alright I'll be completely honest with you and explain to you my story

my main goal is to become an animation director and voice actor, I did horrible in school so I can't really get into university and it would take too long with all the stuff I wanna do plus a degree does not guarantee a real career

currently I can only draw freehand, I am decent enough to be taken onto a small project I think, I've done a little work on Paint but otherwise I have no photoshop or 3D max skills, as I don't have these programs yet

so right now I live in London and I have no clue where to start or how to meet people with similar interests, my aim is to make a living off my art, and to quit working min. wage jobs which are unfulfilling and irrelevant to any art job I have applied for so I can't even give them my cv they'd be like wtf :p

I want to get into animation, as in animating my own projects with flash and doing some voices for them as well as working with other people on them, and I am interested in watching people work on their animations so I can learn from them and maybe contribute something which would be great

but this is London where everyone is trying to make it big, I'm getting away from the scarcity mentality that there's not enough room for everyone as this is a competitive business (this is what everyone tells me it's a competitive business) but I'm pretty sure there's enough room for me to make a living off of this and not end up flipping burgers to make the rent and living an unfulfilling life chasing a faraway dream

if anyone is interested, eager and willing to make a career out of this as I am then feel free to contact me and we can discuss, I am really set to get this started but I don't know where to start, and what I should do

I want to animate, draw, voice characters, design them, make characters move in 2d and 3d, and do some really kick ass music videos

if anyone has any guidance I would gladly appreciate it and hopefully I can be of assistance to you as well

Charles,

Nice story, very familiar. I can totally relaye to your ambitions - all the things you mentioned are things I've dabbled with in the past and would love to learn to do well, if I had the time.

A degree certainly doesn't guarantee a career (as I found out).

First thing, I would urge (no...PROD) you into getting up to speed on Photoshop. In the design and art field, it's pretty much taken as read that you'll have some ability with this - kind of like using a word processer might be for any office/clerical/admin post. It's also damn handy for layering animations, as is Adobe Image Ready.

3d SMAX is a tricky thing to master. I spent a lot of time on that with all the big industry standard manuals years back, and basically gave up. I don't think being married at the time helped, though. You might want to start off with something more dedicated, like Poser, first - as 3dsmax is kind of intimidating if you're not sure what you're doing,plus I always sucked at geometry.

I'm still trying to learn Flash myself. If you want to make it big yourself, then the web is as good a place as any to start. Buy a domain name that suits you and get webspace - upload your stuff to it and see what happens. It's the road I'm thinking of taking anyway, with pretty much everything I do now. SOme of the daft stuff I've been introduced to over the years, like 'Magical Trevor' and other notorious Flash sites like 'badgerbadger' I'm quite sure are put up by folks just like us.

As far as getting into the industry, well you know that the demand is bigger than ever, and therefore more competitive. And everyone wants a piece of it. Movies are turning into computer games and computer games are turning into movies. CGI and animation hangs out in places you wouldn't even think to look. I stopped applying for animation/computer game jobs 9 years ago as I saw I was competing with kids straight out school who blew me away. Which is why I turned to comic books, and illustrated fiction.

Animation is really where I would like to go. The Bible of the subject is: Richard Williams' "The Animators Survival Kit". Awesome book. I got mine off amazon for about

Just to expand on what Chaz mentioned. 3DS Max and Viz are pigs to work if you have no CAD knowledge. Being an Autodesk product it is also designed to be used with training. I would suggest learning CAD modelling basics first on cheaper packages such as TurboCAD. Diving into the unmathematical and illogical world of 3DS will fry your brain.

Almost all 3D animation will require a lot of knowledge in the field of solid/surface modelling with complex spline and polygon meshes. It's very interesting work and very absorbing but it is a complex world and can only be learned slowly. Good luck hombre!

I have been using 3D CAD systems since 1996. Cadkey/Kubotek, FastSurf, Mechanical Desktop and Inventor series

thanks guys, I didn't think of it that way before

and how complicated 3D geometry is but the thing is I will have to do all of that before I become a director, because what is a director with no hands on experience? as hard as it may be I will do it, thank you for your suggestions, I'll check out those programs for sure

I'm not a competitive person so I don't see these adanced guys as having an advantage but at the same time I am realistic and realize there is some work to do in the skills department, but we'll all get there

thanks again for your insight, I appreciate it

3d geometry is a bit of a freak-out when you're used to old 2D animation and drawing. (It also helps to have a damn powerful PC with lots of RAM). That said, I did start to get somewhere with it - but there's a lot to grasp if as Rob says, you don't come from a CAD background or have been used to doing 3d illustration or technical drawing. Designing and building the stuff is half the fight. Then you got to animate them...which is why I suggested POser, dedicated to designing and animating figures, so you're not starting from scratch with a bunch of basic geometric bodies (spheres, cuboids etc) and having to work out how to join them up and smooth them out to make an animated duck, say.

If you're in London, you might well find access to night classes or courses designed to teach the basics of CAD or 3D modelling. In fact I'd be amazed if there weren't such things offered. That way you get a basic grounding in the subject, a small qualification, and get to hang out with guys who are into the same scene. Hanging out with other animators and artists is such a gas and can give you so much inspiration, it's worth doing for that side alone.

As far as not being competitive...if you want to get started in these industries, I would suggest you get competitive. Or at least build a competitive head and store it somewhere safe so you can put it on when you do attend interviews or seek to put yourself out there. Being brilliant at what you do is only half the battle. Standards are very high. But if you can match those standards, and be pushy and confident (and lucky) enough, you can do it.

Keep on truckin'