Transcription
In this video, I'm going to share with you what I think is the best way to learn animation. [Music] And Ferdinand for Animator Island, bringing you tips, tricks, and tutorials to help you become a better animator.
If you're just starting out, these tips and tricks will help you to understand and master animation quicker. If you have already started but you're not quite getting the progress that you want, they will guide you back on the right track.
Most of the time, beginners want to jump right into animating full scenes with characters talking, interacting, and fighting, and who knows what. And I get that you want to use animation to create amazing things, but jumping into the cold water completely unprepared is often a recipe for disaster. I mean, would you attempt to fly a plane without knowing anything about it? Clearly not. And while animation isn't quite as dangerous, you are creating a whole world with living characters from scratch—that's huge.
A good animation consists of so many different things like acting, physics, image composition, filmmaking, character design, body language, world-building, and much, much more. Even professionals use a step-by-step workflow so they don't have to think about everything at once. If they can't do it, why should you? As a beginner, overwhelm yourself. The secret is to take everything one challenge after the other, and this is tip number one: to deliberately practice single aspects of animation one after the other. You should do many small exercises that tackle one challenge at a time. By isolating one aspect of animation, you can see much better if what you're doing is working. If you're making a mistake, it's much easier to spot and fix.
But how do you know if what you're doing looks how it's supposed to look? Well, this leads us to tip number two: get feedback from mentors and other artists, people more experienced than you. They can spot mistakes immediately, and they can even give you advice on how you can fix it. But you can even talk to people that are on the same level as you because they have to tackle the same challenges, and maybe they already have figured something out that you haven't. Maybe you can help them with something else. So finding other artists is incredibly important, and you can find that either in animation schools or on the Internet, in Facebook groups, on Reddit. You can post your animation in certain groups and get feedback.
So you learned an aspect of animation, got feedback, you make your improvements, and now you feel like you mastered that aspect of animation. What do you do now? You move on to the next challenge, or you add a challenge on top of it. And this leads us to tip number three: increase the difficulty step by step. But what are these steps, and in which order should you learn them? To figure this out, let's separate animation into chunks that you can learn separately from each other.
Many schools and books are separating animation into three aspects. I like to call them the three forms of energy because I feel like they are, in their own way, and sometimes invisible forces that drive your motion. They are physics, life, and design.
Learning physics in animation is a little bit like learning how to drive a stick shift car. In the beginning, you will be completely overwhelmed, constantly thinking about what gear should I be switching into. But in just a few weeks, you will switch gears automatically, and you can fully focus on the road. Same with physics in animation. After a while, you will put in the necessary basics automatically, leaving your head free for creative choices. If you are leaving this form of energy too early, you will be able to tell. Okay, stories maybe, but your motions might look too light or like they are floating. So don't move on from physics before you know how objects fall from different heights, why different materials bounce differently, when something needs to gradually speed up or slow down, and how loose elements lag behind and catch up. Also, you need to study how humans and other creatures are dealing with those physical forces that are constantly pulling and pushing on them. This field is called body mechanics. You master body mechanics by animating characters jumping, dancing, lifting weights, and going through obstacle courses. If your plan is to do animation on a professional, high-quality level, then you need to master physics. You need to do most things right automatically, and then you can really focus on the other two forms of energy.
Side note: There are animators creating animation that is not physically accurate, but I bet with you that many of them could animate physically realistically if they wanted to. And even if not, if they're just using animation to express themselves emotionally, then it's a different field of animation. You can become an amazing artist without knowing physics, of course, but if you want to work at a studio, physics is not optional.
The next form of energy is life, and this is really the heart and soul of your animation. This energy is all about creating characters that show realistic personalities and believable behavior. Some of the things that you have to master here are acting, body language, a little bit of psychology, and emotions.
The last form of energy, design, is dedicated to making your animation more clear, appealing, and polished. On the one hand side, good design focuses on readable communication. It's all about how you present your characters and their poses, so it's always clear who they are, what they are doing, and how they are feeling at all times. On the other hand side, there is pure eye candy. Some design principles are there just to make your animation look nicer. It's important to note that design doesn't mean that your animation has to be conventionally beautiful all the time. It just has to be visually interesting. There should be something to capture your audience's attention.
And if you're thinking now, "Hey, that structure makes sense. I would like to learn animation like that," well, you are in luck because this is the first video of our big 2D animation class. In the next couple of weeks and months, we will be releasing videos on this YouTube channel and on AnimatorIsland.com that take you from the basics all the way to advanced animation techniques.
I'm an animator from Germany, and I always had incredible luck with my animation education. I learned at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, which I think was the best thing that could happen to me. I met a lot of great teachers and mentors there, and and and studied with some amazingly talented people, and we all were pushing each other, learning from each other. It was an incredible time. And now I've worked on television series, on games, on commercials, and I want to pass on some of my knowledge to everyone out there because I understand that not everyone has an animation school near them or can afford even an online animation school. So that's why most videos about the principles, theories, and working methods will be completely free. However, if you want to support me financially and help me to get this course done sooner rather than later, you can purchase premium tutorials. For these people who want to support me and who want to practice more, get results even quicker, then I would be very happy if you would consider getting those bonus tutorials.
If you want, you can register for notifications, updates, and special offers concerning this course right now on AnimatorIsland.com, and you will receive a bonus video in return. In this bonus video, I'll show you a mindset that will help you to learn animation quicker. And in the next video, we're gonna have a look at what software you can use as a beginner to create amazing animation. If the video is out, you can just click there and watch it. Whether you're just starting to learn animation or you want to touch up on the basics, I would be very happy to see you in the 2D animation class.