To Start A 3D Animation Career, You Need More Than Drawing Skills
The future for animators without a doubt will be in 3D animations. Whether you want to work in films or in the video game business, a 3D animation career is definitely going to be at the forefront of graphic development for the next few years. In the film business Pixar revolutionized animation with the release of Toy Story and their subsequent films. New techniques were developed and older methods were adapted to meet various technological challenges. 3D animation is developing quickly and the aim of many animators is to be able to render a believable human image with which they can replace human actors.
You need several skills to be an animator. You need to be able to draw, create a storyline, and understand the process of acting. Going further, an understanding of how the body works is useful, and a knowledge of sculpting would be an asset. To get a career at one of the big studios like Disney you don’t need to be just good at drawing - you need to be great at drawing. You need to be able to draw from still life and also be able to draw representations of images. The big studios have thousands of people apply to them each year. To even be considered for an interview you have to stand out above everyone else. Even though you want to work on computer animation, you will still need to be able to draw as the computer is really just a highly technical paint brush.
Behind every frame of animation there are a whole team of people. The animators are actually only a small part of the team. You can find background and layout artists, animators assistants, assistant animators assistants, storyboard artists, computer animators, graphic designers and in-betweeners to name just a few.
Many animators begin their careers as an in-betweener. Helping the animators assistants to fill in the scenes between the animations is a great way to get your first peek at how the animation industry actually works. One other popular first rung on the ladder to a 3D animation career, for those people interested in the technical side of the industry, is to work as a storyboard artist's assistant. The storyboard artist is responsible for drawing the complete outline of the film so that the animators can visualize exactly what the director wants. They help plan all the shots and camera angles and as an assistant you'd be working up to drawing specific parts of the story board. Regardless of your training, don't expect to start as an animator. Learning the support functions first is absolutely necessary to being competent at your craft.
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