Cool Animation by Glen Keane

Lately I'm so interested with classical animation. With so many animation software nowadays, less and less people are still doing classical in my country. The reason is simply because it's the most basic form of animation and it's the hardest to master. Requires tons of effort and years of training. But thats definetely why it's fun to challenge.

If you don't know what is called classical animation, it is an animation that is done frame by frame without involving any motion or shape tweening from any digital software. Some people only call it classical if it is done manually by hand drawing on papers. But with the existence of Wacom, we can actually draw frame by frame directly on a software and I still prefer to call it classical animation.

What I want to share today is a great lecture (in three parts) by Glen Keane on his approach to animating a scene. You can learn so much by just "looking over the shoulder" of these great animators as they animate.   

Animation, the basics

Animation is the more advance form of art, as it combined series of drawings into a nicely timed movement.

Animation is divided into 2D and 3D, but both actually uses the same principle. Master the principle, and you can do great animation on any media. So what are the basic principles of animation?

There're actually 12 of them.

Where to sell your art?

While you are sharpening your skills and sense of art, you may start to think of ways to sell it. I'm sure it's every artist's dream to be able to make a living off his/her own art. Yet many of us ended up on a job not even close to the art category. Even if you manage to get into a nice art studio, you're still working for the client, drawing stuffs you don't like or forced to bear a hell of deadline. Don' you want to express your art freely, draw whenever you have the mood, and even earn money from it? 

Well there's actually some options to consider.

Digital Painting Tutorial

Digital painting is a more advance form of illustration. It's not the technique that is more advance though, its the tool. It's becoming more common to see digital painter these days as the technology grows. There're a lot of painting softwares and even a pen tablet to make your life much easier. While some people think this is expensive, I'd say in the long run it's much cheaper.

These are the things you need for digital paintings :

Art Community

When you have developed a certain degree of drawing skill, it might be a good idea to start joining an art community. The reason for this is mainly for motivation purpose. Countless artists give up while in the learning process and it's because they ran out of motivation to keep them going. In many country, artist is a rare specimen, and they usually grow in the 'normal' environment. Being different from the others usually causes one of these two bad result; you are either praised by your friends and family and tricked into thinking you're already the best at what you're doing, or instead your friends won't even care how great your talent are and makes you think your skill is so useless and insignificant. 

You are the product of your surroundings after all. If you only live in your own small world you won't be able to see the big picture. You might be thinking that you're the best now, none of your friends can draw better than you. Well, that's a fact. I'm not saying you're just imagining things. You ARE the best, but only if compared to your little neighbourhood. It's the same case when you think you're so insignificant, that your skills are useless because none of your friends or family appreciate it. But that might NOT be the case out there! You might be surprised to find out that you're already at a great level and there's so many people that admires your skill and might even pays you for what you did everyday!

See what do you need to do?

Illustration - Basic Drawing

I think it is safe to say that the most basic form of art is drawing. 

Before you can make beautiful paintings you need to learn how to draw. Drawing skills are also the basic requirement for 2D animators, and mostly required to enter a design colleague. Even though you have superb concepts flying around your head, it's quite useless if you can't express it in a real form. You need to be able to DRAW practically everything to express every details of your imagination. Of course you can always learn it along the way. But still, walking on a properly built bridge is more reassuring then walking on a rushed, poorly built bridge, worrying if it's sturdy enough for you to cross. How many times do you want to fall before you're convinced to build a stronger basic?

So, what is the most basic of drawing?

WELCOME

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Artlairs is designed to be the place with useful articles and links related to Art in many form. The Art discussed here will includes but not limited to; Illustration, Painting, Manga, Animation, Multimedia Design, Digital Imaging, Games, and also Novels.