It's been great so far. I've learned so much about animation and about the animation industry. My mentor (an ILM animator) gives really great critiques and I've seen great improvements in my work already. All the other students in the class with me are awesome, too. Not only are they as passionate about animation as I am, but they give great feedback. And of course, I get to use the great AM rigs, including the new Stella, Stan, and Sloan.
I highly recommend Animation Mentor to anyone who is considering becoming an animator, and I think that it is a perfect substitute to the traditional 4+ years at art college. As you can see on my About page, I did 3 years at two different art colleges, and while both were great and I learned many things, I do think that AM provides a more streamlined and detailed animation education.
That last part, the amount of detail, is what I especially like about AM. We don't just learn how to animate a walk cycle by copying from the poses in The Animtor's Survival Kit. We learn the science and fine details behind it. The lectures even include lessons from a physiologist describing why we walk the way we do. It's that kind of knowledge that helps make good animation become great.
I know that some people's concern about AM is that they think #1- they'll only learn animation, and #2- all AM graduates animate the same. While it is true that the character and animal animation tracks don't teach modeling/texturing/rigging, etc. it's not like those are things you can't learn on your own. There are tons of free and paid resources online that can teach you about those subjects. After all, AM is only one class at a time. If you're at a traditional art college you would be dealing with 3-5 classes a week. So at AM you should have plenty of time to do your classwork, have a job, and practice some extra things on the side if you want (though my mentor did warn us against becoming "jacks of all trades, but master of none"). Also, you do have to draw as an AM student, so it's not like you'll never pick up a pencil. There aren't any official class lessons about drawing, but you'll naturally improve because of the weekly sketchbook assignments, and you can improve even faster if you sketch in your free time.
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| Some of my AM Sketches. Circled poses I chose to recreate with Stella. |
And as far as all AM graduates animating the same, that's only true if animating the same means making great animation. One of the first things my mentor said in our first Q & A was that we could tell him what style we were going for in our shots and he'd critique us accordingly. Some students choose to animate in a more cartoony style, and some more realistically. We are not being taught to animate in the same way, we are just being taught to animate well, and then we can adjust our work to our stylistic preferences. If you know how to animate well, meaning you understand the principles and techniques, you can switch between styles depending on the project. I may take a few days to transition from usually working in a cartoony style to working in a realistic one, but it's not like you have to go learn a whole different thing. Animation is animation, it's just how you set the poses, timing, and spacing that changes the style.
So what I generally wanted to say with all this is that I'm very happy to now be an AM student. And if you are like I was for years, thinking "Should I go to Animation Mentor even though I won't get a college degree?" my answer is yes, you should. In this field, degrees don't matter. Skill does. You can go to the fanciest animation college in the world, but if an AM student applying for the same job as you can animate better, they'll get the job. But whether you go to AM or to art college, just keep practicing and having fun with your work and you'll be fine.
Until next time!
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