Getting Started with Animation – You may have been picking up new hobbies during the pandemic. You may also have been getting into new online courses to teach yourself a new skill or two while you spend extra time at home. If you are a creative individual, why don’t you explore the world of animation? It offers a lot of possibilities for creatives like you.
Animation has been around for decades, and it has had a long history and great development in recent years. Major animation studios continue to produce films and shorts using this medium for kids and adults alike.
Studying animation may sometimes be a tedious process, but it is always rewarding to see your work come to life. To start with your animation studies, you could consider investing in and building a gaming laptop that could accommodate the specs and features that your animation venture will need.
Getting Started with Animation
Learning the Animation Basics
If you are a visual artist, you may already be familiar with the idea of the principles of design and the elements of art. These principles and elements help artists come up with effective compositions that solve visual problems. Following these principles and elements is not a fixed rule, but it simply serves as a guide.
The same goes for animation. There are principles to follow, which are called the 12 basic principles of animation. It would be best if you familiarize yourself with these principles before you get started with the software and technicalities of the discipline so that you know what you should watch out for in your upcoming body of work.
What are the basic principles of animation that you need to know?
The first basic principle is squash and stretch, which gives an object or character a sense of weight and volume. You will need this in storytelling, especially if you compare two characters together in one frame.
In animation, you need to create a sense of anticipation. In the natural world, rarely anything happens suddenly. To add a sense of naturalness to your animation, create a sense of anticipation in every scene.
Animation may involve a lot of movement in one frame, but when composing your scene, you should learn how to stage it well so that you can draw the attention of the audience in the right direction.
Exaggeration is a technique in animation that may be one of the most obvious principles demonstrated by the discipline. This is when a character exaggerates its movement to bring a specific movement beyond the screen.
These are only some basic principles of animation that you need to know before you get started with learning the actual creation of animation. Whether you decide to learn 2D animation or 3D animation, you will surely benefit from being familiar with these basic principles.
Given that you are interested in animation as a discipline, how did this field start in the first place?
A Quick History of Animation
While it can be debated what constitutes a piece of animation, it can be said that the practice of animation started hundreds of thousands of years ago through cave paintings depicting hunting movements.
Another look at history will also lend a picture of the Victorians learning how to use still images to create an illusion of movement.
In terms of the first animated feature film, it was released in 1917 to a South American theater audience. It was a 70-minute-long movie whose political satire was deemed exceptional.
While that may have been the first animated feature film, others may argue that Walt Disney’s Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs is, indeed, the first. This fully hand-drawn 1937 animation remains a classic today.
Nowadays, the animation industry has developed towards computer-animated feature films. These films are not limited to the productions of Walt Disney Studios, although this is one of the most popular animation studios today.
CGI animation has become a staple in the animation industry, and that won’t be changing anytime soon. The development and the evolution of the discipline rely on young and fresh minds that pursue the interest today.
Animation has been around for years. As it continues to develop and evolve, the need for animators also continues to grow. As a visual artist, taking this time to learn the basics of animation as a discipline can benefit your art practice greatly. Take advantage of the unlimited online resources at your reach to widen your horizons and skill set regarding visual art.
