I want to animate. But I don't know where to begin.

[Sylus5FA3]

Hey, everybody.

Very first post ever, besides RLE! Hooray! applause

So, I want to be an animator, anywhere from small time cartoons, to video game 3D modelling, to big time CGI Blockbuster movies, etc. I've always had a large interest in it, and have been one to "evaluate" animation, and take in the best of what I see (poses, body language, etc) to use later. But the problem is...

Later has to be now, and I don't know how to start this up.

I have a friend willing to sell me a small WACOM tablet for $40 or so, and I have some cash put away to buy a proper mic, I've been looking at video editing software, but I need to piece it all together. If someone, ANYONE could help point me in the right direction, even to a post that already explains this perfectly, I'd be extremely thankful. Thank you guys for your time to read this!

TL;DR - Want to animate, have the basic building blocks in my head, but nothing else. Please help? 

[n. tilcheff]

Hi mate,

Start with a 2B pencil and ten 500-sheet packs of printer paper, Preston Blair and Andrew Loomis and give yourself 10 years.

To loosely quote Chuck Jones, quoting his teacher: "Everyone has 10 thousand bad drawing in them. The sooner you get them out, the better."

How come you post in the Animate forum if you want to do 3D?

[J23K]

Animate themselves have a good range of tutorials on their software. But also, YouTube is a great place to really start learning the stuff you want to learn.

It will help to start with one thing you want to do (i.e. 2D animation) then just get very good at that. So maybe start with stick figure fights or something like that. Then move onto another thing and then another thing until you've mastered all the things you want to learn and can make the big projects you want to make.