Animation Masterclasses: From Pencils to Pixels: A Complete Course in Animation & Production

by Tony White

Today, it is commonly believed that if you learn software, you can become an animator. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Master animators are trained and not born. Software, as is the humble pencil, is merely yet another tool through which an animator can apply their knowledge. However, neither software nor pencils give you that knowledge, nor do they do the work for you. If you place a fully trained master animator on a computer, or give them a pencil, they’ll astound you with their mastery. However, if you put a nontrained animator on a computer, all you will have is a technician creating moving objects ・ as you’ll see all over YouTube and other video platforms.

This book teaches you exactly how to become a Master Animator--whether you ultimately plan to use pencils, computers, drawing tablets or rigged characters. It’s a complete course, being a collection of 48 masterclasses gleaned from the author’s 50 years of experience of top-level animating, teaching, and filmmaking. It will also train you in the value and application of observational gesture drawing. This book of masterclasses by a master of the art, Tony White, is entirely designed to be THE definitive reference book for students learning how to make things move well as well as how to create films once you know how to do so.

A book for

For home-based, self-study students

: It is a perfect manual to take you from raw beginner to proven animated filmmaker.

For full-time students

: It is an ideal companion to supplement your full-time educational studies, which, no doubt, is overly based on software technology.

For current animation professionals

: It is a comprehensive archive of animation tips and techniques that will enable you to take your work to the next level.

For current animation educators and instructors

: It is a book that can be the ultimate curriculum and study program, enabling your own students to become the master animators of today and tomorrow.

827 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 17, 2022

About the author

Tony White is a British Academy Award-winning animation director, animator, author, educator and consultant. At the beginning of his career, he studied advanced animation techniques with some of the finest masters of the art-form, apprenticing to the late greats... Richard Williams, Ken Harris and Art Babbit. Tony ran his own highly successful and respected animation studio in London for 20 years and has taught animation techniques to countless students in the USA for a further 15. In more recent times Tony has additionally worked as an astrological profiler, helping students and others to know themselves better.