Let me talk about why I breakdown animations into the Four Stages:

1. Foundation
2. Structure
3. Details
4. Polish

If you haven’t already, then download the pdf that accompanied my video on doubling your animation output, as it lays out this work flow quite nicely:

Double Your Animation Output in 7 Easy Steps

In my mind, I liken animation to clay sculpture.

In clay sculpture, you first lay the FOUNDATION for all work to come; you draw out and plan your work on paper.

Using these detailed plans, you then construct your armature or STRUCTURE, which will HOLD your work.

Now its time to add on a lump of clay. At first this makes your work look awkward and wrong, but as you sculpt in the DETAILS, it begins to take shape!

Once we’ve added the main details, we might literally POLISH the sculpture and give it variance in texture.

If we are sculpting a head, we would never start sculpting the detail of an eyeball before we’ve finished filling in the mass of the head.

This is our natural urge; we get impatient and want to ’see what its going to look like’ but this is bad practice. We must follow the steps in order if we want to work efficiently.

Every step has its natural place, and I believe the method I’ve laid out here is the most natural method for animating, as I’ve learned it over 15 years.

First we must plan, then we must block out, only then can we start to ‘carve in’ our breakdowns and inbetweens. Once the structure is all in place and ‘roughed out’ we can begin adding the details and polish.

So if you want to become a better animator, a faster animator, and produce higher QUALITY animation; you don’t need to work harder, you need to work SMARTER.

Feel free to download this pdf and share it with your friends and co-workers. It’s free and I believe every animator should read it!

Double Your Animation Output in 7 Easy Steps