My email interview from Tatiana Alisova,
Wow, thanks for asking, nice illustrations, like your Day of the Dead one :)
I’m on the same route - being illustrator myself fell in love to animation and hopefully continue in this way.
My inspiration for that was Bill Plympton and his book "Make Toons That Sell” - he’s writing about the industry, options, etc, check it out, would I’ve some practical advice.
And of course, the Bible for any animator is "The Animator's Survival Kit” - if you can find video version that would be the best.
Choosing software is quite tricky - all depends what do you want to achieve. For frame by frame animation usually I’m choosing Photoshop & Flash and After Effects and Premier Pro for compositing. Overall, if you need to choose one software to learn first i would say go to After Effects.
For the usual workflow take a look at this process, i’m doing something simular: http://caleatkinson.blogspot.ca/2012/06/lil-red-making-of.html
I’m afraid i’m not the best person to describe the whole process, and it’s already in 'The Animator's Survival Kit’(again, the best book to learn all the principles). The logic is more or less the same for every software. But the important part here is to focus at one thing at the time - get the movement first, anything else only after you happy with the timing. It is the hardest part, a lot of hard work and absolutely different state of mind then for creating an illustration. At this stage you have to have some ugly drawings, but have to have a convincing movement.
Usually i’m starting from thumbnails for the action (to clarify and visualise the movement), then i put them in Flash and draw the shapes quickly, adjusting the timing, testing the flow and overall movement. Then i draw the first rough frame by frame, clean some lines, finalising the movement. And only after that i jump into adding metallisation, colour, shades, etc
Music. It’s always a headache for me to find proper sound - because of copyrights you can’t use anything you want, that’s why usually i spend ages to find something suitable. Search for copyright free music or use any of those resources: http://socialtimes.com/royalty-free-music_b37470
Also I’m using Garage Band samples quite a lot and some SFX libraries from our uni.
In future I don’t think i gonna work on any feature film or anything like that - I love to include animation into something, to create interactive narratives or to involve viewers into the process. So, I guess I could join (or build my own) creative team\company, maybe in advertising, or game industry or something like that. I don’t know yet, and of course i can change my mind many times before i get into industry :) And there is a demand and quite a lot of opportunities for freelance animators\illustrators - i’m using that as well
That’s always hard to answer where the ideas coming from - comics, films, my mates’ work (yeah, got some from Aidan as well). And there’s the reason why i love collaborative process - when you’r explaining and idea to somebody else, telling the story and asking for an opinion there’s always something to improve, make it more clear to people, make the whole thing funnier and so on. Random ideas, sketchbooks (i love sketchbooks!), brainstorming, mood boards (Pinterest especially) - i’m using everything. But the key is to talk with people (haha, at least for me)
Take a look at my other blog, it’s my version of digital sketchbook, that might give you an idea about where’s everything coming from. It’s our course requirements to keep it, and i’m trying to keep it up to date. But to be fair, i hate the writing process soooooo much, and it might be a bit messy - please feel free to ask about anything in particular : http://tatianaalisova.myblog.arts.ac.uk/
Best wishes and good luck with animation journey!
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