Meet our awesome Rigger Adam McAllister! When he's not busy setting up rigs for characters and props, you'll find him working on his motorcycle! We managed to catch him for a few minutes to chat about all things animation.

How did you get into animation?

I was really into cartoons as a kid, so when it came to school and university I chased any course that had an art aspect to it, ending up going for a course called 'Interactive Multimedia Design' which is basically a degree in web design. I started off doing that in a couple of advertising agency’s as a freelancer. When I finished my degree I decided that I couldn’t see myself enjoying doing that for a living for the rest of my career so I went back to university to study for a Masters. There I met Greg Maguire and Conann FitzPatrick who had worked at Don Bluth back in the day, and spent some time working in Disney in the US before settling back home. Greg, who had worked as a Rigger/TD at ILM started explaining rigging as a process and the animation pipeline to me, so after a couple of months of hating rigging and wanting to animate, rigging started to click with me and I started to really enjoy it.

How long have you worked in the animation industry?

I've been in Brown Bag Films for about two years now and before that I was a freelance generalist/TD in Belfast for a couple of years.

What’s your current role and what does it involve?

I'm a rigger which involves going through storyboards and early animatics, working out what a character/set/prop needs and what poses they need to hit etc. From there I'll take some notes and talk with the lead animator to see if they have any specific notes before talking to the modeller, checking over the geometry to make sure there's no areas that would cause problems and then I start rigging.

Once the rigs are done there's normally a little back and forth between myself and the lead animator to work out some animation tests, work in any additional features the animators will need and then publishing the rig so the animators can start.

Depending on how complex the asset is there might be some questions or tweaking as the animators start working with it, so I keep an eye out on blocking passes coming in and troubleshoot any issues. If we're not rigging a character in-house, I work up my initial notes and pass them onto the overseas rigging team and then supervise them providing feedback/notes or amends as they work through the rigging process.

What are your biggest influences/inspirations?

Old cartoons, I really love the older Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry stuff and any of the older Looney Tunes. As a rigger they’re a pretty cool reference for extreme deformations and posing. As for other rigger/TD's in the industry I really like Josh Carey, who worked on the recent Road Runner 3D short.

What’s your favourite tool to use and why?

Rigging wise, I mainly use Maya and a couple of scripts/tools written by myself or in-house to speed up some of the repetitive or boring rigging tasks. I've started looking into rigging in Houdini which is looking really cool but isn’t used in production yet and is just something fun to play.

What advice would you give someone considering getting into animation?

Start now and practice a lot! I spent a lot of time in other jobs before getting into animation and I really wish I'd sat down as a kid and looked into how cartoons were made.

There's tons of resources out there, so I'd start with something I really like, research how it was made and then give it a go either in 2D or 3D. If it's your thing you'll fall into it quickly and then maybe move onto something structured like an online course like iAnimate for artistic based learning or Digital Tutors for more tech based work, just to start developing your technique.

While the technology is driving the industry forward I'd really recommend setting some time aside to develop key drawing skills, it's easy to slip into a pure technical role but life drawing is fun and you'll learn a lot about anatomy, form, balance etc.

What do you like most about working in animation?

At times it's tough, deadlines are tight, problems pop up at the worst times but at the end of the day I help make cartoons which is pretty amazing!

What’s been the most challenging thing about working in animation?

I found it difficult to get into the industry, there's a great social aspect to the industry which helps and everyone’s really friendly and helpful but when it comes to getting that first full time gig it can take a lot of time and effort. But it's worth it!

Outside of animation what are you most passionate about?

I've always been pretty into travelling and try to get as many chances to explore new places as a full-time job allows, along with the usual pulling apart other peoples work to see what I can learn from them. At the moment I've gotten really into old motorcycles, I picked up a retro Triumph at the start of the year so I'm spending a lot of free time on it or working on it but with the good weather starting to disappear I'm looking out for an old engine to rebuild.

Are you interested in getting into animation? Keep an eye on our Behind-the-Scenes and Tutorials pages for more interviews, #TopTips and #AMAs!