How to improve your animation.

Once you've got the hang of animation (weight and balance, timing and spacing, moving joints in arcs, strong silhouettes, etc, etc.) what next?

These following things should help make you a better animator.

Life drawing classes.

Think of life drawing as popping down to the gym and exercising some of that flab. The more you look at the human form and draw it the better you get at sorting out those key positions! All animators should do life drawing regularly (I haven't done it for about 3 years [around the time of the birth of my son] and my life drawing is dreadful at the moment. It will take at least a year at 2 hours a week to get it back to an acceptable level). The best models to draw are aspiring actors or mime artists. They know how to use their bodies to express emotions. Do short poses and draw quickly. Try to capture a pose as quickly as possible.

Work as a 2D assistant animator to an experienced 2D animator.

The best way, bar none, to learn how to be a good animator is to be an assistant to a good animator for a few years. This involves taking the animators rough drawings, linetesting them, flipping, flicking and rolling them, inbetweening them, linetesting them, cleaning them up, linetesting them and marking everything correctly on an x-sheet. Nothing beats being able to see how an animator has put a scene together, where they have put the key drawings, how they've marked up the timing charts and having them breathing down your neck to make them look good! (I would liken the experience to being an artists apprentice).

I've been lucky enough to have assisted several great animators in my time and I've learnt something from all of them. Some of these animators were amazingly generous with their help and advice, others made my life a misery!

Nowadays with digital animation, assistant animators hardly exist and getting a job as an assistant animator to a traditional animator is almost impossible. A whole learning experience has disappeared. So the next best thing is get to know a good digital animator. Ask them to comment on your work and also look at what they are doing. When they have finished a scene, ask if you can look at the file. Open it up and see where they have put the key positions. Open up the animation curves and try to work out what they have done to get the movement they have achieved. Most of all, talk and ask questions.

Acting classes.

Most animators are frustrated actors. Do classes that develop these skills. Theatrical acting, method, Laben, mime. All of these will help you come up with ideas about how to animate your characters. Ask yourself the "seven questions of character" about your character (download the .pdf here - right click and select "Save Target As..").

Broaden your life experience (or at least do some research)!

How can you possibly animate something that you have no experience of? Do your research. If you need to animate a horse, go and look at some horses. Sketch them, video them but most of all just look at them as analytically as possible, for as long as possible. Almost all the people involved with the production of Finding Nemo had a go at Scuba diving. The best animators do their research.

Keep looking at the world around you and take it in. Develop an interest in life and everything and everyone you come into contact with. The best animators do not spend every waking hour with their nose six inches away from a computer screen.

 

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