These books are great! You can read them till you're old and grey!

I’ve got a lot of e-mails asking for book recommendations over the years. I’ve talked about doing a post, but never have. So I figured now was as good a time as any to write it (as you’re all probably looking for something to buy for yourself for Christmas). There’s a ton of animation books out there. Most are inspirational, some are informative, but some are just plain old essential. These are the books I’m listing here today, the essential ones.

I’m gonna be direct and say that, in my opinion, these are the best books an animator can have on his/her book shelf. If I had to whittle my shelves down to ten books, this is what I’d have left. They are the best because they are authored by masters. You will constantly refer back to them throughout your career, and always learn more from them. They will teach you almost everything you need to know as a modern animation artist from drawing to composing your shots to actually animating them with appeal. If you don’t have something on this list, I highly recommend you treat yourself. Here they are in no particular order:

The Illusion of Life
The Animator’s Survival Kit
Composing Pictures
Drawn to Life (Volume 1 & Volume 2)
Character Animation Crash Course
The Five Cs of Cinematography
Painting with Light
Animation From Script to Screen
In the Blink of an Eye
Cartoon Animation

Note: I would include The Famous Artist Course in Commercial Illustration (1960), but it is actually three binders, and much harder to find. You can occasionally find copies of this on eBay.

Here’s a nice series of videos going over different animation concepts:

Check out the amazing artwork and artist resources of Scott Eaton (including a time-lapse of Scott sculpting the piece below).

Also, check out his Bodies in Motion project, a wonderful resource for animators.

Brendan Body has a nice post about working during crunch on Legend of the Guardians. Click the image to check it out

Really awesome blog with lots of posts on acting. Definitely a useful resource. Click the image to check it out!

For those that are still scanning hand drawn animation and found my first Brother post useful, you’ll be interested to know there’s a new model on the line. This one’s sleeker and sexier, the Brother MFC-J6510dw. Click the image to be taken to Staples where it’s currently $100 off for Canadian residents. Auto-feed your 12 Fields and taken the hassle out of pencil tests.

Interesting Article on character design.

Outside of Chris Sanders awesome designs, I’d say the best part about Lilo & Stitch for me is the water color backgrounds. Here’s a few pages from the book, “Collected Stories From the Film’s Creators,” where artist David Wang talks about his painting techniques on the film. Very cool stuff.

Check out this awesome tutorial on drawing and inking comics. Click the image below.