Question for Calarts students

[Serra]

Hey there!

I have a question for all you Calarts students.
What kinds of textbooks do you use in the classroom? Which have you found most helpful? More specifically, do you use any texts in relation to life/figure drawing and animation, or is it mostly hands-on?

I am far, far too poor to even consider attending, or to pay back any sort of loans....so any info you have about ways to self-teach would be great! I know it doesn't equal the great education you get in the classroom and etc. etc. but yeah ;)

Thanks in advance!

--Serra

[Stephen Mason]

i would recommend going to some life drawing classes. you can go to untutored ones for next to nothing. there's not much that books can say in the end its draw as much as you can and try and get crit from real people. Books are important but no where near as much as just doing it. x

[Viridis]

I don't go to CalArts but even my art college hardly ever uses books to teach studios. Most of the books I've had to buy were for art history, and even those were often superseded by the lecture material.

Find some local figure drawing classes and study and practice on your own; that's probably the best thing you can do right now.

There's lots of advice on self-studying drawing floating around the forums, searching should give you plenty of places to start off.

[Xeon_OND]

I was thinking whether those students from Calarts or LAAFA can upload PDF versions of their lecture notes or whatever onto the web for us to use. For a fee, of course. This way, non-students get access to the goodies and the students get extra $$$ to pay their 7-digit study loans at these high-end art schools.

Best yet, it would be good if these students use audio / video recorders to record the entire lecture done by the teacher and post them here.

[jhofferle]

I was thinking whether those students from Calarts or LAAFA can upload PDF versions of their lecture notes or whatever onto the web for us to use. For a fee, of course. This way, non-students get access to the goodies and the students get extra $$$ to pay their 7-digit study loans at these high-end art schools.

Best yet, it would be good if these students use audio / video recorders to record the entire lecture done by the teacher and post them here.

Some universities, like MIT, provide free online access to lecture notes, exams and videos. It's a shame more schools don't follow suit.

[Zazerzs]

Whats used in the class really depends on the teacher. There isn't a animation 101 book or anything like that, although there are plenty of books that are suggested. Lots of times hands outs are used.

Here are a few standards.

Drawn to life
Illusion of life
Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair
Timing for Animation

If you are animating at home you'll need a animation disk or light box of some kind with pegs to hold the paper, tons of paper, 3 hole punch(unless you buy your paper pre punched) and a drawing tool w eraser.

Start with the bouncing ball exercise.Everyone does.Then its on to the flour sac maybe or a walk cycle.

Keep the characters you use for animating very simple, in the beginning stages you'll have to work on keeping your volumes the same so overly complicated characters are bad to begin with.

Goodluck. Post you pencil tests so you can get some feedback here :)

[Serra]

Thank you so much, everyone! Very helpful!! Life drawing classes are pretty dry/nonexistent out here, but there are some local students who might not mind posing for me. How do I pull THAT conversation off?
"Can you pose naked for me? For....for art?"
Hehe
And thanks for the book recommendations Zazerzs! I appreciate them! Gonna check em out :)


--Serra

[Zazerzs]

for animation as well as making up figures on your own a good construction method is extremely helpful. Check out Vilppu.

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He's been teaching animators about figure construction for a while, and maybe even Sheldon's Academy

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