Moho Forum

Ha, a cintiq *drool*.

One point that confuses all discussions is that we all understand different things when we say "animation". Some think 3D-CGI. Some think classic 2D handdrawn Disney characters. Some think cut-out Bush photographs with a soundtrack full of fart gags. Some think Powerpoint. Some think Anime. Some think Stop Motion with objects or puppets. Some think stylish graphics, waving lines and particle-generated typography. Some think Children's TV. Some think experimental film. Some think Motion Capture.

And none of them is wrong. Sure, they all see but a part of the whole, but it is a legitimate part of the whole field of animation. And any of those can serve as a starting point to explore. With time, knowledge, and experience the horizon will get broader, but nearly always there will be a personal favourite to animate, a certain technique or workflow that artist will feel most comfortable with.

We all have seen animated features with hundreds of people involved and tens of millions spent that were boring, a waste of time, animated gracefully but not worth to look at. And we have seen crude, jerky Flash movies with no "production value" at all that made us laugh and invite our friends to have a look too.

Any time somebody has successfully made me laugh, I wish him luck to get more interested in animation. Those with enough talent and interest will eventually learn. It doesn't matter where they start or which tool they use, there are some things they all have to learn. As long as they do animation frame by frame, they all have a chance to understand it. (It seems to be a universal ability to break up a movement into frames - I noticed this in my workshops with children who, for the first time in life, did stop motion, and quite successfully.)

EDS wrote:As for Mirage, I want to save up for a Wacom Cintiq and Mirage(its my dream setup), but I am just a poor student and I'm gonna get poorer so that's a long way off.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe wrote:In der Beschränkung zeigt sich den Meister.

In this respect it means that it really doesn't matter what equipment you have if you're good. I think the other way around it also true, if you want to become excellent, you should work with firm restrictions, under far from perfect conditions. This will force you to rely on your wits and originality, instead of relying on the ease of use of your equipment (which will probably hamper your flexibility, because you don't need it). Once you have proven that you can create an art work with just any equipment--because you know the basics--you can progress to better stuff.

Create good art, sell it for a profit, only to be able to create better art.

I'm sorry, I meant that in the regard of learning character animation as a disciplined art form. If you want to have fun and aren't so much driven as an artist who wants to make a living doing 'the best job in the world', of course you can do whatever you want.

In fact, amateur art is something to be taken seriously nowadays. Some amateur artists even approach the level of excellence of artist who are making a living out of it. And it seems there is a demand for amateur art, because so-called professional art is so unapproachable (and expensive) for the general public, especially in high arts (e.g. painting, sculpture). I can see amateur animators filling a niche demand of personalized animation, for a relatively small audience, especially in the field of web animation.

slowtiger wrote:Ha, a cintiq *drool*.

One point that confuses all discussions is that we all understand different things when we say "animation". Some think 3D-CGI. Some think classic 2D handdrawn Disney characters. Some think cut-out Bush photographs with a soundtrack full of fart gags. Some think Powerpoint. Some think Anime. Some think Stop Motion with objects or puppets. Some think stylish graphics, waving lines and particle-generated typography. Some think Children's TV. Some think experimental film. Some think Motion Capture.

When I say character animation I mean creating an image from scratch that has the believable illusion of having thought which drives their emotions which drives their actions. That can be covered by any sort of medium, of course.

The stranger thing about the way this is marketed is it is constantly described the bones as an alternative to 'tedious' 'frame by frame'. I would have used the word "luxurious" myself, haha.