Animation - Making Your Own Film
Anyone aspiring to be taken seriously as an animator would be well advised to first learn how to draw and then to learn the animation basics.
No matter if you are interested in doing 3d computer animation or stylised 2d drawings if you can’t draw you are at a disadvantage. Drawing is best learned from doing life drawing lessons, from studying other people’s work who can draw and from just practising.
Leaning to draw will teach you things like anatomy, character, design and composition, all very important as an animator, and also how to communicate simply and elegantly information that makes an audience believe that they are looking at a real 3d dimensional living character, not at something that’s just a flat symbol representing a character, like a child’s drawing.
The basics of animation are again pretty essential no matter what style or technique of animation you decide to use. They are best learned and practised in 2d drawings, the purest form of animation and where these principles were discovered and refined.
It is best to first do some exercises like the bouncing ball, which will teach you about giving objects weight, the most basic skill of animation and one area where most beginners fail before they’ve started. Also through the bouncing ball you can begin to learn a few of the basic...
