animation Mentor.

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Win a plastic Petunia!

macouno is running an informal contest. Something that’s just for fun, and the rules are loose.

“This week I received something rather nice in the mail. An absolutely gorgeous prototyped print of the original Petunia model from the guys at www.shapeways.com and I can’t stop looking at it. It’s rather nice to have a figure you can actually hold. But I decided I’ll give it away!”

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Blender DVD training: Creature Factory by Andy Goralczyk

This extensive tutorial set, created by the renowned Blender artist Andy Goralczyk, teaches artists how to craft a fully finished 3D animated scene. Tracking the evolution of an idea from creation to final render – and beyond. The result of the tutorials is an epic 90 second trailer.

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