If you are just starting out in animation I would sugest these things:
12 field light box
2 acme pegbars: one for your light box, the other for your scanner
cheap 12 field acme punched paper
Col-erase pencils, what ever color you want
CARTOON ANIMATION by Preston Blair
The Animator's Workbook by Tony White
a spiral bound sketchbook
I'd stick with the 12 field light box and paper since you are learning and this will cut down on costs. Also buy the cheapest paper you can find since you'll be burning through tons of paper as you learn, so you are not going to need archival, bright white, 23 lb paper. You shouldn't have any reservations of crumpling up your animaiton paper and throwing it away if your drawing's not working. You'll be less inclined to do this if you buy the nice expencive paper. This also the same reason for getting a SPIRAL sketch book and not a BOUND sketchbook. With a spiral sketchbook, you can just tear out your drawings if you don't like them, where as if it's bound, you tend to treat it like a book and try and make every sketch a masterpeice.
You want to get a bunch of Col-erase pencils because they are more waxy than graphite pencils and so they won't smudge as easily when you're sketching and flipping and rolling your drawings. Most animators tend to use the blue pencils, mostly now out of tradition. I always liked the Carmine Red Col-erase till they changed the color and it's kinda to pinky now for my taste. I would sugest getting a few different colors, blue, red, black and green, that way you can differenciate between things if you need too. Like background and forground elements and so forth.
I wouldn't recomend getting a disk at this point because once again, you're learning and it'll save you some money to buy more paper. :) Also for the reason that while starting out, you should be learning to draw using you whole arm and not just planting your forearm on the page and only drawing with you wrist, which tends to happen when drawing with a disk. The only time I really use my disk is when I'm doing clean-up work and the lines need to be precise.
"Cartoon Animation" and "The Animator's Workbook," are both great books for the beginer. They cover all the basics of animation that you'll need to know. "The Animator's Survival Kit" is also a great book, but I'd recomend that book only after you have learned the basics, like the bouncing ball, sack drops and the basics of a walk. If you get a good handle on what's covered in the first two books, you will be farther along than a lot of animators.
As for any computer programs, there are any number of them that you can use to pencil test your animation. There are Monkey Jam, Plastic Animation Paper, Mirage, Toon Boom, Moho, and my favorite Flash. There are other's that I know I'm forgetting but I'm sure other's will post them.
I hope that helps you out some, and that I didn't confuse you with way too much info :D
Aloha,
the Ape
—
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I'd also consider getting an inexpensive web camera to work with Monkey Jam (which is a free software app). A web camera is typically much faster at inputting drawings for pencil tests than a scanner. The quality isn't as nice, but pencil testing is all about cutting down on input time so you can get back to fixing your work.
And you can always use it to try on stop motion, too.
if he is just beginning, why not just buy round pegs so that you can use copy paper. Its a lot cheaper and you can punch your own holes. I've never used the acme pegs, so I'm not sure what makes them better.
Plus, can someone tell me why an acme hole puncher is so ungodly expensive?
Sure Kal-el, like Brent said, you don't really need most of that stuff. All you really need is paper, and pencil, and you can make a flip-book to watch your animation. I'm not sure if they make 3 round peg bars. If they do, go down to Office Depot and buy a bunch of 3 hole punched paper, that'll work fine.
The thing with the Acme punched paper and peg bar, is that they are a real tight fit, so your paper won't wriggle around and through off your animation. Animation paper is a bit larger than regular copy paper though. It's something like 12 by 14 inches for 12 field versus 8.5 by 11 copy paper.
As to why animation hole punches are so expensive, they are very precise, industrial grade punches designed to punch a bunch a paper at once with no shift. Also it's a specialty item, just like most animation supplies. There aren't millions of people buying them so they have to sell them at a higher price.
To me it sounds like Mark wants to learn traditional 2D animation, so that's what I'd recomend to buy for begining students. If he's going to buy a program like Flash or Toon Boom, he could also do all the same work in those programs with the addition of a Wacom tablet, and forget about buying animation paper and a light box.
Aloha,
the Ape
—
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Here is a poor man's peg bar.
Get 3 1/4" holes drilled into a wooden ruler.
(Use a 3 hole punched piece of paper as a guide)
Purchase a 1/4" dowel from Home Depot.
Cut dowel into 3 1/2" pieces
Glue the piece into the wooden ruler using wood glue
(I found this idea some years ago somewhere on the net.)
30 years ago, I began with a 12 field inking board, a few col-erase blue pencils, a thick dictionary (to prop up my board), foil to bounce light from beneath my board and a flexible goose-neck lamp (as a light source).
I second the round peg bar idea. It's alot cheaper on the paper end. The registration isn't quite as precise, but I've almost never needed that level of precision with my personal animation style (and if you do, just hold it down a little tighter).
I made my own table from a sheet of translucent white plexiglass and put in my own pegs (wooden dowels). At first I had it set up between some milk crates and my desk (standard college furniture) and a desk lamp with the shade removed underneath. it worked great, if a little hot on the legs. I eventually built an angled box with a flourescent light in it. The most expensive part was the sheet of plexiglass (and the drill to drill the holes, but you could borrow one of those).
When I settle down, I'm going to do another upgrade on it, and make it fixed desk with adjustable tilt (possibly a disk) and foot switches for the lights.
And now that I'm not at school and don't have access to the Acme hole punch, I can still use my board with any type of paper I want.
Um, at Otherspace Productions, we're producing animation using 8.5"x10" off-the-shelf lightboxes, a scanner we got at CompUSA, and copier paper.
All of what you describe can certainly help you, but none of it is necessary to start animating.
Hi markusp, and welcome to the AWN forums.
If you are just starting out in animation I would sugest these things:
12 field light box
2 acme pegbars: one for your light box, the other for your scanner
cheap 12 field acme punched paper
Col-erase pencils, what ever color you want
CARTOON ANIMATION by Preston Blair
The Animator's Workbook by Tony White
a spiral bound sketchbook
I'd stick with the 12 field light box and paper since you are learning and this will cut down on costs. Also buy the cheapest paper you can find since you'll be burning through tons of paper as you learn, so you are not going to need archival, bright white, 23 lb paper. You shouldn't have any reservations of crumpling up your animaiton paper and throwing it away if your drawing's not working. You'll be less inclined to do this if you buy the nice expencive paper. This also the same reason for getting a SPIRAL sketch book and not a BOUND sketchbook. With a spiral sketchbook, you can just tear out your drawings if you don't like them, where as if it's bound, you tend to treat it like a book and try and make every sketch a masterpeice.
You want to get a bunch of Col-erase pencils because they are more waxy than graphite pencils and so they won't smudge as easily when you're sketching and flipping and rolling your drawings. Most animators tend to use the blue pencils, mostly now out of tradition. I always liked the Carmine Red Col-erase till they changed the color and it's kinda to pinky now for my taste. I would sugest getting a few different colors, blue, red, black and green, that way you can differenciate between things if you need too. Like background and forground elements and so forth.
I wouldn't recomend getting a disk at this point because once again, you're learning and it'll save you some money to buy more paper. :) Also for the reason that while starting out, you should be learning to draw using you whole arm and not just planting your forearm on the page and only drawing with you wrist, which tends to happen when drawing with a disk. The only time I really use my disk is when I'm doing clean-up work and the lines need to be precise.
"Cartoon Animation" and "The Animator's Workbook," are both great books for the beginer. They cover all the basics of animation that you'll need to know. "The Animator's Survival Kit" is also a great book, but I'd recomend that book only after you have learned the basics, like the bouncing ball, sack drops and the basics of a walk. If you get a good handle on what's covered in the first two books, you will be farther along than a lot of animators.
As for any computer programs, there are any number of them that you can use to pencil test your animation. There are Monkey Jam, Plastic Animation Paper, Mirage, Toon Boom, Moho, and my favorite Flash. There are other's that I know I'm forgetting but I'm sure other's will post them.
I hope that helps you out some, and that I didn't confuse you with way too much info :D
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I'd also consider getting an inexpensive web camera to work with Monkey Jam (which is a free software app). A web camera is typically much faster at inputting drawings for pencil tests than a scanner. The quality isn't as nice, but pencil testing is all about cutting down on input time so you can get back to fixing your work.
And you can always use it to try on stop motion, too.
Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com
Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight
if he is just beginning, why not just buy round pegs so that you can use copy paper. Its a lot cheaper and you can punch your own holes. I've never used the acme pegs, so I'm not sure what makes them better.
Plus, can someone tell me why an acme hole puncher is so ungodly expensive?
Thanks for the help.
KalEl118
Sure Kal-el, like Brent said, you don't really need most of that stuff. All you really need is paper, and pencil, and you can make a flip-book to watch your animation. I'm not sure if they make 3 round peg bars. If they do, go down to Office Depot and buy a bunch of 3 hole punched paper, that'll work fine.
The thing with the Acme punched paper and peg bar, is that they are a real tight fit, so your paper won't wriggle around and through off your animation. Animation paper is a bit larger than regular copy paper though. It's something like 12 by 14 inches for 12 field versus 8.5 by 11 copy paper.
As to why animation hole punches are so expensive, they are very precise, industrial grade punches designed to punch a bunch a paper at once with no shift. Also it's a specialty item, just like most animation supplies. There aren't millions of people buying them so they have to sell them at a higher price.
To me it sounds like Mark wants to learn traditional 2D animation, so that's what I'd recomend to buy for begining students. If he's going to buy a program like Flash or Toon Boom, he could also do all the same work in those programs with the addition of a Wacom tablet, and forget about buying animation paper and a light box.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Here is a poor man's peg bar.
Get 3 1/4" holes drilled into a wooden ruler.
(Use a 3 hole punched piece of paper as a guide)
Purchase a 1/4" dowel from Home Depot.
Cut dowel into 3 1/2" pieces
Glue the piece into the wooden ruler using wood glue
(I found this idea some years ago somewhere on the net.)
Hello.
30 years ago, I began with a 12 field inking board, a few col-erase blue pencils, a thick dictionary (to prop up my board), foil to bounce light from beneath my board and a flexible goose-neck lamp (as a light source).
Add to that creativity and you have it..
Thanks.
Larry
web site
http://tooninst[URL=http://tooninstitute.awn.com]itute.awn.com
[/URL]blog:
[U]http://www.awm.com/blogs/always-animated
[/U] email:
larry.lauria@gmail.com
I second the round peg bar idea. It's alot cheaper on the paper end. The registration isn't quite as precise, but I've almost never needed that level of precision with my personal animation style (and if you do, just hold it down a little tighter).
Here's a link to a round peg bar:
http://www.lightfootltd.com/product_info.php/cPath/27/products_id/90
I made my own table from a sheet of translucent white plexiglass and put in my own pegs (wooden dowels). At first I had it set up between some milk crates and my desk (standard college furniture) and a desk lamp with the shade removed underneath. it worked great, if a little hot on the legs. I eventually built an angled box with a flourescent light in it. The most expensive part was the sheet of plexiglass (and the drill to drill the holes, but you could borrow one of those).
When I settle down, I'm going to do another upgrade on it, and make it fixed desk with adjustable tilt (possibly a disk) and foot switches for the lights.
And now that I'm not at school and don't have access to the Acme hole punch, I can still use my board with any type of paper I want.
Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com
Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight