Motivation, how it works for me

Motivation.. It's a hard thing to grasp. Especially how to motivate yourself to keep on animating, be it for work, or just animating a personal piece. Because seriously, even though how much animation runs in your blood, there are seriously distractions. That game, the ukulele lying in the corner of your room, online shopping...

I personally feel that the important part is to get yourself started, on that 1st thumbnail drawing, or that 1st "golden" pose in 3D (depending on how you work). And once you have that the rest will just come naturally, you'll want to add on to what you initially started, and before you know it, you have the key poses more or less sorted out by now. And so on and so forth. That's why i spend quite a bit of time on my 1st pose. the all important pose that sets your character in the mood of things. And seeing that pose acts as a motivation for me to continue animating.

Another way i find quite useful is to listen to some podcast of animators, from places like spline doctors, speaking of animation, animation podcast etc. Because during the intro, they always say how they started out being an animator, their first job which is not kinda what they expected, drawing saturday morning cartoons, freelancing, being laid off and such, until finally they reach where they are now. So it kinda reminds you that even these guys had it tough once. And in turn it might motivate you to keep going.

If all else fails, maybe draw on something that is within you (i know it sounds pretty corny) People who support you in what you are doing or the reason why you started animating in the first place.
Mine was in my final year at Nanyang Poly, during my portfolio review.
Lecturer A: "Hmmm, from your portfolio, it seems that you are pretty adept at modelling, maybe you can concentrate on that,"
Lecturer B: "No I don't think so. From your reel, I believe that you have potential in animation, and I seriously think you should look into that."
And there you have it, simple as that. That was how I got started on animating haha

So draw on that and just get yourself started on the animating process be it thumbnailing, video referencing, posing the character key pose etc. Whatever works for you. Use it!

Keep on animating!
yk

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Jono Li said>>

Yeah, you got that right. Motivation is something that all animators find tough to balance. I mean getting motivated can be easy enough, watching movies, looking at inspiring animators and clips, video games etc. Staying motivated, now THAT's a whole'nother can 'O' worms.

I personally find that sometimes, you just need time off. EVEN IN A WORKING ENVIRONMENT. Animation is not something you can force. It's not something that you can sit at your desk and the longer you do the more you get done. In fact it's probably the direct opposite. The longer you sit at your desk trying to animate when you're un motivated and drained, the longer you're gonna NOT get anything done. Think of it as a spell or skill on cooldown for all you gamers. Generally, skills with short cooldown are early or crap skills. The ones with huge cooldowns really bring the rain. It's the same with animation. You want good quality stuff done fast? make sure you get breaks in between renergize and get right back into it.

My last mentor always told me that she constantly goes to malls to do window shopping when things don't go well or when she's really drained and then comes right back the next day ready to tackle the job renewed.

Even my current mentor mentions that when you take these breaks, take is as though it's all part of your whole animation process, don't seperate the two, lest you lose focus.
December 8, 2010 12:13 AM