I hate animating. I don't understand the appeal. What kind of enjoyment do you get from being tied to your desk for hours at a time daily just drawing essentially the same thing over and over again but slightly different each time? How does anyone get any kind of dopamine from doing such a boring and time consuming task??? I'm trying to rotoscope and I'm already angry just four frames in.

I've always believed animation is the most creative thing the human species has achieved. In today's age, animation is as "easy as ever" thanks to the digital age. Imagine animating in the 90s, hell, even the 40s.

I think I would kill myself. I have insanely high respect for animators because after just five frames I want to die.

It's definitely a time-consuming process, and it takes a very special type of patience to see through an animation project to the end, but also, I believe the longer something takes to create, the more satisfying it feels to step back and witness the finished product. Until then, it can be a bit of a slog. Motivation and creative energy tend to come and go, and for animation, you really need to have a surplus of both (at least from my experience as a beginner animator).

It's absolutely got its drawbacks, and I understand the lack of appeal for it, but the difficulty and time commitment almost makes the animations that exist more impressive by nature! °｡⋆⸜

It's work. Worst of all it's tedious work, so it's not quite that enjoyable. But that work becomes worthwhile when it's all said and done and you have an end product.

I think some of us are just masochistic, I greatly enjoy the process. I've seen some animators say they really hate doing it (which makes me wonder why they keep doing it... it's not like it pays compared to the labor involved) but I genuinely love animating. It helps that I can just put on a good album or something while I do it.

good, you're ready now

Its not an art for the feint of heart. Its one you have to have passion for.

Perfect, this is the second stage to learning animation. Anger.

its entertaining for me, and fun

i can literally make any single possible idea i have in my tiny brain

Animation is a lengthy process. It may seem tiring but it will pay off when you finish

There’s always the option to animate similar to the way 3D animators do it. I don’t remember the software names but there’s ways you can do it by drawing the character once and turning them into a sort of puppet where you can move their body around after the fact. This is like how Flash worked basically.

It is an arduous art form.

I think I like animation because it comes from nothin. It’s the equivalent of looking at ur poop when u poo. Except it can be front paged sometimes

Relatable

It hits that sweet spot in my ADHD where it's creative enough that I'm engaged, but repetitive enough that I don't have to focus on the shit I don't like about making art...namely, rendering. Animating allows me to focus on movement instead, something I find vastly more engaging to draw and so it allows me to improve incrementally through that repetition. It also means I can use previously drawn frames as reference when drawing new ones, which additionally allows for constant improvement as you go through the project.

Didn't know saying animation is hard would be so controversial??? Anyways muting this I don't want to hear anymore from this thread goodnight

I think most people would agree with you, but you gotta think about how satisfying it's gonna be when you finally finish it and get to see it the whole way through

I like animating, when I do animate...despite not being particularly good at it. My brain clings on to the fascination of being able to create the illusion of movement and capture human expression. I find the theory behind it more engaging than actually animating, but I really should knuckle down and master the basics if I want to get anywhere with it.

sure the process may include greying at 20, but when you get the final product, you get exaggeratedly high confidence for like a week

and not all parts of animating are tedious in my opinion. Sure lip syncing and frame by frame can be quite draining, but coloring is what makes it worth it. i really like coloring, its a great stress reliever for me.

Would I despise doing it? Yes.

Would I be madder at myself for seeing those cool animations and not being able to make it? Yes.

I am a beginner and I wish to pick up on animation again and I’ve done a few rigged animations before and it took me about an hour to rig each one that is relatively simple. The only thing that pulled me through is rage. Unfortunately I probably won’t have much time in the to come few months to do animations lol

A cool trick is to animate very very short segments, one at a time, so you don't get overwhelmed by the amount of work to do.

Gonna make a fairly obvious suggestion here but have you considered going the 2D Skeletal or Puppeting approach? You're banking more on efficiency, asset re-use (library of mouth shapes, hand poses, etc), and getting the most value out of each individual drawing you make. Ya you're not rotoscoping anything with that technique, but it might be less rage inducing (or more, depending on how well it goes lmao)

Personally I love to do sketch of silly animation but yeah for the next step I'm crying I guess the satisfaction of seeing what you've made happen is what motivates...

From what I heard and read it is physically exhausting, money depleting, and work in an area that either likely haunted or toxic. Can be any or all version(s) of the word toxic. Chance being expandable happens often. After all that work there can be chance that it may not be seen as that series worked for gets cancelled. That means a job well done not certain, even if you do everything right.

It is hard and there are obstacles that should not be in any form of workplace. I wish to be and project done should be congratulated most of the time. a story told could echo for years and characters finding new light for an audience to see and you take part of creation that many dreamed to a physical form. You help made a universe that will be in the mind of many.

Maybe you're animating in the wrong program

I've never got more dopamine animating in adobe animate, krita or Toon Boom Harmnoy than animating in adobe flash CS6

its pretty chill you can listen to northernlion while creating something new. i think its pretty fun

In the past I've tried to do it, like I've really tried to force myself to get into it but I guess I'm just not in the headspace for long projects. Me personally if it's not something that I can get done in one sitting, it's not something that I really want to do.

You might like the idea of tweening a lot better, where you just draw parts of a character and move those around with no redrawing needed! It's the approach that shows like Madness Combat use and for me personally its the perfect balance between tedious and creatively fulfilling.