10 Second Animation Tip: Challenge Yourself!


Many times animation, and art in general, can feel tedious. When you’re working on a single scene or clip for weeks at a time, it isn’t hard to become tired of the same old same old. The key becomes understanding WHY you’re feeling that way, and one of the reasons may be a simple lack of challenge.

As artists we can fall into the trap of finding a particular groove that works for us (and earns us praise from friends, co-workers, or directors) and then snuggling down into that groove and refusing to leave. After all, if it’s not broke, why fix it, right?

The difficulty with this trap is that we can become bored and begin “going through the motions.” We can begin to fall back on boring cliches time and again. Things become formulaic. Life, from which animation draws its cues, is never formulaic!


A simple way to break out of this habit is to find a way to challenge yourself. It may mean doing a short clip on your own, just a few seconds long, which really stretches your animating muscles. Something that can snap you out of “the motions” and propel you into deeper and richer animation waters. Try it out! And remember: if it’s easy then you aren’t being challenged. It should BE hard to do, that’s what makes it a challenge!

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mori

Ye ye ye! A good challenge really fires up the furnace inside and gets ya movin and groovin! 😀

Vivian

Once you have a client with low expectations it gets hard to challenge yourself because they want it to be cheap and fast. 🙁

Jerry

I have been keeping up with this site for the past few weeks, and the tips are very helpful. I just want to say, thank you. You are being watched. Not just by me but several of my friends too.

布

Great advice

Cool Chris

In truth mainly it is the challenges that push us to be better than we once were. We learn nothing by repeating past successes.

Pete

I don’t have time to challenge myself!

hereve

Good advice! Being bored sucks.