Cartoons.

Cartoons are hard to make. Not just the simple drawing of a cartoon character, which that is difficult in its own ways. I’m talking about the animated cartoons. Being experienced with making cartoons I should know the amount of time and effort it takes to make just a minute of animation. I’ve spent hours of drawling frames just to end up with twenty frames which was maybe two seconds of animation.

I love cartoons, even now at my age, and especially as a kid. But you never really sit down and wonder, “how are these made?”. I never did up until I found a passion for drawing and tried to make one for my own. There are millions of people who wish to make their own cartoon. Maybe you have a story you wish to bring to life, maybe you just wish to animate. Well in the almost five years of animating, I can tell you the do’s and don’ts of animation. 

Plan Ahead.

One thing you should never do is go into a project without planning. Even if you know your animation idea all in your head, it’s always best to write things down. You might forget and it’s best to have things written down so you can look back and remember. As a story writer, I can say having something to go back and look at makes things easier in project.

Another thing you should never do is go into animation thinking it will be easy. From experience, I should say it’s safe to say animation is not easy. Whether you are making a stick figure animation or a really detailed one, it’s difficult. It’s going to be a long time thing. If you try and make a really good animation in just a day or a few hours you will get nothing but a couple seconds that you may not be proud of.

Have Patience.

I can’t express how many times I jumped into animating, got bored and gave up. Just relax, and start. If things get rough, take a break and come back. Don’t stress when something doesn’t look right or go your way. This will only make the experience and the project worse for you. Take your time, take breaks if needed. Work for a couple hours and take a break and come back to do some more. A long animation will not be complete in just a day. 

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Save your work. I can’t say that enough times to SAVE YOUR WORK. I’ve hated when I work long on an animation, take a break and came back, and all my work is gone. Couldn’t be brought back. Pay attention, take your time and make sure everything your doing is what you wish to be doing. I’ve accidentally drawn ink layers on sketch layers . I’ve deleted my layers all together because I rush and don’t pay attention. Follow these simple, easy steps and I promise you, you won’t regret it. If you put time and effort into your work, you should be proud.

Hate to break it…

I hate to break it to you. If you’re wanting to start the long adventure of making cartoons, you must be ready for the challenges. The challenges differ from whichever you choose to do. If you’re a professional animator, then you have challenges such as finding a job that needs animators. If you’re a 3D animator you have to worry about what programs, if you’re making models or using someone else’s. The list goes on and on. Being I have tried a lot of different types of animation I can probably tell you the pros and cons of most ways. Whether you’re working with a team or you’re a lonely animator like me, then you have your work cut out for you. 

I want to be a millionaire…

Another thing is you have to have some money to spare. A professional animation software will cost some money. The biggest take out of the wallet is your equipment. If you are making pencil and paper animations like the old ways of Disney, then you’re going to need scanners, cameras, a computer and software to compile it all together. If you want to use a digital tablet or some sort of drawing tablet, then depending on what type of artist you are will differ on which one you need or would want to get. 

Life is unfair

Little things like technical problems or equipment problems will always be a pain but something that is almost unavoidable. Keep track of pens and tools. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve spent on pen tablet pens. I’ve lost them completely, I’ve damaged the pen. I have damaged the pen tips. I’ve broken pencils, I’ve run out of ink in pens. I’ve had tablet wires or the tablet’s themselves break or stop working. It’s annoying, but that’s why it again counts to have patients when it comes to making cartoons because these things will happen. 

You will mess up. Even the most prepared and smarties of people will mess up time to time, congrats, you’re human. Even saving all my work, keeping everything neat and organized, I’ve messed up. Whether it;s accidently deleting a project or removing layers and never getting them back. Whether it’s you’re not paying attention and draw the wrong frames where they’re not supposed to be, it doesn’t matter if something bad will happen. 

No one’s professional

No one, no matter how good of an artist will not be good at animation at first. Even if you know what you’re doing when starting you will soon learn that nothing is easy. If you unanticipated the patients you must have or the time it takes, you messed up. If you didn’t research your programs and learn they are not what you want then you messed up. All it takes is time and patience and you’ll find your own style, your own way of doing things and will get better.

New Beginnings

Everyone starts something because it’s what they want to do. But most people only want to do it because they saw someone they wish to become. Maybe not become but along the lines of you have a hero. Someone to look up to, or admire and base a lot of your work off of. A lot of people say their parents are their hero and you can see a lot of sons and daughters becoming or acting like their parents. In the same way, a career is like that. If you’re father is a mechanic, then it’s possible you start working on cars growing up to where it becomes a career. Art and animation has a lot of talented people. For decades we enjoy cartoons and art alike all thanks to someone’s passion for art and animation. The point is, most of us have a hero.

My Hero

My hero is an artist under the name Ed Tadeo. Ed Tadeo is a professional comic book artist. He’s worked for many companies such as Image Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, and Marvel Comics. His main job is to ink comics and sketches for the comics but he’s much more talented than that. He’s been coloring and inking comics for over 20 years now. He has been behind many big time comics such as, Wolverine, X-Men, Unc. X-Men, New Mutants, X-Force, Iceman, Deadpool & Cable, and other X-Books. For colors, Silver Surfer, Wolverine, Captain America, Iron Man, and High Roads. 

Youtube

He is also a small time animator making small to large animations and posting them on YouTube. I discovered Ed, while looking up cheap and easy animation or art software. The free and very large software I found was Kritra. It has many Adobe like objects in it so it’s very good for making art and animation. Upon looking up videos for art I came across a bunch of animation from Ed Tadeo. Amazed and admiring his work I started my own animations. Before Krira I was using poor and bad software that were limited in what you could do so I wasn’t big on animation until I found Krita. There are much better software’s than Krita but being twelve I didn’t have a job so I was limited on money so I never wasted time trying to buy good software, I only looked for free ones. 

Thank You

Seeing someone as professional as Ed Tadeo using free software gave me hope. I started animating and fell in love with it. I love the way Ed makes his animations and I know how he does as he has posted multiple videos on his channel of a sped up process of him making short animations. Using his techniques and methods I was able to make my animations. I would like to say my art is as good as his comic style art but everyone has their own style and ways. And you know what they say you are your own worst critic. After years of animating I still to this day admire his art and animation and still watch his videos, wondering if I could create something like that. I thank Ed, as he has helped me realize you don’t need fancy, expensive software to make good animation, you just need patients, and time. He’s helped me get through animaring, even if he doesn’t realize he has.

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