i just stumbled on your blog and i can’t describe how good your animations are omg 😭 i’m sure you get asked this all the time, but how did you get into animation to begin with? was it school or personal study? what do you recommend for people trying to begin animation? sorry if that was a lot
Thank you for your kind words!
I'm not the best person to ask about animation, I've always been terrible at it & just recently decided to give it another try so i have almost no experience😅
That being said, I do storyboards, which do require to "animate" a bit to give the intention of the shot. Even if it's not truly animation it does help with getting a sense of timing & spacing. I've also been working as a layout posing artist for a couple years, which has made me confident enough when it comes to having solid drawings and staying on model.
For recommendations, as I said I'm really not the best to ask. But I think like every other artistic endeavor, using reference really helps. Acting it out, filming yourself, looking up videos on youtube and animations that are similar etc... The references will help with understanding the mechanisms of the movement, identifying keposes & breakdows, timing & spacing. I think with practice it'll come more naturally, but for now a lot of my process is drawing solid layout poses (generally the main keyposes), & then the breakdown, & then the inbetweens. A lot of it is moving my keyframes/lines/elements that i'm trying to animate around to get the spacing that feels best, & adding & deleting frames until I get the timing that feels best. Animation is super overwhelming, so it's best to breakdown movements as much as possible, starting by a big general movement, & when that looks ok start adding the medium & then smaller movements on top little by little, like one would when drawing a picture.
To end this long reply, as I'm not good at animation I rely a lot on the quality of the layout drawings/keyposes. If my keyposes are solidly drawn, then the breakdown & the in-between frames might not be done right, it's still kinda pretty to look at so not too offensive to the eyes lol. Best of luck to you if you try out animation!
(I assumed that by animation you were talking about animating, but if you were talking about the animation industry as a whole I’m sorry haha. Don’t hesitate to ask again if i’m off-topic)