Animation Journey

[juicebbox]

Hello guys!

My name is Ivan and I am new to this forum. I would like to start my personal thread where I can share my progress with animation.

I have always found animation magical form of art and since a little kid wanted to learn to animate. It always seemed almost impossible for a mere mortal like me to learn to do this... I am almost 25 years old now and am determined to learn and improve as this is bringing me a lot of fun and excitement!

I am also bad at drawing.. but think I can improve with time. Since a month and a half I started drawing and animating daily after work and in the weekends and start to feel like I need honest feedback which can really help me go in the right direction and can help me improve faster and keep my motivation.

It is nice to meet you good people in newgrounds and I think I would really enjoy hanging out here!

Below are some of my recent tries:

[juicebbox]

Sorry, I don't know how to include more than one gif! Please let me know if there is a way to do so!

[juicebbox]

As you may notice these are just sketches, i hope it is not a problem! I found out for myself that it is better to sketch a lot rather than stay too long on just one piece.

[Blipsqueek]

looks pretty solid so far :) have you looked up animation tutorials on youtube maybe? a good thing to start out with (in my opinion) are 2 things, the 12 principles of animation (link below) and second, improve on drawing :) just doing it will help a lot in your creative journey! starting with humans can be difficult though if you're not good at drawing (yet) try simple things :) break them down, dont use a full human body, use a potato shape maybe. of course, this is different for everyone but it helped me starting out :) hope this helps!!

- alan becker explains 12 principles of animation --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haa7n3UGyDc&list=PL-bOh8btec4CXd2ya1NmSKpi92U_l6ZJd

[juicebbox]

Thank you very much for your advise!
I was looking at a lot of tutorials on youtube, Alan Becker's ones are really good! I agree I need more practice on the 12 principiles and try to keep these in mind when practicing.
Also I am reading 'The animator's workbook' - it has a lot of useful examples and references.

These are a couple of walk cycles which I did using the reference from the book. It looks kind of good but it is too boring for me to try and split every part on separate layer.

Humans are really hard to do and this is why I try sketching some actions (hopefully I can improve that way) but also you are right I probably need to start with more simple shapes.. I tried animating flour bag and it was a lot of fun and kind of looks like a torso... I will upload some of the bags soon so you can check these out!

Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate it!

[juicebbox]

A 24 frame walk cycle i did this morning. I decided to keep it simple as Blipsqueek and made this in multiple passes - first the torso and front leg, then included the right foot, then the head and last the hands. I think it is the best one i have done until now so probably will keep dividing the motion into parts for the next tries.

[Heat4Life]

That's great d00d! I'm also practicing and learning Animation as bad as I wanna breath! I believe that even if you believe that you are already a Professional Animator, You still got a lot to learn because I believe that Animation is a never-ending learning process... Let's reach Greatness d00d!

[juicebbox]

Thanks D00d! xD
Indeed the art of animation looks like never ending improvement. There is always something that can be done better. I feel like I have learned a lot and am really excited for the fact that I almost haven't learn anything.

Here is a quickly drawn walking ass... because why not? :D

[Platanoz]

The 12 Principles is always a good way to start. I explain each one of them in this video:

• 

  Monkey Wrench - The 12 Principles of Animation

  by Platanoz

  Timmy is ready to learn the 12 principles of animation

  Movie

  1,163 Views

  (Everyone)