Hi all - as discussed in the digital art thread, I'm here to answer all your animation questions. 
I've been animating - or doing animation related activities in Toronto (Canada) for about 5 years now. So, keep in mind that my experience is somewhat limited by geography.
I'll start out with the questions I get most frequently. Please ask anything, and I'll do my best to answer your questions myself, or ask my colleagues to help me out.
FAQ:
Will you look at/critic my cartoons/animations?
Absolutely.
My best suggestion is that you start a sketchbook thread on http://conceptart.org/. It is like the Absolute Write of art. (my sketchbook is in my signature).
Alternatively, you can just PM me and we'll figure something out.
What's it like to be an animator? / what is your daily routine?
Animation is quite a bit like writing. It is very uncommon for a person to have a 9-5 job for long periods of time. Most often we work contracts, varying in length from a few weeks to a couple of years. All of my contracts have been between 6-9 months long.
That means that while I may be working in a studio I am also padding my demo reel and website, networking, and keeping an eye out for my next job.
At my current job I check the list of scenes that need special effects. The scene has already been through the character animation stage, effects is last in the animation pipeline.
If I haven't done that particular type of effect before - lets say slime - I check the inventory of previously made effects for style and colour. If there is a reference I match the style and movement. If not, I make an educated guess, based on other effects and design something appropriate.
The finished scene goes to my animation director, who will give me revision notes, or approve it.
That scene goes to the over all director and producer who will give more-different revision notes or approve it.
Once I've revised the appropriate amount, the scene is sent to the render guys.
Do you need a degree to be an animator?
Short answer - no.
long answer - The actual degree is not as important as the stuff you learn while attending school. There are people who have no formal art education that do very well in the industry. Stephen Silver (designer for shows like "Kim Possible", "Danny Phantom") is self taught, and started work as a caricature artist in malls and stuff.
If you jump into the industry with no formal education you will need a substantial portfolio to make up for it - at least at the level of a solid graduate, if not better.
Personally - I'm not a natural talent - I went to the 4 year classical animation program at MTM
Do you need to know how to draw to be an animator?
Short answer - no.
Long answer - I know plenty of 3D animators that cannot draw, or have limited drawing skills.
If your interested in 2D animation, drawing skills are not as important as they once where. However, the job market is quite competitive and applicants who can draw will be hired before those who can't.
Also, (as elaborated below) there are lots of jobs in animation that aren't actually animating. The more you're capable of, the more contracts you can apply for. There's no guarantee that animating alone will keep you employed all year round.
Parts of the animation pipeline:
This isn't a frequent question, but it's a biggie. Most people don't realize how many different jobs there are within the cartoon family -
Animation is broken up into lots of little pieces and all composited together as a fancy end product.
The initial list is based on a 2D pipeline, since I have the most experience in this field. I'll stick to the entirely art related ones (obviously we have writers, sales, HR, and a bunch of other logistical things as well)
Design:
Usually you have a lead designer who comes up with the overall style of a show. He /She will do major location design, characters, and a few props for reference.
Bigger budgets will segregate location, characters, and props to different people or teams.
These designs go to the Storyboard artist. This person (or team if the budget is big enough) maps out the entire episode, blocking in the camera angles and character posing.
More on Backgrounds
Layout - these guys take the storyboard and draw every angle of the backgrounds depicted in the story board, adhering to the initial designers plans. The final product is clean line art, depending on the show it could be pencil, vector or pixel art.
Background painting - These folks take the Layout art work and paint it. Most of it is digital now, but high budget may include gouache or watercolour paintings.
Prop Design
This may or may not be clumped in with the character design. A lead may just draw a single view of a prop and have an underling clean the drawing and do the rotation. It's all based on budget.
More on Characters
unless the budget is super small, the initial character designs are handed to subordinates. The lesser designers clean the drawings and create character rotations, expression charts, hand charts.
Sometimes this is done on paper and transferred into the program to be cleaned again, other times it is done directly in the program.
In a cut-out show (often called flash-style) The cleaned drawings are passed to the riggers / character breaker. They are then converted into puppets. These puppets are passed to the character animators.
Animation happens!
In a classical show- designs go to the key animators, or lead animators.
In higher budget productions, clean up of keys and the in-between drawings are done by junior animators.
In a cut out show, each animator is assigned a block of scenes. (Film could be as few as 3 seconds a week, TV 30-60 seconds a week)
Once character animation is done the scenes go to the special effects and compositing people. (like me!) We make sure all the dust, snot, slime, bubbles, splashes, lasers are all in there
If necessary we adjust the colours, add highlights, shadows and all the finishing touches.
Finally the scenes are sent to rendering and editing.
For 3D animation add in modelers, texture artists, lighting aritsts, matte painters - and turn rigging and FX into a math nightmare with lots of drinking.
So, that got long winded! I'll shut up now - ask away
I've been animating - or doing animation related activities in Toronto (Canada) for about 5 years now. So, keep in mind that my experience is somewhat limited by geography.
I'll start out with the questions I get most frequently. Please ask anything, and I'll do my best to answer your questions myself, or ask my colleagues to help me out.
FAQ:
Will you look at/critic my cartoons/animations?
Absolutely.
My best suggestion is that you start a sketchbook thread on http://conceptart.org/. It is like the Absolute Write of art. (my sketchbook is in my signature).
Alternatively, you can just PM me and we'll figure something out
.What's it like to be an animator? / what is your daily routine?
Animation is quite a bit like writing. It is very uncommon for a person to have a 9-5 job for long periods of time. Most often we work contracts, varying in length from a few weeks to a couple of years. All of my contracts have been between 6-9 months long.
That means that while I may be working in a studio I am also padding my demo reel and website, networking, and keeping an eye out for my next job.
At my current job I check the list of scenes that need special effects. The scene has already been through the character animation stage, effects is last in the animation pipeline.
If I haven't done that particular type of effect before - lets say slime - I check the inventory of previously made effects for style and colour. If there is a reference I match the style and movement. If not, I make an educated guess, based on other effects and design something appropriate.
The finished scene goes to my animation director, who will give me revision notes, or approve it.
That scene goes to the over all director and producer who will give more-different revision notes or approve it.
Once I've revised the appropriate amount, the scene is sent to the render guys.
Do you need a degree to be an animator?
Short answer - no.
long answer - The actual degree is not as important as the stuff you learn while attending school. There are people who have no formal art education that do very well in the industry. Stephen Silver (designer for shows like "Kim Possible", "Danny Phantom") is self taught, and started work as a caricature artist in malls and stuff.
If you jump into the industry with no formal education you will need a substantial portfolio to make up for it - at least at the level of a solid graduate, if not better.
Personally - I'm not a natural talent - I went to the 4 year classical animation program at MTM
Do you need to know how to draw to be an animator?
Short answer - no.
Long answer - I know plenty of 3D animators that cannot draw, or have limited drawing skills.
If your interested in 2D animation, drawing skills are not as important as they once where. However, the job market is quite competitive and applicants who can draw will be hired before those who can't.
Also, (as elaborated below) there are lots of jobs in animation that aren't actually animating. The more you're capable of, the more contracts you can apply for. There's no guarantee that animating alone will keep you employed all year round.
Parts of the animation pipeline:
This isn't a frequent question, but it's a biggie. Most people don't realize how many different jobs there are within the cartoon family -
Animation is broken up into lots of little pieces and all composited together as a fancy end product.
The initial list is based on a 2D pipeline, since I have the most experience in this field. I'll stick to the entirely art related ones (obviously we have writers, sales, HR, and a bunch of other logistical things as well)
Design:
Usually you have a lead designer who comes up with the overall style of a show. He /She will do major location design, characters, and a few props for reference.
Bigger budgets will segregate location, characters, and props to different people or teams.
These designs go to the Storyboard artist. This person (or team if the budget is big enough) maps out the entire episode, blocking in the camera angles and character posing.
More on Backgrounds
Layout - these guys take the storyboard and draw every angle of the backgrounds depicted in the story board, adhering to the initial designers plans. The final product is clean line art, depending on the show it could be pencil, vector or pixel art.
Background painting - These folks take the Layout art work and paint it. Most of it is digital now, but high budget may include gouache or watercolour paintings.
Prop Design
This may or may not be clumped in with the character design. A lead may just draw a single view of a prop and have an underling clean the drawing and do the rotation. It's all based on budget.
More on Characters
unless the budget is super small, the initial character designs are handed to subordinates. The lesser designers clean the drawings and create character rotations, expression charts, hand charts.
Sometimes this is done on paper and transferred into the program to be cleaned again, other times it is done directly in the program.
In a cut-out show (often called flash-style) The cleaned drawings are passed to the riggers / character breaker. They are then converted into puppets. These puppets are passed to the character animators.
Animation happens!
In a classical show- designs go to the key animators, or lead animators.
In higher budget productions, clean up of keys and the in-between drawings are done by junior animators.
In a cut out show, each animator is assigned a block of scenes. (Film could be as few as 3 seconds a week, TV 30-60 seconds a week)
Once character animation is done the scenes go to the special effects and compositing people. (like me!) We make sure all the dust, snot, slime, bubbles, splashes, lasers are all in there
If necessary we adjust the colours, add highlights, shadows and all the finishing touches.
Finally the scenes are sent to rendering and editing.
For 3D animation add in modelers, texture artists, lighting aritsts, matte painters - and turn rigging and FX into a math nightmare with lots of drinking.
So, that got long winded! I'll shut up now - ask away
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