Animation Students Share Workflow Tips and Career Advice
Our professional mentors teach students everything they need to know to become an animator, from the 12 fundamental principles of animation to creating heartfelt moments between characters.
We highlighted some of our favorite parts below, but we’d also encourage you to watch the whole interview.
“For my first pass I blocked every 8 frames. Then you break it down and do every 4 frames and then every 2 frames, and that’s the first pass with blocking.”
– Annamaria Haasbroek
Watch the Interview
Alum and Content Creator Sir Wade Neistadt spoke with 10 Animation Mentor students and alumni who animated shots in our Student Showcase.
How did you plan your shot?
“I don’t know how to draw. That was my first take on doing it for the animatic and it turned out good!”
– Chandrahas Tanguturi
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“I stick to reference at the beginning just to get it all in roughly and then I do another pass. It was the whole thing animated on 2s.”
– Matei Neagoe Focsa
Thank you to Sir Wade for this insightful interview! You can enjoy more of his work here.
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What was your workflow?
“I’m a very reference-heavy animator in terms of planning, because I can do it quick and get ideas out there.”
– Madison Erwin
“Drawing it out and making an animatic was really useful because I could get the timing right beforehand. I think that helped speed me up a lot.”
– John Cimino
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“Focus on the body, don’t focus on the face [when you start a shot.”
– Annamaria Haasbroek
What are the best tips and tricks you learned from class?
“Use the grease pencil tool in Maya so you can push your poses by drawing inside of Maya.”
– Bob Wilson
Lucky for us, they covered everything from practical workflow tips to career advice!
“Once I had the original idea, my planning process started with, “Who is this character? I wanted it to feel as genuine as possible.”
– Noelia Encarnacion
“I retook class 4, not because I failed or got a bad grade. I did it because I felt I hadn’t learned as much as I needed to learn to progress.”
– Poppy Quesnel
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Don’t wait! Learn from the best.
On a related note, congratulations to Annamaria and Matei, who recently started working at Pixar and Illumination Mac Guff! It’s so cool to see how your showcase shots opened up new opportunities for you both.
