Animation?

For the longest time I've been interested in animation. A good chunk of my book buying has gone toward "The Art of (insert name of latest animated flick)" books. While I'm interested in the pre-production design of animated movies, I've been harboring a secret desire to learn how to actually animate.

So last year I started doing some research on possible ways to take classes. Unfortunately, most schools are not located anywhere near where I live and add in the prohibitive cost. Wow! I also explored some online options but they tended to more along the lines of, "Pay the fee, here's your tutorials, now bye-bye..." I was getting pretty resigned to relying solely on the few good books I could find and make the best of it on my own.

Then I found AnimationMentor.

Wow! An online school run by professional animators from Pixar and ILM! I did some more research and found their tuition to be extremely reasonable and  their online resources to be amazingly thorough. I decided to take the plunge! Each term you are paired with an animation mentor (hence the name) who is a working professional in the animation industry. You get major feedback on your work and you make some great friends in the process.

I am currently in the midst of my second term (Psychology of Body Mechanics) with my mentor, Jason Martensen and I'm working my butt off!

The video is a compilation of of work completed for my first term learning the basics.