Cartoonist/Animator looking for direction.

[sodakick]

copy/pasted from my other thread because I'm the worst at reading:

I really don't know how to start off a first post. Maybe some backstory. I'm a self taught animator/cartoonist. I want to work in animation eventually. Everyone keeps telling me this is the place to go to get constructive feedback, so I'm finally taking a dive into this all and hopefully I'll come out a little bit more professional when everything's said and done.

Also I apologize in advance if my fanart is incredibly lame.

I have some other pictures, but I don't know if I should flood my first post with images and basically say "here are a million pictures can you tell me something about each of them?" I also have some animations in gif form as well as on youtube. Should I post them here as well or should I post them in the animation section exclusively?

I think that's everything for now.

[sodakick]

Also did these. Dunno if they should go in the animation boards, but... yeah.

Any feedback?

[SashaDevi]

Ok, I'm not an animator or a professional (obviously), but I wanted to say that the walking girls made me smile. They're really adorable.

I also noticed how the rainbow-haired girl's fist is getting bigger when approaching while she's trotting, and suddenly realized there are a lot of things to think through in animation.

Loved their hair, too.

[Ccs]

Nice walk cycles! I love how differentiated all the arm movements are and how the hair bounces. I can immediately distinguish personalities from the walks which is great.

As for you more illustrational pieces there's some anatomy problems that need working out. For example in that first piece the girl's hand doesn't look like it's actually contacting the form of that guy's head. Think of it as actually wrapping around the form. Her neck also looks a bit long.
The anatomy on the girl in the teacup looks exaggerated, but not really successfully. The ankles are way too thin compared to the hips. I realize this could be a stylistic thing, but it looks weird to me. Also the poses look a bit static. Try working on gesture drawing and drawing more from life. Think about your work in three-dimensional forms. For example considering the perspective the bottom of the teacup should be more rounded.

Personally I would back away from style at this point and just draw from life and copy the masters. Style will come to your work as you draw, but it will be more confident because of life drawing.

[sodakick]

Glad you like them! They're actually based off some of children's magical horse show that 20 something year old males like. I probably should have posted them in the order I made the because I think they got a little better as I made them, but yeah. Animation is nuts. Hours of work for 1.5 seconds of animation.

[axisis]

Great stuff, Add some darker colour tones to the walk cycles to bring them out further,

you will go far son!

[SashaDevi]

sodakick, yeah, My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic?

I kinda got that) but wasn't sure.

[sodakick]

Yeah. Ccs, I see where you're coming from. Especially with the Tea cup one. I'm doing a lot of gesture study at the moment. Sadly, the TF2 one was done a long while before it and I think it looks better. I'm actually doing a lot more gesture and anatomy stuff as of late. So I'll try to have some more traditional artwork to show for feedback over the coming days.

Regarding color... I don't know much about color theory honestly. I kind of throw caution into the wind and pick stuff that looks nice generally. Or I use the eye drop tool. Column A, column B kind of deal. Nice to hear some feedback there because I absolutely love color.

And yeah it's MLP. Sorry about that. I just think magical horse show sounds funnier.

[invinciblewombat]

those walk cycles are really great, i love the amount of personality you gave each of the characters through their movement. i don't feel your illustrations are as strong though, there's some weirdness going on in you proportions, notably on the girl in the teacup guy's arms. just keep studying, drawing from observation will help iron out your proportion issues. would love to see some development sketches as well, not just stylized finals.

[Rhubix]

I've worked with plenty of people who couldn't draw this good, or animate that good. (right now I'm working as a classical effects animator, and a compositor)
You're certainly at a level for junior animator positions within the television or commercial community.
Do you have some acting shots- like dialogue or something more physical? Do you know how to use Flash or Harmony? - If so you could apply for jobs for sure
Flash is by in large the most popular program out there- even for classical shows like Ugly Americans- it's all done digitally now.
But it does help to know a bit about the cut-out side of the animation word because that's where 90% of the jobs are.
Learning some 3D stuff, Maya or 3D studio max doesn't hurt. - even if you just learn some basic hierarchy stuff, and how the animation works- there's lots of those jobs kicking around too

I don't know the job market in Florida but it shouldn't be too hard to look it up
Animation world Network - is a great site... the rest of the ones I frequent for job info are Canadian only

Just looking up - Animation Demo Reel - on youtube should give you an idea of what kind of stuff is kicking around out there

Best of luck!!

[sodakick]

Actually, those walk cycles were all done in flash. It was kind of a tedious process. I have more experience with premade models than traditionally than I'd like to admit. But in a way it's kind of a blessing. Learning timing and rhythm was substantially easier when I didn't need to throw out frames for being bad.

And I probably should have responded to all of this sooner. I appreciate all the feedback. I do have some cartoons made and I spliced it into a reel, but everywhere I turn it seems like the jobs are all in California and I haven't the slightest idea how to get noticed when I'm on practically the polar opposite side of the country. I'm planning on moving out there, but I don't know if that should happen before or after I land some sort of interview.

I'll get some development pictures up tomorrow too.

[sodakick]

So here's a rough process of how I draw. At least digitally. I do pencil too, but I don't have a scanner or camera. In flash, I basically do a rough frame of the drawing, make a new keyframe and turn on the onion skin tool so I get a transparency in the next frame. Once I get a pose I like, I'll put some muscles on, then flesh those out a little better and wrap clothes around it, finally I'll ink it with the paint brush cool. When I work in photoshop, the process is almost exactly the same except I use low opacity brushes set to linear burn and make new layers when I want to go from one step to the next. The end result is what you see above. Honestly I threw that together. I'm kind of having a "writer's block" with what I should draw to show some progression so I didn't want to spend a lot of time on something. I don't know if that's a problem or not.


I'm not sure if that's a good construction process or not. I basically taught myself how to draw using old animation construction. Pears and circles and tubes. I think that's it for now.

[Ccs]

There's a tangent line happening where the pants meet at the bottom. You want to clearly show that one pant leg is going behind the other. The line up of the features on the head also look a little wonky.

[sodakick]

Huh. I never even considered a tangent line being an issue. That's actually really interesting. And yeah, I need to work on my head anatomy. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the eye perspective. I probably should be able to toss together a better constructed face than that. At least a cartoon one.



On a side note I finished this today. I think it was an accumulative 12-14 hours between working on it and surfing the internet like a slacker.

Watcha guys think?

[Aresa]

Welcome and nice start to your sketchbook! Good to see more animators/cartoonists around here! I'm really liking your animations so far. Like everyone said, they are stronger than your illustrative pieces. Your latest animation looks good! Very nice fluid movements, especially for Flash. It might be a little too fast, though. The way she bends back and fourth seem like it would hurt as well if you did that in real life, haha. Try slowing it down a bit. You're on the right track, just keep studying anatomy and observe life. Draw people on the subway, cafe, library, anywhere. Keep your sketchbook always with you! Good luck and have fun!