When is one "ready" to go to an animation institution?

Using software like Mirage, I've tried to make my own animations - and I get kinda close. I can make full animations of simple skeletons and shapes - or, series of rather passable keyframes provided they're spaced far enough apart that there's no need for continuity in anything other than the character's recognizable appearance. But when it comes time to move the details of a form over from one drawing to another very similar drawing...I just go blank. It's confounding, befuddling - I just don't know where even to set the penciltip down to start. I don't know what I'm missing, but I suspect a proper education in animation would give it to me.

That sounds more like what an expansion on an education in drawing would do. You should know that a lot of people work with skeletons first when they're learning because there's a whole dimension you don't have to worry as much about conveying.

The first thing I ever animated...scratch that...first three things, maybe four...were shapes. Then I did skeletons, and it was only with a lot of practice that I could practice solid drawing and figures and things like that. For me, I can draw just about anything off of observation, but anything from imagination looked like it was done by my left foot.

It can be SO much about picturing in your mind, or if you're not in tune with that ability, asking yourself "OK, so what if this part changed, or was seen from here instead?" and working out possible answers. Pretty soon you'll find out what works. Throw out what doesn't.

I'd also recommend not dealing with Mirage, but that's personal preference. Something like Plastic Animation Paper, which has simplistic versions and also the ability to customize interface, is way more one-two-three fluidity in just making drawings and playing them out. Of course it can do more, but there's not as much glitz and glory from all the other features you'll get in a monster package like Mirage. PAP is the only thing I'll use in place of Flash (speaking just of non-paper methods).

I'm going to kinda-echo what DSB said about not being critical too. For one, it's a process. You don't push a button in you and become awesome, so no sense in judging the journey. I am just now starting to get back into making myself draw, and sorta like some people's prayer and/or meditation, it's one of those things where any free moment I can slip it in, I'll practice. If that's in downtime in a class, or between two other things I'm doing, but just so I can build SOME momentum until I have more time. Letting go is an important but HUGE step.

Just the other day I was eating lunch with my friend Jake, who I'm now sure could destroy half the planet with the talent contained in a single sculpture of his, and he was having concerns about his drawing abilities. I treated it less like "Oh, well I know some stuff, here's what I've come across, lemme teach you" and more like an open discussion, and it was kinda therapeutic. We were both just making stuff, and I had no intention of coming across like any sort of supergenius, and really there was nothing special about my drawings, but even the ridiculous ones I'd never show another soul didn't matter, because they were of some benefit to me through practice. And remarkably, I pumped out stuff I didn't know I was able to do again.

Also, and this echoes for ANY artistic endeavor, don't compare yourself to anyone else. I was sort of a big fish for most of my life before college simply because most people don't give a crap about drawing and I have an eye for detail. My very first class there was this kid named Emir and try as I might to do our in-studio assignments to the best of my ability, I'd get something analytical that was pretty sweet, but he'd pop out something both analytical AND expressive, and it totally floored me. Annoyingly, =) the most talented artists are generally the most humble when they're students, so he showed me a lot of what he felt made him unique, and he had sketchbooks full of practicing control....drawing straight lines, making circles (Vilppu Manual style). When he had to be analytical it was like engineering plans, and when he was expressive all you could do was silently clap in your head. At first I was shaken up, but then I found out just how much time he spent, had the ABILITY TO spend, and how long he'd been doing it. Basically there are sketches on the inside wall of his mom's stomach during her pregnancy for him, and his whole life in Europe was doing the house chores and then drawing in his free time. He came here and worked artsy jobs and got into school to pursue a degree in it. Minus the time factor, I think I was no better or worse, just different...but where I went in my mind I beat myself up pretty badly (it's a motivator for me haha)...that did a shit of good. All it did was eventually creep into my work and motivation and make that suffer, and then that snowballed and threatened to crush a lot of stuff for me. So then I owned what was good about my work, and decided I had no choice but to do my own thing and see how far I could get with what I was given, and what I could learn.

Oh, and Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain rocks socks.

Learning to draw is about learning to train your hand to interpret what your eye is seeing - which sounds like what you want to do, so you're taking the right approach.

Some art teachers just plain suck, and it sounds like you ran into one of them. They have no idea how to convey the information they know, and they end up saying stupid things like what he said to you. The information wasn't stupid - he is in fact correct. But it sounds like he did fail to provide you with context that would make his advice helpful. For example, the reason you make edges lighter on, say, an apple is due to reflected light. It tends to bounce off the surface supporting the fruit and lighten the fruit at the edges.

It's important to draw from life to understand form and structure. Once you have a sense of that, it's easier to create interpretations of reality (cartoons) that have a basis in reality. Drawing fake fruit can be VERY boring, but it's important practice that really will pay off.

You mentioned Vilppu's drawing manual - worth every penny. If you don't have it, get it. You might also look at something like Hogarth's Dynamic Light and Shade to help with some of the concepts behind shading. I could give you all kinds of rules, like "the darkest part in the light has to be lighter than the lightest part in shadow," but without context (see my teacher comment above), it won't help you at all.

Thanks for sending your images. I remember vividly the vulture head pencil roughs. You have a nice flow to your lines, and I really like the color pieces you sent. They don't look anything like the work of someone who doesn't know how to draw. Oh, another thing about art teachers - many of them HATE cartoonists. Your guy may have been one of them, and your fate was sealed the minute you put that first face on an orange :D

Forget about how old you are now and what training you don't have - that's all in the past, and there's nothing you can do about it. What's important is where you go from here. And it is a loooooooong path; one that never ends. Try setting a small goal for yourself - accurately rendering an orange, say - and work toward that, and only that. You may be trying to bite off too much at once, and that can lead to major frustration.

It's very hard to come up with something helpful and meaningful with words, when what we're talking about is creating images. I hope some of this drivel was helpful in some way. Please feel free to send more of your work in PMs; I'll be happy to look at it and give you my feedback.

I tried taking a drawing course at the only community college near here. The first day, the instructor told us to get rid of our pencils - everything was charcoal from then on. And that was the last thing he ever said, apart from, "This doesn't look like that table of fruit" to me, "Very good work" to everyone else,

My personal favorite was when I was told to get rid of the fat folds I'd depicted because they were impolite. Our model was 5'6" and almost 200 lbs. You don't want pictures of fat folds, don't ask me to draw foldy fat people ;) Anyhow, that doesn't help you, just trying to be lighthearted =)

My point is there are a lot of strong personalities to deal with out there, especially as it concerns art, especially as it concerns art -teachers-, and especially in college. I have an art teacher right now that's been at it for three decades, but she hasn't taught a sliver of how to actually do the thing. We watched a tape of an awesome guy, and it's basically "getting colder, no, getting warmer....warmer...you are SO warm..." :D

And meanwhile I'm bored to death - I don't want to draw a table of fake fruit[...] So I'd draw all sorts of crazy cartoonstuff instead -- fishies were leaping out of the vase, a piece of fruit might've decided to catch a football for no good reason, or the Berlin wall might've sprung up and the grapes were trying to make an escape, and none of it looked realistic at all but it was kinda funny at least.

My most successful drawing classes were those where I was exposed enough to the world of drawing that I had happened to read or hear about different exercises to do, that wound up working for me.

A lot of people use drawing classes just as a way to discipline themselves into getting some "mileage" as it was put. If you don't like fruit, ask if you can do something else, or don't take a class at all and go out and find stuff you do like. If you'd rather draw clothes, make a pile. Draw people? Go outside. It sounds like you enjoy the imagination stuff, but in order to come across as what you'd like them to (fish for example) it'd be a good idea to know what a fish looks like. Caricature involves exaggeration...what is there to exaggerate if you don't know about a thing? To be honest, it sounds like you're beyond a struggle here, because you don't seem interested in naturalistic drawings, representative stuff. The good news is, you don't have to be! Even for animation. If you're doing anything with anatomy and/or character animation I HIGHLY recommend it, but some of the most enjoyable work I've seen people do for my own tastes has gone as far as total abstraction.

But in any case, how am I supposed to learn about it, the instructor teaching the way he does?

A bit moot if you gave up, but if you ever go back you explain the situation to him, ask him all the questions you can, ask him for advice or help or possibly alternative exercises. You shouldn't be forced to prompt but ask for constructive criticism that gives you something you can genuinely work with. At least then you've done all you can and if he winds up dicking over other students he won't be around too long anyway.

My handwriting borders on illegible - I'm organically disinclined to any kind of precision and I don't believe I could draw two identical circles or two perfectly straight lines to save my life -- given anything less than a few hours and multiple "redos".

But you can do it? Those few hours will be minutes, possibly seconds, if you can force yourself to keep at it, and not expect instant results. I can draw something pretty and something god-awful in the same HOUR. There are so many variables that it would only make sense to evaluate your progress after the fact and with collective bodies of work.

I have no idea what a Vilppu Manual exercise for developing control would be like - I'd love to know!, which book do I buy?

In my experience, books just tell you things you can try that might work into your groove such that you'll get something looking a little better, or understand something in a clearer way. It's not a book-buying situation, but I can honestly say when there have been plateaus it wasn't a lack of a book keeping me down...but taking in what some books have said has helped me bust through those plateaus every now and then. Glen Vilppu is a draftsman and one of the many helpful things he's done to share his talent-wealth is document some of his tips and processes. If you can't afford the 40 dollar manual do a search on the main site here and you'll find some of it in abridged form in archived articles.

if it doesn't seem to help then what's left to try?

Trying again. I know it sounds infuriating, but it's one of those things...Nothing anyone can ever say while make some things CLICK and make sense and make a difference, a real change...unless you go through with it yourself. I must've played guitar for a solid year before I got past 5 chords. There was NO getting past those chords! Your hands have to bend in inhuman ways, it's disturbing! I went away to school and would practice in between classes. Not a lick of progress I could see. 6 months later while I was at home I had found tabs online for a song I'd wanted to try, and I was like "Crap, this has the one chord in it that I hate the most..." I have ninety-seven foot fingers and I never still could reach it. I was playing it anyway thinking I wanted to play it bad enough that I'll just resign myself to practicing it till my joints loosened or whatever happens and it would work. Lo and behold three tries in I nailed it. I also took notice for the first time that it wasn't ages between switching chords. I was quick enough to actually make rhythm and song! DO it. Honestly DO it. Do NOT not do it. No breaks, nothing. STICK to it. As a healthy mindful human being, and as an artist, even if it is solely on a subconscious level you WILL improve.

I haven't had the lifetime of constant practice and instruction that everyone else has had [/QUOTE] The vast majority of people stopped drawing a long time ago. They, er, put away childish things...in their minds. Anyone left over has been doing it because they like it and it's fun to them, for as long as they've been able to. I'll bet the number of people that have played hockey since they were four years old is WAY higher in the NHL than at Underwater Basket Weavers Anonymous. No pun intended, but don't draw comparisons. it's crippling, and absolutely pointless. You being better or worse than anyone doesn't affect your skill, and it sounds like you just care about getting better. Anything that doesn't accomplish that mission must be sacrificed, eh?

Are you ready? You're ready when you KNOW you are. If you're going to school for drawn animation, some places have screening, even to expecting damned fine drawing skills. If you don't have the skill, or have the skill and don't have the confidence, you do no one any good least of all yourself. Somewhere in you is an idea of what you'd like to see from yourself...that imaginative pulse, the interpretation of form that you find pleasing...a DIRECTION...follow that direction and blaze a trail with it! The right attitude can lead to behaviors that work well for you given your stated goals. If you'd like to draw realistically, keep drawing and even changing drawings or redoing drawings till it looks like what you see. The best teacher you ever have with this will likely be yourself.

EDIT: My apologies that some of my response overlaps points. I started this a while ago and have had to bounce in and out of the room, so at the time DSB didn't have something here yet. Now that I see his I'll extend the same offer of advising and critiquing any drawing work you have. You've got a seriousness and passion and that makes a WORLD of difference. Great start. I also agree that self-criticism can be a motivator but not if you take it to extremes and beat the snott out of yourself with it. You've obviously latched onto some concepts because it shows in what you do. There is most CERTAINLY potential in those drawings and you're already ahead of the game compared to many.

http://www.fineart.sk/index.php?cat=12

Andrew Loomis is still my favorite of the old-school drawing teachers. Unlike others, he really didn't preach style, but gave you techniques. usually, I have my own short-hand version of his construction techniques. But if I'm stuck on something, I'll do the full deal.

I highly recomend Draw Comics With Dick Giordano. His 50s Jack Kirbyish style seems to put some people off. But again, the emphasis is on construction techniques. He covers most topics pretty weel in about four or five pages.

When I draw a character, I'll start with a line of action, then draw a center line. Both of these lines get erased later. I like to use a technical pencil with an HB lead partially because it looks kind of like ink. When I'm trying to define my shapes, I'll just swirl the pencil lightly to begin with. I'll then take a kneaded eraser and find my lines. Then I'll sit there and try to find what's wrong with it. In fact, erasing and redrawing are constants at this phase. I also usually start out on typing paper. It will get gray and ugly by the time I'm done, then I'll put it on a light box and either redraw or ink it with nice, crisp lines that seem to know what they're doing. Often, I'll do several versions of the ink before I'm satsified. Then I get to hang on to the rough, scratchy pencil version-- which I often prefer.

cartooning is both an art and a craft. After I get something inspired on paper, I have to work as fastidiously as Norman Bates to clean up the mess. For me, being satisfied with a drawing is usually a matter of just taking a long enough time on it.

Okay ecec, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. Sit close to the monitor; we don't want anyone else hearing. ;) Here it is:

Everyone makes bad drawings, even the best draftsmen.

The stuff you're seeing on the websites you're going to is the stuff they've chosen to show you - their best stuff, in other words. You never see the awful drawings they do, or the piles of awful drawings they had to do to get to the level they're at. I have no doubt the work you're seeing is good, but you're seeing it because it's good.

Now, on to your other points. Based on what you've said, it sounds like you're not drawing enough, and placing too much value on the drawings you're doing. The only way you get better at drawing is by doing it, and it sounds like you're not doing enough of it. Draw for at least 30 minutes every day, regardless of how the drawing turns out. Don't critique it as you do it, just do it (this part is hard, I know, but you gotta...). Do lots of rough sketches - don't try to finish anything just now. You need to rack up what we affectionately call pencil mileage.

Take a drawing class at your local community college. DON'T judge your work based on what others are doing; focus on your own work. Art classes can frequently be taken more than once for credit, and you may end up next to someone who has been honing their chops for a while. Don't let it intimidate you. Use it as a learning tool - ask them how to get an effect you like or how they approach a drawing.

Keep everything you draw, but don't keep looking at it. Put a date on it along with the length of time it took to draw (more important in figure drawing than still life), and stash it away. Resist the urge to look at it for six months (during which time you're still drawing), and then pull it out and compare to your current work. Chances are good you'll see improvement (as long as you're still drawing every day). Art does take some time to get good at, and sometimes it can be hard to spot progress. Stashing your drawings for a few months provides some objectivity when you look at them again.

Get a couple of drawing books that look good to you, and USE them. Study what they say and put it into practice. You might want to start with Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain by Betty Edwards. It's a good jump-start.