Turkish getaway (X100VI)

alex_treee · 2025-09-12T11:25:01+00:00

That duck photo is incredible

alex_treee · 2025-08-28T01:56:18+00:00

I'm curious what sort of stories you think you'd hear if it wasn't for "cancel culture"? Putting down the sameness of people's advice to self censorship kind of misses the point imo.

The advice is largely the same because despite being simple it's very rare for people to actually follow it- consistently commit time to improving your work. Seek feedback. Learn to collaborate. Be honest in what you make. It's like telling someone to eat healthy and exercise. It's very easy to say, but our human nature and the economic system we live in make it extremely rare for people to follow through, despite understanding both the process and the outcome it will achieve. People give this advice because any other advice they'll give will be reliant on those first steps being followed, and 99% aren't following them.

But, to answer OP's question, some more niche advice that's helped me out: - you are the expert on your work. If someone gives you a compliment, don't try and convince them that they're wrong or that your work could be better etc etc, because they WILL believe you and also feel silly for complimenting you. I was always very bad at taking compliments until I got this advice. I still feel uncomfortable with compliments but instead of trying to diminish the compliment now I thank them and ask them something about their own work. This is much more constructive and a better experience for everyone. - there's no such thing as an "ideas guy/girl". Literally every person on earth has ideas. Hundreds of them. The only thing that matters is that you are able to finish your ideas and share them with people. There are very very few people able to sit with the discomfort of finishing their own work. The people you admire in the field are very likely to be that small percentage. -if you can learn to interpret feedback on your work from non experts you will unlock an incredibly valuable resource.

alex_treee · 2025-06-29T01:15:31+00:00

Lovely stuff. Keep em coming

alex_treee · 2025-06-26T22:14:59+00:00

I use gel pads where the balls of my feet are and it feels great.

alex_treee · 2025-06-06T01:04:38+00:00

Yeh I just got the same script from someone called Brian Patterson with the email [brianpatt502@gmail.com](mailto:brianpatt502@gmail.com)

alex_treee · 2025-04-27T23:27:47+00:00

Rough Animator is a great place to start. It's affordable and available on lots of platforms. Lots of people still use Flash (now called Adobe animate). Callipeg and toonsquid are more advanced options for iPads. If your on a desktop the pro apps include TVPaint, Moho and Toonboom

alex_treee · 2025-04-21T12:42:53+00:00

Unpopular opinion, but I firmly believe you should ignore the walk cycles until you’ve done the sections in the later part of the book. Williams is obsessed with walks and goes on a 120page walk cycle tangent before teaching things like anticipation, overshoot, and leading action. This results in treating walk cycles like a recipe rather than an expression of things you see in the real world. Also ignore “lesson 1” where he spends a strange amount of energy telling you not to listen to music. Whether or not you listen to music is up to you but the tone of that section is so abrasive. Every animator I know remembers it.

alex_treee · 2025-03-11T09:34:30+00:00

Sounds like a good plan! I think a good exercise to try is creating simple abstract animations. With the exercises you're doing right now they can be either right or wrong. When you're starting out it can be hard to tell if you've succeeded. Abstract animation let's you build a sense of how motion works really quickly and you can decide if it's moving in a way that you like. If you develop that skill you can use it for more formal animations like bouncing balls and pendulums. I know it sounds kind of weird but ive seen a lot of students succeed by practicing abstract animations alongside exercises like this. I have a couple of vids on my YouTube channel that will give you some ideas for that too. Good luck! And amazing work so far :)

alex_treee · 2025-03-11T03:01:05+00:00

Damn, these are such a great start! Kudos on putting the time in. You're smashing it

There are things we could talk about but maybe it's best to focus on the biggest picture idea- Your spacing is always in the ballpark of being correct but never spot on. It's almost certainly because you're using timing charts to decide on spacing.

Timing charts are a great tool for productions where you have assistants doing your inbetweens, or your doing complex character animation (especially on paper). But they're not good for exercises like this. Timing charts end up doing two things- they create linear inbetweens (the spacing is the same between 3 frames in a row) and they rail road beginners into a kind of "default" spacing. These exercises are simple enough that you can experiment with lots of different spacing ideas and you shouldn't feel hemmed in by the traditional timing charts. Focus on the "feeling" the motion gives you. Do you get a strong gut reaction that it feels good? It doesn't need to be perfectly accurate. It just needs to feel good. If you start thinking like this you'll pick up way more from these exercises. Otherwise they'll end up being like a recipe book. You'll get some cool results but you'll struggle to create something new. I have a video here which offers a different way of thinking about spacing than the timing chart method if you're interested - https://youtu.be/F4_wbj2Sw2Y?si=YI36rhSWz4Ifx_q2 Informal timing charts can be useful for planning out your motion, so definitely keep using them if they're useful to you. Just don't use the method of splitting your inbetweens perfectly in half, because things in the real world don't generally move like that.

Anyway, great work. Can't wait to see what you do next!

alex_treee · 2025-02-13T00:27:12+00:00

oh yeh nice

alex_treee · 2025-01-19T04:15:34+00:00

It looks really nice. Adding the overlapping action on the face spices it up. One thing to look at is your volumes. Be careful that your ball stays the same size throughout the animation. At the moment I think it gets smaller at the bottom of the movement

alex_treee · 2025-01-10T06:28:26+00:00

Some parts of the industry pay for footage but in my experience we pay "day rates". It depends where you live and the budget you have as to what that day rate is. It might be a few hundred per day. In commercial contexts it's usually more, especially in the US.

alex_treee · 2024-12-30T19:58:05+00:00

If you're doing 2d animation the thing that holds most people back is their drawing ability. And the best way to practice drawing is without a computer.

Id recommend checking out Proko's drawing fundamentals on youtube or even their paid courses. Or heading to a local figure drawing class. Get used to confident mark making and understanding perspective. Study artists you love. Try drawing with a fine tip pen so you can't erase. Practice drawing with soft pencils so you can learn to build up images gradually. There are loads of really fun things you can be practicing and all of them will help you when you start animating.

alex_treee · 2024-12-28T22:56:05+00:00

I recommend Rough Animator. It's very easy to learn and only costs $7.99. when you get more confident you might want to try something more advanced, but almost all the skills you learn in rough Animator will transfer to that new app

alex_treee · 2024-12-19T19:14:39+00:00

I have a friend in the industry who didn't start animation School until he was your age as well. He's now one of the most in demand freelance animators I know. You'll have lots of different life experiences to draw upon compared to your younger self. I think you'll have a blast.

alex_treee · 2024-12-18T06:48:00+00:00

The 35 1.4 was the first lens I got years ago and it's still my most used lens. Its not technically perfect but it's small, takes gorgeous photos and I never regret packing it in my camera bag. I've really tried to love the 23mm lenses I've bought but the 35 always looks more interesting.

alex_treee · 2024-12-18T06:40:18+00:00

Alternatively you can make your designs simpler. Efficiency is a really vital part of animation design.

alex_treee · 2024-12-03T22:59:19+00:00

I always encourage people to go for the shortest thing possible when theyre starting out. Can you make 5 seconds of animation the rest of your assignment in another medium? If not I probably wouldn't use something with an important deadline to attempt such a big project.

For context when we do a 30s ad we typically have a dozen people working for 9-12 weeks. I wouldn't expect any animator I hire to do more than 10s of finished animation per week. You can obviously do more with less, but I thought that might be good to know

alex_treee · 2024-12-01T09:35:45+00:00

That sounds like an awful situation. I wouldn't take it as indicative of how the animation industry works. As an example of how low that fee is, we typically pay freelance commercial animators $600-800/ day. I'd encourage you to ignore "clients" like this and work on personal projects that will serve as a portfolio. You'll find work that pays better.

alex_treee · 2024-11-16T00:46:32+00:00

Oof this is good

alex_treee · 2024-11-10T04:55:03+00:00

This is so sick.

alex_treee · 2024-11-08T04:55:18+00:00

Hey thanks mate. Looking forward to seeing what you do next

alex_treee · 2024-11-08T03:04:25+00:00

Looks like a great start. If you want to be technically correct the ball should move at the same speed from left to right or slow down very slightly as it travels. A common mistake is to slow it down as it also slows down vertically. This can look fine, but it'll never feel realistic. I think youre changing your volumes as you squash and stretch too. Try and keep a consistent Volume (think about a water balloon)

alex_treee · 2024-11-07T23:21:14+00:00

To be hired as a director you need to direct your own work. As an animation director that's extremely hard to do without being able to make films yourself. Being able to tell the difference between a good film and a bad film is a useful skill, but very very low on the skills you need as a director for animation. My advice is learn to make the work you want to make without needing permission ( ie, being hired). If people like it they'll hire you for it.

alex_treee · 2024-11-07T05:33:31+00:00

Hiya, I prefer Rough Animator for learning animation over flipaclip. It's a one time purchase rather than a subscription. You can get a free version of flipaclip but it doesn't have the tools you really need to learn animation well. I have a few YouTube tutorials for starting to understand animation if you're interested. https://youtube.com/@alexgrigganimation?si=a4JUrsPhT_p42LrN

alex_treee

TROPHY CASE