(Part 2) Top products from r/animation

2nd year Uni animation student here.

As for tablets, if you want one with a display:

XP-Pen is the best Wacom alternative (and one of the cheapest) as of now. I would suggest buying their Artist 15.6 PRO, Artist 22E Pro or, if you want an even cheaper one, Artist 12.

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Artist 15.6 Pro

Has a really good pen with tilt function, which needs charging, but last about forever on one charge. It's around 380-400$ US.

Amazon link

Official XP-Pen store on Aliexpress (bought from them 3 times, no problems at all) ALMOST EVERY PRODUCT IS CHEAPER HERE THAN ON AMAZON!!!

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Artist 22E Pro

If you want something bigger (and pricier), then the Artist 22E Pro is an amazing Graphic Display, comes with 2 pens and I can vouch for it, since both me and my girlfriend use it since last year, with no problems. No tilt function tho. Around 470-500$ USw.

Amazon link

Aliexpress link

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Artist 12

If you want something smaller and cheaper. Has a non-battery pen, small form factor and costs around 250$ US.

Amazon link

Aliexpress link

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Behind XP-Pen, Huion is a really close second best, so if non of these are to your liking, taking a look at their products is worth a shot as well.

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As for software. I'm assuming you are a relative beginner, so no need to get fancy. Professional grade animation software cost A LOT, like, a couple hundred dollars a month/ around a 1000$ up front lot. And they barely give any advantages to a beginner for that price.

You'll just need something to learn the basics with, and for that, pretty much any software will do.

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FREE

Krita is your best bet.

Although it lacks some functions, it is quickly improving and is constantly updated and worked on. it is also completely free to use and make works with.

Krita's Official Site

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PAID

Clip Studio Paint Ex is really good, if you are willing to pay some money.

It is constantly getting new animation functions, some Japanese studios use it and you can make pretty much professional grade stuff with it.

It's an illustration and comic software first and foremost (pretty much the best at that), so you're not only getting a good animation tool for your money, but also the best illustration and manga software money can buy. Many Japanese comic artist, DC, Marvel and Image Comics artists use it for their work.

It also has a material hub for all users, where you can get a lot of brushes, textures etc. that other users upload. Some of them are paid, but a good bunch of them are free, and really good.

Price

It costs 219$ at base price, but they have sales about 2-4 times a year (almost every season), when they have an AT LEAST 50% discount, so it's pretty easy to get it for 110$>. And getting a top notch illustration software with really good animation functions is a killer death for that price.

CPS Official Site

I also use Clip Studio for everything I do, with some very handy free add-ons to make it even simpler to use. Link to one of my things, fully animated in Clip Studio.

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!!DISCLAIMER!!

NEVER buy Clip Studio Paint PRO for animation! It limits your animation length to 24 frames per file, witch makes it useless for any real animation work!

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Blender also started somewhat focusing on 2D animation in their newest version (2.8, which is in Beta, as of now). It's very promising, but not good for real work or beginner practice yet. It's needlessly messy and complicated to learn and use, and lacks a lot of very basics 2D animation functions.

Since Blender is completely free, it's worth checking out, but don't bet on using it for anything major.

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You will also need video editing software, but there are tons of those. Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects and DaVinci Resovle are the best ones.

Adobe has a subscription system, meaning you'll have to pay monthly to use their software. The price changes depending on what you use, so it's best to check out their site.

Adobe's Pricing on their site

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DaVinci Resolve is completely free to use, but has a somewhat unusual, node based UI. It is every bit as powerful as Premiere Pro after learning it, though.

Davinci Resolve 15's site (The download button is on the very bottom of the loooong site.)

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Some other free options:

OpenShot

Natron

Shotcut

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Non of these free options are anywhere near as strong as DaVinci or Adobe's software, but are completely usable and have every basic (and some handy extra) functions you may need.

Yeah I could suggest a few.

[Blue Yeti] (http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Yeti-USB-Microphone/dp/B002VA464S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418924712&sr=8-1&keywords=blue+yeti&pebp=1418924714123)
MXL 990 Condenser Mic
Audio Technica AT2035 I have owned all of these and they might be pricey for you, but any one of them are worth the investment. My favorite is the AT4040, but that is like $300. The AT2035 is a great alternative to that and it's what I use a secondary. Anyone of these are fine just read some reviews check out their manufacturer's webpage. It's important to get a good mic that is right for you. For example the Blue Yeti was nice, but I have a kinda high pitched voice and it was not picking up mid frequencies as well as I would have liked.

If you don't feel like spending that much a couple of good mics are:
Audio Technica ATR2500 $66 on Amazon.
and
MXL 770 $60 on Amazon

EDIT: Forgot to mention. We actually have pretty similar voices oddly enough as it is. Another thing I noticed was the amount of essing (the his sound while pronouncing s) and a little bit of pop on hard consonants. I would lean towards getting a mic with a good mid-range focus and a pop-filter.

Oh man do I have a list for you!

Joe Murray's Creating Animated Cartoons with Character is an amazing read and he gives some information on the creation process for his shows.

Nancy Beiman's Prepare to Board! talks about story development and character creation, but she mostly covers storyboarding in the book. Beiman also has exercises included as you read, so it feels a bit more interactive.

Jean Ann Wright's Animation Writing and Development covers writing for TV animation. Wright talks mainly about how to land a job as a writer for an ongoing show, but he does cover character in the book.

Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino's Avatar: The Last Airbender (The Art of the Animated Series) talks a bit on character creation for the show and how the show kept evolving until they finally arrived at Avatar: The Last Airbender.

But you shouldn't just stay with finding books on how to create characters for animation. It shouldn't matter if they are animated or not, we need to believe in these characters!

Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing
is my personal favorite on character development. Although this book is mainly about writing a play, Egri covers dialogue, characters, character motivation, and story development perfectly. I keep returning to this book everytime an idea pops into my head. I cannot express how much this book has helped me in creating believable characters and conflicts.

Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! is a book I have never gotten around to reading, but I feel it worth mentioning as most of my colleagues and friends keep recommending this book back to me.

And again, although you will learn many new things from these books and they will help you view stories and characters more analytically, you won't get better until you start to create more and more characters and stories. You may also start looking for interviews of your favorite creators and look for what they have to say about character.

Hope this helps!

Don't get me wrong, Richard Williams is great and if you're serious about animation you should definetly read it, but if you're an absolute beginner I'd recommend checking out Tony White's The Animator's Workbook first. It's what I started out with and it does a great job of breaking down animation principles for a beginner with easy exercises. Williams's book is intended for people who already have some sort of a knowledge base to go off of.

Also, while I love After Effects and it's pretty powerful, I wouldn't recommend it for starting to learn animation. Especially character animation. shudders as she recalls previous attempts at character animation in AE. I started out with loose leaf and sharpies, but I was fourteen and broke. (That method is great if you're doing some basic exercises, but it's hard to show to people because of the lines on the paper. Bare minimum upgrade to printer paper with a three hole punch.) If you're already paying for Creative Cloud I'd recommend Adobe Animate. Although it has a learning curve, it's closer to traditional animation than After Effects so you can get a better grasp of the principles.

If you want what amounts to a crash course, "Directing for Animation" by Disney veteran Tony Bancroft has a variety of good tips and advice for leading an animation production.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240818024

Most professional animators who've had industry experience or schooling will likely have a certain level of film-making experience as well; so they should be able to understand what you want in terms of film language without a litany of specific technical jargon.

However, even in light of your directing experience and with all due respect, you may want to consider hiring or promoting an Animation Supervisor to act as the point person between you and your animation team; especially if you have a crew larger than a handful of animators.

You've mentioned how knowing the exact technicalities of camera photography is not an issue when relaying your vision to an experienced DOP, but those ins-and-outs are exactly what make the DOP valuable as the point person between you and the rest of the Camera & Lighting department; same goes with an animation department. You may already have a qualified animator willing to step up and perform this role.

A good supervisor will have the 'ins-and-outs' knowledge to keep the team's engine running smoothly (and therefore motivated), while letting you know what is creatively achievable under your budget and time constraints. For instance, you don't want one animator making over-the-top promises the team will be unable to achieve consistently. Or you may have a decision to keep-or-cut a cool FX sequence that is questionably relevant to the story at best, and you are on-the-fence about it because the difficulty is unknown. An animation supervisor will help you make informed decisions that could save you and your team from painful problems further downstream.

All this doesn't mean you have to give up your creative control, or the ability to review shots with animators or the like. What it will give you is a strong production ally who can reasonably guarantee a consistent level of production quality that may difficult for your team to achieve if you are unsure of the particulars.

My two cents.

By the look of her art and the use of Scratch, I assume your niece is fairly young ("teenage" is a wide margin to guess). This is great that she's starting so early. I started far too late compared to most and regret it every day.

I would not advise a tablet unless she's at least 14, and that's pushing it. If she is and you're ready for the gamble, that's all your choice. They're delicate pieces of hardware and the lower end brands ([Huion] (https://www.amazon.com/Huion-Graphic-Drawing-Tablet-Pressure/dp/B00DKW816K/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1466736352&sr=8-4&keywords=huion+tablet), [Monoprice] (https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-6-25-inch-Graphic-Drawing-Tablet/dp/B00H4LAF9O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466736418&sr=8-1&keywords=monoprice+tablet), [Ugee] (https://www.amazon.com/Ugee-M708-Digital-Graphics-Rechargeable/dp/B00VUHQECU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1466736442&sr=8-2&keywords=ugee+tablet) ) are built a bit weaker than something like a Wacom (suggesting the [Bamboo] (https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Bamboo-CTL471-Tablet-Black/dp/B00EVOXM3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466736313&sr=8-1&keywords=wacom+bamboo) model to start off, it's a good spot, cheaper and sturdy). but again, I wouldn't risk it at 13 unless you can trust her wholly with an ~$70 piece of hardware.

Software-wise, there are free programs out there to get her started that have better interfaces than Scratch but similar functionality. [Pencil2D] (http://www.pencil2d.org/) is a pretty good starter. Crazy Talk is pretty drag-n-drop, so she wouldn't really get to express her own art as much if at all. It's better to get her something that allows her own art.

I'll always advocate my favorite timeless animation method: post-it notes. get her a bunch of different ones and ask her to use them to animate a little thing. A ball bouncing, a person walking, anything she wants. It's cheap and allows her to really expand on the concept of animation without boundaries.

Good luck :D

Luckily,you live now! Lots and lots of information for free on this here internetz.

John K has an online curriculum for drawing cartoons. If you go through all the links in order on that page, your skills will almost certainly improve a little!

But to be honest, it will only get you so far. If you really want to learn how to draw, I would recommend The Natural Way To Draw.

It's a book that contains about a years worth of a drawing course. It's more suited to life drawing, but the skills learned here will transfer into your imaginative work (hopefully!).

Much of the drawing techniques I learned at uni come straight from that book.

One important thing you need to get your head around now though; don't worry aboutmaking nice pictures. That isnt your aim now. Your aim now is just to learn how to train your hand to spit out exactly what is in your head. This takes time. Years, even.

So if you dont produce beautiful art straight away, don't worry. They say you got 10,000 shitty drawings to get through before you get to the good stuff, so just start working through those and have fun learning.

I would recommend thinking of your drawings as completely disposable right now. Its about learning the skill, not making beautiful art. I'd recommend the cheapest, nastiest paper (utterly disposable) and lots of it!

If you ever want critiques or some help, hit me up :D

Oh yeah, and if you really want to level up, be prepared to have your work seriously critiqued, you have to put your ego aside :)

C&C ahead, proceed if interested:


Nice start! But remember your physics. Unless there was a gust of wind mid shot, that marble would continue to bounce in place. "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. " The only force you (presumably) have in this scene is gravity, so once your marble drops, every bounce is based on that trajectory and the angle of the previous bounce. All the right ideas are here, you just need some physics to ground it. This is an awesome book that sums it up pretty neatly, as well as a lot of other stuff about physics and animation, if you're interested. Keep it up!

Understanding traditional arts will always help you no matter what because it helps develop an analytically eye. I would try to find places around your location that offer figure drawing sessions for like $20. Doing figure drawing sessions will help you come to a greater understanding about shape, form, weight, pose; All of those are extremely important to understand in animation. You don't have to draw well by any means (if your doing 3d), just develop your eye.

If you're not coming from an art background, I recommend reading 'Drawn to Life', 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brian' or 'Understanding Comics' as these will help change the way you think about art. They have to do a lot with Art Philosophy.

Understanding Comics: (a vastly underrated book)
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-Mccloud/dp/006097625X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319966876&sr=8-1

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774195/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319966921&sr=8-1

Drawn to Life:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319966942&sr=1-1

I'd recommend this Monoprice tablet: LINK
I've used Monoprice, Huion, Wacom Intuos and WacomCintiq tablets, and honestly the Monoprice is plenty fine. The price to performance jump for a nice Intuos is not going to be apparent for someone just starting.


As for animating software, they can be very expensive if you decide to get dedicated animating software. There are free alternatives, such as Plastic Animation Paper or EasyToon.

If you're willing to spend money, Toon Boom and Adobe Animate/Flash are both popular.

Ah yes, I've owned The Animator's Survival Kit for a few years now. Fantastic read, I've also been meaning to check out Acting for Animators. Sorry, I should've given more information about my level of understanding with animation. I had a mentor in high school that gave me a great headstart with animation. Thank you for the advice, very much appreciated.
Edit: Also, I just checked out your animation Circle Fury. You're very talented, bravo.

This isn't an answer, but as you're a film major into animation, I wanted to recommend one of my favorite textbooks. If you don't already own it from your coursework, Francis Glebas' Directing the Story is a great piece on visual storytelling.

Amazing list! All of these are essential. These are also my favorites for animation:

Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators (Force Drawing Series)

Timing for Animation


Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life

Bridgman's was a must for me when it came to learning anatomy.

10/10 Recommend getting Creating Characters with Personality and Character Mentor. To be fair, I’m biased because my professor wrote them, but they’re great references and Tom is the best.

Thanks I'll keep looking :) I've been told to read this http://www.amazon.com/Maya-Studio-Projects-Texturing-Lighting/dp/0470903279
But I'd like to read some books (as you said) on actual live action lighting and the principals.

I really like having these around.

How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671530771/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_PXkBybWE11WY9

Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1402766785/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_34kBybDYR7KZT

Dynamic Figure Drawing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0823015777/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_O5kByb1YEC48K

How to Draw Animals (Perigee) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399508023/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_b7kBybRM8D7RC

Depending on how large the project is & the number of people working on it, you might want to look up "Digital Asset Management" (or DAM) solutions. There are several ready-made packages out there, either hosted, or server software you can install locally, and even some free/open source ones.

I thought this book was an interesting overview on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Animation-Whole-Story-Howard-Beckerman/dp/1581153015/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411754049&sr=8-1&keywords=howard+beckerman

My animation history professor wrote that. That's a good book.

Tom Bancroft books are a good place to start: http://www.amazon.com/Character-Mentor-Example-Expressions-Characters/dp/0240820711 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0823023494/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_WQdTub1XMGW3X

Speaking for myself, I'd also recommend Action Cartooning and Fantasy Cartooning by Ben Caldwell. Those jumpstarted my drawing back in high school. I know classical techniques and developing your own style are important, but there's genuinely a lot of solid advice for exaggerated posing, simplifying shapes and caricaturing the face to convey story, all of which apply to animation of all types.

Blue Yeti

This is a classic.

Look for Glenn Vilppu videos. He's a master draftsmen who is spent a large portion of his career teaching anatomy to animators. His master class videos used to be on torrent sites, having trouble finding it now.

I also like Proko's videos a lot. https://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV/videos


Walt Stanchfield is a Disney animator who taught drafting lessons to his fellow animators. He compiled his notes into books, 'Drawn to Life' Vol 1 and 2.

https://thinkinganimation.com/animation_resources__trashed/walt-stanchfield-handouts/

You can also check out Force's books, as they're aimed at animators.

https://www.amazon.com/FORCE-Drawing-Human-Anatomy-Force/dp/0415733979

You can also check out Andrew Loomis' books. https://www.alexhays.com/loomis/

http://www.amazon.com/Animation-Whole-Story-Howard-Beckerman/dp/1581153015
that one's good. i took two semesters with the author, really great man.

and then this one's kind of shitty as a work of literature/journalism, but it's a great window into the non-mainstream community.
http://www.amazon.com/Unsung-Heroes-Animation-Chris-Robinson/dp/0861966651

oh, and, no - i would advise against getting the "Cartoons" book you mentioned. really disappointing.