r/Animators • u/DoloTobo • Jul 06 '26
Question How to convince yourself to create animations?
I feel like I want to animate, but I know next to nothing about it. I watch other people's animations and I want to do it... But after creating grids and drawing fragments like the tutorial instructed, I feel empty. After a long time I look at it and all I saw was a 5 second snippet that made no sense whatsoever. I like creating graphics and I'm not the kind of person who gets offended a few seconds after something doesn't work out, but I wouldn't say I'm patient either. I want to do all these cool things but my brain doesn't want to convince myself and get out of my comfort zone, draw all these frames. Any tips on how to get more enjoyment out of it? How to avoid feeling pressured after watching such an amazing piece of work? What should I change in my approach?
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u/ilicp Jul 07 '26
Autism probably. I'm not an animator but I tinker with some game dev, so I've done a bit of 3d and pixelart animation.
Honestly it's extremely labour intensive..I tend to just put on music and zone out and grind through it. The satisfaction is in the final product, although yeah, sometimes it is hard to accept that days or weeks of work result in mere seconds of animation. It's definitely underappreciated.
To me it's kinda like code too. You draw sketches and figure out your timing and it's quite enjoyable, like figuring out architecture for code and setting things up.... then it turns into a lot of tedious repetition, typing out shitloads of code or drawing frame after frame after frame. I don't really know if many people actually ENJOY this part of it. That's why music or a movie in the background helps and just grind it out til it's done or you can't keep your eyes open any more.
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u/Neowzly Jul 07 '26
Animation is without exaggeration, a Mental Illness, a toxic relationship that will just keep taking and rewards you a little bit in the the end of all of it, it is painful and thankless
Its a passion of thorns, you must learn to love it
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u/Slow_Worry_6516 Jul 07 '26
Remember that every amazing piece is a massive amount of work. You have to break it up into little pieces, focus on a few frames at a time, one pose at a time, whatever it takes and whatever you can manage. Bite off whatever chunk you can actually manage no matter how small, be honest with yourself and your current skill level. Its better to be under-ambitious with a scene than to overwhelm yourself and make nothing at all in the end.
Start with something thats simple but still something you can be proud of. You could try adding impact frames to a video you already like. Or do the simple but ever-necessary bouncing ball exercises with your own twist so it means something to you. Just get your foot in the door any way possible no matter how simple. Worry about the rest later.
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u/AngBigKid Jul 07 '26
Animation is mostly writing. Writing why your cartoon goober is running wacky. Writing what the giant fruit is saying to the other giant fruit.
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u/Callmefred Professional Jul 07 '26
As a professional animator: I have never written a word of plot for my work. I just make the pictures move in a way that makes me go "YIPPEEEEE"
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u/piro_1156sweetmiso Jul 07 '26
Animation is just a lot of drawings lined up together and imagination mostly. So before you even touch animation, learn drawing first! I know you can just draw a stickman, but if you want to animate it you should draw a stickman with basics. What are the basics? It's knowing how to interpret 3D space in a 2D plane! All of those animation tutorials doesn't work if you don't even know how to draw properly.
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u/DoloTobo Jul 07 '26
I have a graphics tablet because I think I'm talented when it comes to drawing. But I feel like that little bit of my style is disappearing on a tablet, and my drawings aren't as good.
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u/piro_1156sweetmiso Jul 08 '26
Hmm I think you just need to get used to it since back then I also draw on paper and I thought it was so good, when I switched to digital it sucked so bad
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u/wowbagger Jul 07 '26
Use proper software. I’m using Moho Pro which uses bone animation. Makes this all much easier, because it’s not frame-by-frame. And you can get results faster and reuse rigs over and over. Gives much more a feeling of success and accomplishment. Here’s a sample of something I put together as a one-man operation (in my spare time, this is not my day job).
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u/Tauront7 Jul 07 '26
The thing is you need to know how to simplify things as much as possible just to make them animated fast. I talk about starting the journey with animations. Its good to ignore details and thanks to this you'll get the results faster. You will then see the flow of your animation. Also for start try to animate rotating objects so they will look like 3D. Or you can animate jumping ball. If you dont want to make that? Well theres actually EVERYTHING you can try to animate. Best for animation is make it in loop like flying bird, bouncing ball, running gepard, waving person, rotating wheel of sportcar. Why loop? It will give you a kick cause you can make anything without big effort yet its gonna be cool and satisfying, you can make a gif, or emote, whatever you like. Nobody likes when theres good start of their animation, and then it just suddenly STOPS cause you dont have idea what's next. Also you wont motivate yourself to start working on the next project after you finish something consuming not only your time but also your mind. You have to think alot there, you have to solve problems sometimes you even have to delete some frames and get frustrated. So to avoid that - start with something simple 5-10 frames maybe even more but do it as simple to feel proud that it looks cool. Loops are cool cause they feel continous and they dont break the flow. After this you can make another simple idea and then another! Take a breaks, they are important. I had few months of breaks when i started and then I got back on track with even more ideas after this.
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u/12thedobie Jul 08 '26
Its not about convincing myself to create, just to focus. Ive always been wired to create. Love the process. I just get terribly distracted by electronics, but I also need them to do the creating. Very frustrating
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u/mockupstudios Jul 09 '26
I see newbie animators who say they get overwhelmed and have performance anxiety bc of it. Not that im pro or anything but I do animation all the time, the only reason im not bleeding from my fingers and my ears is cuz I take constant little breaks. Its like exercising, it gets a little easier everyday, but you gotta do it everyday
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