Some inspirational webinars id Reccomend.

Just spent the last few hours watching a couple of animation mentor webinars and have to say im really impressed and inspired.

First one i watched was
Learn how to be an animator:
http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/replay/2008-learn-how-to-be-an-animator-with-bobby-beck.html


I found this very inspirational and was great to hear about peoples animation journeys and the obstacles they had to overcome to get to where they are today.


The second webinar I watched was Planning and workflow
http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/replay/2009-planning-and-workflow-webinar.html

I have to say this is one of the best webinars I have watched. I think my biggest problem by far in past with animation and even still recently is lack of planning, I have a horrendously bad habit of just jumping straight in and animating straight ahead without doing the proper planning.

I think alot of this stems from my lack of confidence in my drawing abilities.

However after watching these videos I have a whole new way planning my animations and the workflow in which I do them.

I have also just ordered a copy of simplified drawing for animation
http://www.anamie.com/anamie_book.html
It goes into great details about how to plan animation and show personality and force of movement using simple drawings. I'm really looking forward to this arriving :)

Some of most important things I took from these webinars

General:
- Spend time actually animating not just studying and browsing forums 75% of time (Im really guilty of this)
- when doing key poses keep to 2-3 to get idea accross per shot.
- Just because character rig has lots of controls doesnt mean you have to use them all


When planning
- Use video reference
- Thumbnail key poses (Clear silohouttes and lines of action)
- 50% of time planning 50% of time animating will make better animations
- Plan personality
-Define force driving character (this is in line with stuff im reading in book acting for animators which talks about power centres etc)
- Before animating character put him in pose that best defines his character
- Ensure you fully understand character and controls before animating.
- When planning your animation focus more on what you want to see than remembering your animation.


Things to do before actually animating
- Sketches
- Animatic
- Visual references


To improve:
- Study silohoutes
- Study tangents