Glossary:
1: Should I look up to a flash artist?
2: am i over or underconfident?
3: I suck at a particular part in flash, should i be worried?
4: im getting SICK of animating this, should i force myself to animate anyway?
5: why am i not learning?!?!?! How can i stay into flash?!?!
I have some advice to the newbies. this is not an actual guide, this a physcological guide, maybe you more advanced people may want to scim through it too.
now alot of "newbs" are talentless people who make stupid flashes and put NO WORK whatsoever or patience into an animation.
BUT there are newbs who actually put forth effort and try and try and try and just keep getting blammed! its not their fualt their just ignorant
to all of you newbies out there who try i can only tell you what i felt and what i know and what mistakes ive done
when i first started flash i didn't even know what a layer or frame was, i didn't learn from a book, i learned from hard ass work and my own dedication (and i cant say i did it all on my own, my friend Jjokerdude is his username gave me that kick-start of info i desperatley needed)
So im here to give you self-tuaght newbs a bit of advice, something i kinda wish someone told me 2 years ago.
1: People will tell you "haha stop trying to imitate zhu's xiao" or "haha stop trying to imitate krinkle's madness" or "haha stop trying to imitate randy solems sonic VS mario" as much as it hurts for me to say this, DONT LISTEN TO THEM. when you try to imitate someone or animate like someone your better off. an example could be a big brother, lets say there is a little brother who looks up to his big brother, well the little brother loves to play basketball and trys to play like his big brother. while the little brother may not right now be amazing like his big brother, the little brother has a role model. this big brother who the little brother looks up to may do much better then if he were an only child with no-one realistic to look up to. the same way works, my role model was xiao for the longest time but after awhile i didn't need a role model but dont worry about that. the point is its actually a GOOD thing to look up to an artist.
*This next part is split into 2 areas, if you really like the work you do go to 2a if you are discouraged and feel like you work is crap and useless and even you hate it go to 2b.
2a. I was a 2a type of person and probabley still am. there is one thing you have to realise when you make an animation. its good for you to be learning and its good your getting better, but you have to look into someone elses eyes. act like youve never animated before and youve never seen this and it was submited into the portal. thing about how the animation is. how would u review it? graphics? sound? interactivity? overall? originality? you may realise you arent as awsome as i think, i have to do this to myself sometimes. the only thing worse then getting too discouraged with yourself and hating your work and skill is thinking its awsome and rocks and should be on front page. if you have that feeling too strong it may slow your learning. but dont lose all confidence! its good to thjink a bit higher of your work then others might.
2b. well im not a 2b sort of person, im a 2a sort of person. but its basically 2a inverted. what you have to keep reminding yourself is that krinkles, zhu, legendary frog, randy solem, dan paladin or whoever you look up to, at one time used to be a useless pathetic newb who didn't know what a motion tween was. but they fought through their newby years and look at em now, loved and known. you have to have self esteem in your own talents because who will for u? pshhh, im not gonna, i dont give a shit about u, and neither do other people here. i care about newbies in general but im not gonna be over there patting your back as you have a nervous breakdown. get over it and youll see what you can become. ignore the comments of your ignorant friends.
3: everyone has talents and weaknesses. there are talented artists who just suck at certain things. look at tom fulp himself. look at pico, now is that bad drawing or what? his drawing skills remind me of an earthquak sketch. same with the famous xiao xiao 3, comepletley crappy drawings, sincerely sad. even krinkles at one time wasn't the best drawer. and ME, look at my animations. shit drawing. but now u have u remember our talents! look at tom fulps amazing programming skill, he programed a freakin video game (Alien hominid) . Xiao was a rediculously fluid animation, and krinkles is .... self explanatory.
4: AVOID BURNOUT! if you get sick of working on an animation series ur making then STOP, avoid burnout, work on something else, or even just stop workin period for awhile. its normal have an off day, or off week even an off month. only start worrying when you get like... and off 3 months or something. if u do get an off month then just force yourself to sit at the computer for awhile and just chill out and animate at a slow pace, just kick urself and maybe youll become re-inspired. dont force urself too hard
5: Okay, everyone reaches this point, some quicker or slower then others. its a peak point. its a time where you learn alot of basic and alot of advanced maybe even stuff and you reach a peak, sorta like... a hell level in your time. its when you dont seem to be getting better at all also when this happens you may lose inspiration, or ideas. then form there on you grow in small bursts , think of it as puberty sorta. Well im givin u the sex talk lol.
Now son/daughter... theres going to be a time when you kind of reach a depression sort of time... where youll have sort of mood swings that occure during these times, its when you lose inspiration to animate and just feel like chillin out. well if you cant learn to much more i have to tell you the beauty of co-animations... now.. its works like this, when 2 talented authors meet each other they will learn from each other and may at one point may want to have an animation, to do so they must combine their strengths and weaknesses and when this happens if everythin goes right an animation is born with traits from both authors. so basically what im saying (in a very corney and joking way) is that it may be a good thing to experiment teaming up with people and such.
Well im hope this helps a soul. if you need help IM me at Stealth Beest or E-mail me.
This post hits the EXACT limit mark. nice
