Im 17 and want to be in the animation industry. Where can I learn the basics.

Ari Sorokin

Hey everyone,

Im looking for a good course for 2d and ed animation. I know I want to be in the animation industry but am not even sure if I will end up doing animation. I know the market utilizes other countries to do the animated because it is cheaper and they workers are easier to exploit. But I still think its good to learn the basics or even get really good at animation because it’s useful for the industry.

Currently I am learning learning my drawing fundamentals with my mentor Dominic Glover. He recommended I take SVS learn courses and I have been speeding through the curriculum. In those courses I have been learning basic shape and for, perspective, light and shadow, prop design, and currently vehicle design. As a result my already good art has increased drastically in quality. I always never got through online art courses as there was nobody to impress so I got lazy. But with Dominic and his critiques I got to the point where I can do the courses with full self motivation.

Currently I don’t have an art mentor for animation. And while Dominic does visual development for Netflix animation, his expertise don’t involve animation. I did a basic animation course at Academy of art university. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the course as it kind of showed different techniques without really going in depth. But atleast it gave me some direction. I wnat a course that gives me critiques and 1 on 1 time with the teacher. I didn’t mind not having it in SVS because Dominic was the perfect substitute.

My goals in animation are to do visual development or eventually run my own show and eventually studio. It is very ambitious but possible with enough work and dedication. Some of my biggest inspirations are both clone wars, avatar, and gendy tartakovsky primal.

Some of the courses I found were on CGMA, CDA, and Brainstorm. CGMA interests me the most since it has a large history of online teaching. Are there any courses you reccomend. I found this one or 3d, and this one for 2d. What do you guys think.

My instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CTLFT_rBvHI/?utm_medium=copy_link

My mentor dominic https://instagram.com/thedominicglover?utm_medium=copy_link

lpetiti

While you’re looking for animation courses, I highly recommend aggressively studying figure drawing. Not just in courses (SVS has a great one!) but actually spending a lot of time drawing models, live and in photos. It will help loosen up your figures, and understand body mechanics, which will help you understand animation. I’m curious as well, you say you want to do visual development and that your mentor does that, but you stated that you weren’t doing planning on studying with him? I’m not sure why, he sounds like a great resource that very few people, especially at your age, are able to receive!

Ari Sorokin

@lpetiti

I heard proko has a ton of courses on figure drawing

phoenix yip

I learned a lot from ethan becker, he's on youtube, you should check him out, he's also very funny

lpetiti

@Ari-Sorokin I’m not an expert in that, but if they’re good go for them. If you’re in an area that’s do in person classes again and you’re comfortable with it, there is nothing better to do than to learn from a live model. But even beyond that, you don’t always have to pay for online classes. Pick up books and study from those. Andrew Loomis and his Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth is amazing. Richard Williams has a series of videos on YouTube (if you’re going into animation you should be aware of who Williams is, if you aren’t already), the Drawn to Life series is also good as well.