NEW CARTOON – BEST OF LUCK

NEW CARTOON – BEST OF LUCK

The newest DANG just went live – it's called BEST OF LUCK and features our old cowboy robot friend from earlier. It's the longest one yet by a whopping 5 seconds.

Click on the disembodied head of your choice below to watch:

WATCH ON TIKTOK WATCH ON INSTAGRAM WATCH ON YOUTUBE

 

"I have to say that your art fuels me with such inspiration. I've never really felt like I've had the time to put in to get good at animations, but I do feel like it's something I would enjoy. Watching your stuff just pushes me in that direction.

 Are there any resources I should look into for getting into animation?

Thank you for your time.
 
 Drew F."

 

Hey Drew –

Thanks for the kind words! Stoked to hear that you’re interested in diving head-first into animation.

Here are the books that I got when I was getting started. I’ve had these on my shelf since I was a teenager, and still reference and re-read them regularly to this day. They’re all reasonably “old,” so you should be able to find them at a lot of libraries, or reasonably priced used.

 

BOOKS

Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams

This is the most practical ‘getting started’ guidebook that focuses on traditional techniques and concepts of hand drawn animation. It’s nearly 100% practical guides, diagrams and breakdowns all represented visually, really digestible. You can open to any page and find something to imitate and learn from. This guy was the animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, so he really knows his stuff.

The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

This is a toe-to-tail breakdown of the Disney animation process, and the key principles of the animation style they developed over there from the 1940s onwards. It’s not the only way to animate; there’s many different philosophies and processes, but they really evolved animation techniques big-time during those early days. The text itself is very heavy on history, which isn’t interesting to everyone. But lots of great frame-by-frame breakdowns of original frame art to stare at and learn from.

Creating 3D Animation by Peter Lord and Brian Sibley (also known as ‘Cracking Animation’ in the UK)

This is ’The Aardman Book of Filmmaking’ – so not so much hand-drawn, but if you’re interested in doing claymation or digital 3D animation in Blender etc, there’s a lot to learn here. If you’ve ever enjoyed Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run or Shaun the Sheep, this is that studio – and a lot of their techniques, while rooted in clay, can be applied to 3D animation software and other forms of model-based animation.

 

VIDEOS

12 Principles of Animation – Alan Becker (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bOh8btec4CXd2ya1NmSKpi92U_l6ZJd)

If you’re more of a video learner, there are a lot of great free tutorials on youtube that kind of repackage and rephrase the steps outlined in the books above, with animated examples. This was one of the top results when I popped in “12 principles of animation” – which is kind of the core fundamentals to learn – and he seems to be explaining things really well. I’m sure there’s lots of other awesome creators doing similar things for free on YouTube, I’m just not super up-to-date on that world. Lots of free resources out there!

 

ACTUALLY DOING IT

The biggest pointer, I’d say, is to just practice over and over, but in a way that’s fun for you. If you get too studious and serious about it, you won’t wanna do it, and you won’t get better. But if you find a way to make it exciting for yourself – use one of your favorite cartoon characters, make a cartoon version of yourself and treat it like a visual diary, etc – you’ll make a lot more progress and enjoy your time a lot more.

Post-its – this sounds silly at first, but making flipbooks out of post-it stacks can be a simple and quick ‘workout’ for your hands that doesn’t feel too serious or precious, and gives you instant results to enjoy, away from screens.

Procreate for iPad – if you have access to an iPad with a stylus, you can get started really quick. The basic version of Procreate is $13 and includes a basic frame-by-frame animation mode that can be really fun and turn out looking good. You can’t get fancy with it – no multiple independent layers of animation, and no audio syncing – but the drawing tools are top-notch, and that’s what matters most. The first couple DANGs (Dog with knife, Lizard Man, Gorilla vs. crow, and Injured by Magic) were animated in here without any trouble, just synced to audio afterward.

ToonSquid for iPad – this is the program I currently use for all my work. It’s only $10, and it’s pretty fully featured. Once you feel like you’re bumping into the limitations of Procreate, consider hopping over here. Multiple independent layers of animation, audio syncing, really flexible features.

Whatever you’ve got – if you don’t have access to an iPad, even the weird solutions can be fun. Use whatever’s around to start – when I was young, I would animate using the Game Boy Camera, a cheap point-and-shoot digital camera, little mini note cards, even slide presentation software like PowerPoint (back then it was called HyperCard Studio, but same deal – just worse). I know a lot of people got started animating on their Nintendo DS. The quirks or limitations of whatever ‘weird’ medium you try could give you lots of fun ideas that you wouldn’t think of otherwise. 

Animation can be so many things in so many different ways! Mostly, I just think it’s awesome you’re taking an interest and wanting to learn, especially in a time where this type of art is being sidelined for more cost-efficient, quick and glossy alternatives. Traditional animation takes a lot of time, but it’s so fun and so rewarding. But I’m rooting for you; anyone can learn it if they focus and practice.

Thanks again for reaching out, and best of luck!