Character Animation Crash Course!( DVD not included)

I bought this for my daughter who is an animation student. She loves and refers back to this book frequently. A couple of concepts that she was having problems totally grasping became clear due to this book. It is a good starting point for learning how to animate and a great reference book for the professional.

This book by esteemed Disney animator Eric Goldberg is a must-have in your animation library. There are a lot of books out there which are hundreds of pages long and seem to have a lot of information in them, but the actual meat of the lessons get lost in history lessons and fluff. Not in this book: lessons are simple, clear, concise, heavily illustated, and even animated by Eric on the included dvd! This is a godsend to animation students and teachers -- it's like having a pro animator at your side to give the lesson and then show it to you animated to confirm you are "getting it". I am an animation pro and have taught for years, and I think this is a great book for students (can't beat the price!) and also for pros who like to see an individual animator's way of working. This is pure "school of Eric Goldberg". Now you will know his secrets!

Animation is an insanely broad topic. Far too huge to ever cover in one book. Listening to master animators on "The Animation Podcast" and else reveals that everyone's approach to this artform is different. And yet most animation books cover the same content. For many years, Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit has been the gold standard of animation books, and rightfully so. Lucky for us, fellow animation guru Eric Goldberg's "Character Animation Crash Course" isn't just overlap from Williams' work and teaches us different aspects of animation that other books haven't covered. Goldberg covers aspects of animation far less academically than Williams and rather focuses on things from a character standpoint, how you could apply a technique to a specific character. He also list several classic cartoons (most if not all of which are on DVD) for examples of each particular technique. He also covers how control the overall shape volume of what's moving, even for flat, graphic characters, and goes in depth on animation "gimmicks" like smear drawings, zip lines, staggers etc... that are often mentioned, but never properly explained. Probably the most informative part of the book for me was the section on character construction, covering many of the ins and outs of designing an animatable character that I haven't seen in other books. "Character Animation Crash Course" also has the one big thing "Animator's Survival Kit" doesn't: A CD-ROM of the animations shown that you can watch and frame through to better understand the lessons in the book. Hopefully someday other master animators will do what Eric Goldberg's done with "Character Animation Crash Course." Write an animation book that has unique outlook on the artform and that imparts some new pearls of knowledge on the subject. Until then, you have to at least add this book to your shelf. Right next to The Animator's Survival Kit of course.

Great book! Clearly illustrated samples. This book covers all the basics of animation from one of Disney's master animators!

My shelf is littered with books about the history of animation, the practice of animation, the making of animation, and the art of animation, I even have books on theater for acting...however this book brings a certain something...something more to that shelf of endless books. As a comic artist and animator, this book has both inspired me and truly helped me far greater than anything on that shelf. This book will go though "why" a character acts in a certain way, will explain to you what you should know about your character or a character in general, and will both spell it out and show it to you in the included DvD that holds animation files that support the reading. This book is for the animator, comic artist, and even cartoon enthusiasts who want to know more about why characters are the way they are. So many times I have read a book where it was like "Heres the technique, now run with it" and that doesn't really work unless you know your character...unless you really are your character and this book really expresses that and shows you how to obtain that feeling. I would have to rate this book a 5/5 even though it deserves much more. Eric Goldberg is an amazing animator who truly understands, lives, and breaths animation. To be able to have this book in my hand and learn from it is a privilege, and I'm very thankful of him for making this wonderful book!

I look fwd to ploughing thru this... so far it is everything I'd hoped for. It is from 2008, so beware that the CD won't play on the newer Macs. (I wish publishers would just put the mov or avi files on the CD instead of creating some sort of executable that can't be supported after a few years... but oh well, that's my only quibble so far.)

Eric Goldberg is one of the animation greats, not only at Disney's but at many different studios. He has a natural born talent for creating animation with flair whether it be the genie from Aladdin or the flamingos in Fantasia 2000. This is someone I want to listen to. With all of his experience, he has picked up a lot of great techniques, and they are in this book. He presents the material clearly and concisely, so that the reader can get right into implementing these techniques at the animation drawing board. I got it, I read it, I'm using the techniques, and I'm getting great results. I love this book!!!

This is a great book for people who want to learn about the technical process of animation. The terms are defined, relations are established and the universal features of the process are outlined in a friendly, approachable manner. Of course, the best book for learning animation is Preston Blair, but young people may be turned off by its 40's style. This book will, for instance, help teach them that the techniques in Blair are not specific to the way Blair draws. Williams book goes into far more detail, but the wealth of detail may intimidate a neophyte.

Good.

Perfeito

Ich arbeite selbst seit vier Jahren freiberuflich als Animationszeichner und kann behaupten, dass mir dieses eingängige Buch mindestens so viel geholfen hat wie die Standardwerke von Blair, White und Williams, teilweise sogar mehr. Eric Goldberg ist ein Meister der cartoonigen Squash & Stretch-Animation und sein Buch hat mir nützliche Einsicht in seine Technik gegeben, kinetische und trotzdem nuancierte Animation zu planen und auszuführen. Seine Tipps sind mit etwas Vorkenntnis leicht zu verstehen und zu verinnerlichen. Zwar schreibt Goldberg weniger ausführlich und technisch als Williams, doch gerade für das grundsätzliche Begreifen von Prinzipien und ihrer Anwendung eignet sich Character Animation Crash Course aufgrund des lockeren, geordneten und nicht zu überfrachteten Schreibstils mitunter besser. Die mitgelieferte CD mit animierten Szenen stellt ein Novum dar, da alle Szenen komplett mit Timing Charts angezeigt werden und Schritt für Schritt zum genauen Nachvollziehen der Vorhergehensweise abgespielt werden können. Wie die meisten auf Character Animation spezialisierten Bücher lässt jedoch leider auch Goldbergs Buch beim Thema Effektanimation zu wünschen übrig - hier ist man mit dem Buch Elemental Magic von Joseph Gilland nach wie vor besser beraten. Die gezeichneten Beispiele im Buch und auf CD sind simpel gehalten, auch gibt es keine animierten Szenen aus Disneyfilmen zu sehen, an denen Goldberg mitgewirkt hat. (Dies ist aufgrund der Urheberrechtslage jedoch leicht zu verzeihen.) Obwohl Goldberg ausführlich über Designstile schreibt, darf man keinen Zeichenkurs erwarten. Um die Tipps und Techniken einsetzen zu könne, sollte solide Vorerfahrung im Zeichnen vorhanden sein. Goldbergs Buch sollte einen festen Platz in jeder Animationsbibliothek finden. Seine Ratschläge lassen sich auf fast jedes Trickfilmmedium anwenden und werden so auch dem 3D und/oder digitalen Animator nutzen.

The book is filled with excellent advice and information

Un excellent livre d'animation pour son contenu très clair, illustré et ponctué d'humour. Je trouve cet ouvrage plus intéressant que le livre de Richard Williams - The Animator's Survival Kit, car ce dernier est trop technique à mon goût, tandis que Character Animation Crash Course traite de tout ce que l'on fait de manière inconsciente, ou par réflexe disons (pourquoi animer de cette façon, etc). L'ouvrage fait environ 200 pages, mais il se lit très bien et est diablement intéressant. Je l'ai dévoré en 2 jours.