Kung Fu Panda Animator Demontrates a Self-Made Animation Reference

Ahead of the upcoming theatrical release of Kung Fu Panda 4, Senior Animator at DreamWorks Justin Weg shared a self-made animation reference created for the studio's recent four-hour "Inner Peace Meditation" promo video and compared the results to the final animation.

As is common practice in animation production, animators often rely heavily on real-life videos as the main reference for their projects. When suitable references are unavailable, many resort to the tried-and-true principle of "If you want something done right, do it yourself," recording their own actions to guide their character animations.

Of course, creators from big-league animation studios are no different, as was proven once again by Weg with his recently presented video. According to the artist, he has been beatboxing since childhood and recently began learning drums. As such, the creation of reference for a sequence when Po's inner peace turns into inner beats through beatboxing improvisation came naturally. You can find Weg's original post by visiting the artist's LinkedIn page.

And here's the aforementioned promo video the sequence in question was created for (timestamp 4:01:20):

Previously, multiple DreamWorks Animators also unveiled similar videos they prepared for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish:

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