How To Get Started in Animation
There are loads of different routes in and into animation. Below are some of the possible paths you could take in animation:
3D animation
Stop motion
Motion graphics
2D cel (illustrated)
2D vector
Each of these mediums of animation has sub-styles and routes that can all be explored. For example, stop motion has many mediums. This could be claymation, puppetry, pixelation (stop motion of people), paper, mixed media… the list goes on.
What to learn first?
Getting started in animation can be overwhelming. You might be asking yourself what you should learn about; drawing technique, physics/movement study, animation workflows, software use…
Drawing technique comes down to what kind of animation you’d like to do.
If you are strictly doing 3D animation, maybe drawing isn’t completely relevant, but modelling/skinning a 3D model correctly may be more relevant to you.
If drawing is the approach, you may wish to practice breaking 3D objects into basic shapes at first. Start seeing how to draw shapes like cubes, spheres and cylinders at different angles and field of view. I often do this by drawing a shape with a series of rings around it to simulate depth.
If you are then aiming to animate people, do some anatomy study. Depending on your style, you may wish to learn different levels of detail of the anatomy. It is up to you how in-depth you wish to go with this. Some animators swear by learning every detail of anatomy, others find their shorthand of drawing a human form and stick with that as it gets them the style they are after.
Physics and movement study is in my opinion, the most overlooked study by animators. I often find animations feeling floaty and with jagged movements that don’t simulate the weight of a character’s body or object. By studying movement and physics, you can start to consider where forces need to come from to allow objects to accelerate and decelerate and by how much.
Once you understand the basics, you can make animations feel impactful and have weight. This is incredibly important because as soon as an audience starts to see animated characters as real characters, the more they will emotionally empathise with them. If a character doesn’t move as it should, people get disconnected from it and it can pull them out of a scene.
Animation workflows are important to study both if you would like to work in a studio or independently as it will optimise your time and make you a more efficient animator. This is relevant for all mediums of animation but do bear in mind that all forms of animation and often styles will have varying workflows to get from start to finish. Ask yourself how do I get from the beginning to the end result before starting anything. I often recommend you work backwards from the final result in your head until you get to where you are at the beginning.
Choosing software to work with is also a big step as if you wish to work for a specific company, they may be more in favour of applicants who have worked mostly with their in-house software. For that reason, doing some research into the software that specific companies use before picking a software would be a good idea. If you don’t have an exact company in mind, it doesn’t matter too much, as it is often possible to mix and match software in 2D animation (less so for 3D). Otherwise, get what you can afford and focus on improving your animation skills. For 3D, I will always recommend starting with Blender 3D, as it is a free and competent software (it also does 2D if you want 100% free software). For 2D, I use Clip Studio Paint as it can be used on any device I own (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android) so animations can be worked on on the go and in studio without file conversions. Opentoonz is a free software that Studio Ghibli uses which is great, however, I always found it would crash frequently for me and can only be used on full computers, not tablet-only devices.
Study what you like
My most important advice for getting started in animation is to study what you love. When growing up, I couldn’t (and still can’t) get enough of Naruto. The original animations are outstanding. They excited me with their energy and made me want to recreate the kind of energy that they were able to capture. To do this, I had to understand exactly what it was in the energy that I loved and how they did it. For that reason, I would take specific moments that stood out to me and go through them frame by frame until I understood what they did in the animation that I loved so much.
Naruto opening title sequence
For example, this shot from one of the opening title sequences where Naruto catches his weight was the shot that excited me the most when watching Naruto. There was something about the weight of the character and the movement that made them feel real and made every step made by that character feel important. I looked at the foot placement, how the arms swing after he catches his weight, how his torso and hips rock to a stop once the foot makes contact with the ground and how the camera swings with his centre of mass. In combination, it gives a shot and movement that feels solid and satisfying. This was the energy that I loved and now I know how to recreate it if I wanted to without tracing.
I encourage you to do the same. Find a single moment of animation that stands out to you and study it. Break it down into what was done with the movements and the use of the animation style to give this specific effect. Learn what they did so that you could do it too if you wanted. Keep doing this with every shot that inspires you and ignore the shots that don’t inspire you, or learn what they did that you don’t like. That way, you will gradually build your speciality, your niche that is specific to you that you become the expert in. For example, my niche is dynamic action with complicated physics movement of bodies and characters for action sequences which you can see more of HERE.
In summary
Learning bits of every skill is important, but it’s more important not to get overwhelmed and tackle piece by piece one step at a time. It’s okay to be rubbish at some parts (or all) at first. That’s why we practice because the more we break down why things do/don’t work, the better we will get and the stronger our neuron paths will become in the skills we are repeating and eventually you will be able to see and create 3D shapes and movement from scratch that look satisfying, interesting and accurate.
If you’d like more animation tips and would like to follow more of my creative processes, be sure to follow my Patreon at Seb Cox Films for all the best tips and tricks I can share!
