The expressiveness of animation demands animators become keen observers. Required skills include knowing how best to pose a character to suggest mood, how various objects interact and how to stage scenes. The list goes on, and all these principles are applicable to static art as much as they are to animated figures.
Animate That! does a good job at giving beginners the basics and terminology that they'll need to know, before deciding which style of animation to pursue: 2D or 3D.
The book covers subjects such as timing, speed, weight and tension. These are topics that an illustrator may not naturally consider when producing their art, but grasping such animation fundamentals can only enhance their static artwork.
The book's illustrations – the majority of which feature humans in various poses and situations – are simple and clear, and the text is broken down into short, digestible caption-length chunks. Occasionally the English suffers from translation issues from the author's native German, but we can forgive this seeing that this instructional book is so learner-friendly.
This article was originally published in ImagineFX magazine issue 131. Buy it here.
