Animators?

[SirRon]

I'm not a full-time animator, but I can tell you what it looks like from an intern's point of view. Are you looking to animate in 2d or 3d? I'm focusing on 3d right now.

Expect to animate anything that can move. I always thought I would animate just people, but once I started my internship BAM! they wanted me to animate a horse! I spent a lot of time gathering references, Muybridge's Animals in Motion, movies, etc. Just to see how a horse moved. Then I spent hours and lots of reject animations til I had a decent walk cycle. We're going to need a bird animation too....

I'm interning for a film btw.

Unless you have an experienced rigger on staff, you'll have to know how to rig for the models. If you check out Kiel Figgins' free rigs (http://www.3dfiggins.com/gallery.php?id=38) you'll find a good selection of various things to animate, assuming you're using Maya. If you know how to make them all come to life, then you'll be able be prepared for whatever thing they tell you to animate.

As for the job being enjoyable, that's really up to you. I love to animate. I enjoy seeing my character moving around as if it had a mind of its own. My personal goal is to produce a character from start to finish, from concept art to modeling, texturing, rigging, and animating. But that's just me. I seriously recommend trying them all out and doing the one or two that you enjoy a lot. I think I'll start off at rigging and animating.

Another thing about being an animator, you'll have to learn how to act if you want to get any better. Luckily you don't have to do it in front of a lot of people hehe. Study yourself as you move, study other people how they move, observation is going to be an important skill.... well pretty much for any artist anyways.

I can't comment on the pay.... I'm working as a free intern. :D

I'd love to hear what other professionals say. So I'll shut up now. :p

[Ulysse31]

I dont really think u need a degree for this field but I got my bs in animation from an art school. Was it worth it? Well the downfall is that it was expensive and there weren't a whole lot of cute chicks. The good side is that u get a degree and u get to build a network. One day, your classmates may be yur boss or coworker and they can hook u up with a job lata (hopefully) so make connections and network! My teacher got me an internship at a video game company. Most of the things you will learn will be at yur work. after the intern they offered me a full time position as an animator(usually).

A typical day at work: Everybody is supposed to start at 10am but most people get there at 1030am. We check our email and chat a little till 11am, work a little bit then it’s already noon, which means lunch time! So we all gather up to see where we go for lunch and that usually takes 15min. We go to lunch and come back 1h30mn later. Then check our email again, work until 330pm then we all go get coffee. Come back 30min later, work some more and at 6pm we all play counterstrike or unreal tournament till 7pm. You can go home after that or you can stay and finish your work. The most important is that as long your job is done on time and looks great, you manage your time as you wish.

The type of work is pretty much animate everything...monters, ppl, animals, 4legs creatures, creatures with wings. If u work for a small company you get to rig your characters, in some big companies there is a rigger. salary depends on your experience. It goes from 50k-80k.

Sometimes you have to work 6-7 day/week, 10hrs/day during crunch time(say goodbye to the gf, lol). You have to love animation, breath eat sleep animation. All the ppl I work with are super cool. Another + is that u dont have to wear a tie, ahah!

Anyways, I am talking just based on my experience, not all companies are like this. Good luck to you!

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