Looking for awesome animation tutorials? Tons of drawing exercises? Unlimited creative resources? Well, Brown Bag Labs’s got the ultimate guide for some of the most epic animation blogs, websites and online resources out there that our creatives love and return to time and time again.
Animator Island-is “the” website for animators and animation lovers. Not only a great resource of technical and artistic knowledge about animation but also tutorials, animation exercises, interviews with artists and links to other animation websites and blogs.
They also have a YouTube channel full of interesting videos.
The 11 second club – This website is a monthly contest where animators take an 11-second long clip of animation and animate something to it. There are links to free rigs, forums where you can get feedback on work in progress, and if you want to animate something at home it’s a great motivation to just make something that month.
– Diane Aarts, Animation Supervisor
Via 11 second club you can take part in monthly animation challenges or just take a look to see what other people have submitted and the reviews they get from artists. Very interesting indeed!
Line of Action – Great resource for free life drawing!
– Samantha Braithewaite, Storyboard Revisionist
Line of Action is a huge collection of still images where you can choose the length that each pose stays onscreen, how long your drawing session is, and you can choose whether the models are male/female and if they’re nude or clothed.
I would always recommend life drawing references for any artist or animator, no matter whether they’re still in college or 20 years in the game. It’s essential to keep drawing and to draw from life as much as possible!
Founded in 1995, WIA is the only organization dedicated to advancing women in the field of animation. Envisioning a world where women share equally in the creation, production and rewards of animation, and providing resources and connections to make it happen.
Amazing for news around the development of the 50/50 equality in the animation industry, hearing about women pioneers in animation you never knew and also finding job opportunities, mentorships and more.
Cartoon Brew is the main website for news about animation all around the world.
– Anna Margiotta, Senior Storyboard Revisionist
Screen Directors Guild of Ireland
Established in 2000, the Screen Directors Guild of Ireland (SDGI) is the representative body for directors involved in the Irish and international audiovisual industry. These include directors of feature films, fiction, animation documentary, television drama, short films, video art and commercials.
SDGI has great updates on the Irish animation industry, and recently they have published a second round of Directors in Dialogue Podcasts, including one with our very own Bronagh O’Hanlon. These are an amazing source of knowledge. ^_^
StoryboardArt is a professional community of visual storytellers that provide you with a terrific toolkit for learning the art of visual storytelling. Through online classes, streaming videos, and live workshops they teach the story principles that are not found in art schools or traditional learning environments.
An amazing website, full of interesting articles and classes for storyboard artists.
The Art of Animation is a Tumblr blog full to the brim with gorgeous artworks from animations, concept artwork, model sheets and more. If you’re looking for something that has endless scrolling opportunity, look no further.
This is an amazing site. Very inspiring!
– Stephen O’Connor, Art Director
Catsuka is a fantastic site that showcases Animation and Illustration from around the world. They share indie and big name stuff alike. I’ve been following them on multiple platforms since the early 2000s before I even went to Sheridan college. A wealth of inspiration!
They are in French but you can easily translate the page through your browser.
– Kostadino Ketsilis, Scene Painter
Has everything from interviews to current anime’s production notes! The notes, in particular, are fascinating to read and give in-depth details about how a certain anime’s production is going, who works on it and their background, how production mishaps can/may affect the show, etc.
– Adrienne Bazir, 2D Animator
Ever wonder about the cost of animation projects or how to budget one? Frederik Villumsen, Co-founder of Craft, set up this site, currently in Beta, to help you gauge a rough estimate of the cost of your passion/commercial project, and to explain the reasons behind the costs.
This is fairly new and is not going to be applicable to everyone, but I’ve used this in the past to give me some quick and rough shorthand ranges of budget for animation projects.
It’s not the be-all-end-all but it’s a good link to throw to people who want to do animated projects but don’t know how much money they should allocate for it because it allows them to pick their priorities and see how they affect the estimated budget. Also works nicely as a bit of a learning tool for people who think art is cheap.
– Mik Kirchheiner, Animator