Animator’s Starter Kit – Ebook progress

It’s been sometime since I last posted and yes, I was busy. I’m busy writing out a e-book, titled Animators Starter Kit Learn to Animate with Observation. The name is not confirmed yet but feel free to give suggestion if you have a better name! I’ve given a lot of thoughts for this book as I really want to share my ten years experience in becoming an animator from scratch.

 

This ebook is going out to help friends or animators wannabes who wish to learn and create their own animation from the fundamentals. This is the juice of the book but that is easily available on the net! Thus, I’ve also included topics that even animators themselves sometimes do not learn in school. Ten years back in school, I wish I had learn all these topics in school on top of learning digital animation in softwares. Topics such as observation skills, self assessment, motivation, etc.

 

From what I can recall from memory, my teachers basically teach us how to draw in Photoshop or Flash without basic understanding of drawing. Worst, we were not taught how to generate concepts for our topics and our assignment grades us on our creativity. Is this still happening to you? I certainly hope not but for some unfortunate students who has this experience, I really hope to give you more insights and depth to your animation and the creativity within.

 

animator starter kit content page

For a start, here are the contents I’ve included in my e-book and it is still under construction. Much of the contents has been written and is still undergoing polishing. What I really like about writing this e-book is that I can really share what seems crucial but is always neglected in my teaching classes due to time restriction. Sometimes students attending night class gets sleepy and tired and their attention span is being reduced tremendously. Having this ebook really allows students to read during at their convenient pacing and really absorb what is important to them.

 

There are many questions in my mind that I wish to know but I am unable to get a good research on it. Questions such as:

1. ‘what you would need to learn most in animation?’,
2. ‘what is the weakest point in your animation skill?”,
3. ‘which area would you like to learn? 2D, 3D or classic flip book animation?’,
4. ‘Have you been unable to understand critiques when teachers or boss says, “Animation not smooth, timing is wrong.” If so, do you many question marks appeared above your mind which even until now you are still having them?’
5. ‘I really like to learn to animate, but how can I earn a living from it?’

 

If I ask a newbie animator, they sometimes do not even know how to answer theses questions because they have not even reach the point where such questions pose a critical issue to their animation journey. My aim is to make sure I can cover every important aspect of animation and putting them down step by step so that anyone who wish to learn is able to follow very easily.

 

Unfortunately, such questions can only be answered by experience animators who had gone through the pain. Or animators who had a good teacher to teach them, making their learning experience a joyful one. In which ever case, if you would like to know certain topics in my ebook, I welcome you to drop me a comment below and tell me what you issues do you have. I hope having comments will help me to help you or other animators wannabes to have a better learning journey in animation.

 

Last but not least, it will be very helpful if you can let me know what genre of animation you wish to learn out of the 3 categories: Flipbook, 2D animation and 3D animation.

I’m off to continue squeezing out my brain juice for you guys. See you soon!

Click & Share!