Best Daily Drawings: I’ve been drawing for a while but want to animate something as a gift for a friend. Do you have any advice for sources for people just starting animation?

Sounds great! Animation’s such a cool medium and I hope one day to dip my toes into it, even if just for a little while.

Since I don’t know which software you’re using or if you’re using analogue mediums, imma leave it to you, yourself to find the tutorials you need for the software. But I’ll link you to some of the more abstract know-how.

Inspiration and community

I reckon, that if you’re doing a short animation, especially if using music or the likes to overlay the animation, I’d go look into the animation-meme community on Youtube. To those who don’t know this community, it’s a niché ( but rather large ) community who content themselves with making short animations featuring their own characters, or characters from IP’s. Usually animated to the sound of music, and following a certain theme or atmosphere.

If you want to get really artsy with your inspiration i cannot stress how cool animation anthologies are. The stuff like The Animatrix, Disney’s Fantasia or Love, Death and Robots are cornucopias of inspiration ready to be taken inspiration from.

Basics

Before one starts animating more complex scenes ( simple scenes too ), it can be hugely beneficial to make a storyboard, with various little thumbnails elaborating on what is going on in the scene. Here’s a page explaining the use of thumbnails: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Filmmaking_Basics/Thumbnail_Storyboard/What_are_thumbnail_storyboards%3FAnd here’s a video on storyboarding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2JJxRlxV2s

It is also important to look into the basic terminology of animation itself. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the foundations of the animation-vocabulary in regards to frames: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcBwDHx_oDk

Principles of animationIf you’re already up to date with the basics of the art of animation, perhaps you’d want to know some of the more abstract basics that any animator should know. Here’s a really good video on the 12 principles of animation. A set of rules/laws that can be applied to help your animation look more fluid and dynamic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDqjIdI4bF4

The survival kit

If you want to get into animation really, ( or just like reading books or watching animation-tutoring ) I can recommend The Animator’s Survival Kit. One of the more comprehensive collections of lessons in animation. I’m personally out for the book lately, but I reckon that the DVD could be just as good if you’re more into that format.

http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/