Hey Ross, I'm Currently 15, A Junior In High School, And Love To Animate. I Don't Think Going To An Art

Hey Ross, I'm currently 15, a Junior in high school, and love to animate. I don't think going to an art institute/university is the right move though when I get out of HS - financially or for many other reasons. Community College is a huge possibility though, as it's less expensive and would still teach me more things about animation all together. For the most part, I believe animation can be a self-taught experience, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

That’s great dude. Don’t feel like you HAVE to go get an education in animation to succeed. I tried it, but it wasn’t for me. I found I wasn’t really learning enough compared to what I learnt just fiddling and making mistakes by myself. I mean look at Arin, he didn’t even finish high school yet he taught himself to be an animator. Some people learn better being pushed by an education system, some are better left to figure things out for themselves. If think you’re better going it alone then GREAT! You’re an autodidact!

Here’s some stuff I’d recommend you focus on while getting started:

Learn Flash or Toon Boom.

Maya/3DS Max/Zbrush if you’re interested in 3D (I have a minor background with it)

Study life drawing and human anatomy. Try this if you’re at a loss for material: http://www.posemaniacs.com/

Keep an organized folder of art reference (find it by following art tutorial blogs or your favorite artists). I have gigabytes of reference in my folders.

Get your head around cinematography. Watch legendary films and figure out what makes the shots great. One exercise is to take your favorite shots and make silhouette thumbnails of how things are placed, helps you break it down in your head.

Composition! It’s crazy and even those who get it sometimes don’t get it.. but just look it up online to get your head around it. It’s all about placement and arrangement of shit.

MAKE FRIENDS! Talk to other artists like yourself who are starting out. I met Arin online through Newgrounds when I was 16/17 and we’ve been friends ever since. It’s important to have like minded friends!

Keep a sketchbook, draw all the time. If you prefer doing it digitally then that’s fine, but keeping a sketchbook is a magical thing. Also helps with your line confidence, at least I think so.

If you want to develop your own stories to go along with your animations, consider the following books: Screenwriting 101 (I LOVE this book, really great read AND it’s written by someone pretending to be The Hulk), On Writing: A memoir of the Craft (Stephen King! Haven’t read this one yet but friends recommend it) and also Save the Cat! (this one is more so about selling scripts and writing to a formula, don’t take it as gospel.. But it’s interesting).

Voice act! Shit man, just get a decent microphone when you can. Make goofy voices, do imitations. Get silly! Lots of animators have at least some experience doing voice acting!

WATCH STUFF. Seriously, I can not stress this enough. Everything is derivative from other works and that’s okay. Inspiration comes from everywhere and anything. My late friend Monty also preached this, he even proudly told me some of his early influence for RWBY such as Black Rock Shooter. Finding influence breeds passion. You’re not slacking off watching cartoons, you’re researching.

ANIMATE! Do it however you can! Stop motion lego, flipping paper.. I don’t care. Just do it. Whatever you learn, It all translates across any version of the medium.

ANIMATORS SURVIVAL KIT. This book is a must and most animation schools highly recommend it. It was written by Richard Williams the director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (among other things). If you’re not big on reading, then you’re in luck because it’s MOSTLY pretty pictures. http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Survival-Richard-Williams/dp/0571202284

Lastly but not least.. Just don’t stop. The people you see online and on TV right now, they’re not kicking ass because of some god given talent. They’re there because they didn’t stop. They persevered through it all and kept going, no matter what anyone else told them.

Good luck!

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Inspiration resourses

REFERENCE MASTERPOST WOAH

text tricks; click the <html> button in the corner

makes things smaller. the more you use, the smaller it gets.

<big> same applies with big

makes things go up up up up

makes things go down down down down

makes underlines (only seen on blog pages)

go here for ｓｐａｃｙｗａｃｅｙｗｏｒｄｓ

z̗̟̻̫̼͓͂ã̤̬͓̼͓̔̐̇͑ͩ̀l̯̜̰͐̒ͪg̺͎͈̍o͍̫̬̤ͭ ͍ͩͤ̈́a͇̘͙̼̠̪̣ͨ̾̍̿k̼ͣa̯̮͇̟ͫ̑ͤͭ̔̊ͣͅ ͌͆s̮̫̼͖̫̖̐̆ͦc̎ͪÃ͔̬̘̫̣̮̮̂̉͗R̈́Ẏ̖͕͚̱̩̠ ̫̝͎̞͖̄T͔̎͊̍ͪ̔E̲̞̽ͨ̿̑X͓̜̩̖̜ͦ͊T̹̥̰̊̎͂ found here

here and here for ƒαηcу/սռﻨƈօժε †εχ† (☞ here for unicode symbols ☜)

upside down text? oɯəlqoɹd ou

of course, those are the basics. <code> makes things monospaced and <pre> puts your text in a grey box.

other;

need themes? NEED THEMES? HERE’S A THEME REC W/ 4000+ THEMES AHHHHHH

japanese emoticons? (◕△◕✿)

things that look like japanese emoticons but are cute lil gifs?

anything else you need help with? a blog full of tutorials just for all the sweeties out there!!!!!

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Text references

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artrefforsteph

7 years ago

how did you figure out how to do hands

well when I do hands I tend to break them into 3 big shapes

starting with the wrist then palm, thumb then the fingers

once I have the big shapes in I separate the fingers

here are some more examples of the different parts

one of the best ways that I learned how to draw hands was to draw a LOT of them, in different poses, while looking at a reference. This is a site that I found useful,

it has 3D models of hands that you can change the view so you can see the same pose from different angles. p.s. this site i linked to does contain nude figures just a heads up

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HANDS

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artrefforsteph

4 months ago

The Pale Horseman - Submitted by: fastman27

#FDFBEE #DEDEBA #B5C19C #619058 #3F5943 #27332A #121514

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palettes

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artrefforsteph

9 years ago

If you're an artist looking to diversify your faces:

click this link

draw whomever you get

don’t worry about making it super-accurate, just focus on the characteristic parts of the face and have fun

the outcome might not look like the ref, but it will be different and more varied than faces you draw out of your head, an dprobably pretty rad on its own right!

feel free to reblog with your drawing, if you want!

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resourses

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artrefforsteph

8 months ago

Again This Is My Personal Take On Color! It Really Depends On The Situation And What You Personally Value,

Again this is my personal take on color! It really depends on the situation and what you personally value, and in the end practice is your best friend.

links:

genice’s color practices

color palette challenge (one iteration of it; there’s lot of people who made them)

(not mentioned, but helpful)

Patrick (H) Willems’s video essays on color in film; specifically his ones on

Wonder Woman and Marvel

I thought he had one on John Wick too but I can’t find it. If you like saturated colors though, check that movie out!!

those are only a couple of exterior references, there’s lots out there!! so good luck & I hope this helped!!

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color

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artrefforsteph