Character Animation Crash Course! [Paperback]

Eric Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2008

This title includes a book and CD. This book is a veritable Genie's lamp filled with everything the aspiring animator could wish for! Renowned animator Eric Goldberg's detailed text and drawings illuminate how to conceive characters 'from the inside out' to create strong personalities. Classic animation techniques are analyzed and brought to life through this unique book and its accompanying CD that offers readers animated movie examples that show, in real time or frame-by-frame, the author's principles at work. Add to this Goldberg's discussions of classic cartoons and his witty, informative observations based on the wealth of knowledge he's gained during his 30-plus years in professional animation, and you have a tour-de-force guide to character animation with the classic touch. It includes a CD of animated movie files.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Best known for designing the Genie in Disney's Aladdin, Goldberg is a cartoon-comedy mater who's crafted a terrific how-to. This is not a coffee-table tome but a textbook, full of technical detail (and accompanied by a neat CD of visual examples). There's plenty to engage casual browsers, though. As he diagrams what makes great 'toons tick, whether hand-drawn or CG - the physics of double takes, the best way to splat a face into an immovable object - Goldberg will leave you bug-eyed at the intricacy of the medium. A- --Entertainment Weekly, September 19, 2008

From the Author

Foreword When I first started making films, books about character animation were rare, and most were written from the distant, historical perspective of an observer. Of the meager handful of books that actually discussed how to do animation, only two were really good: Walt Disney's Tips On Animation from the Disneyland Art Corner and the classic Advanced Animation by Preston Blair. In the half century since, many animation books have been written, but still few are considered indispensable to people interested in doing animation themselves. To that exclusive club we must add the book you now hold in your hand: Character Animation Crash Course. Among Eric's many achievements is the "Friend Like Me" sequence from Walt Disney Pictures' Aladdin, a chunk of pure cartoon magic so dense that it can be enjoyed two ways: at regular speed or one frame at a time... where every aspect of Eric's astonishing embellishments, caricature, and razor-sharp timing can be savored like fine wine. In this jam-packed book and CD Eric will show you the rules for getting the most out of your animation. If you learn them well, you'll be good. If you can internalize these rules to the point where you can call upon them without thinking, you'll be exceptional. And if you learn them as well as Eric, you might even be able to successfully break a few of these rules and add to cumulative knowledge of how to make pencil lines (or pixels, clay, stop-motion models, etc.) come to life. You might even become accomplished enough to write the next great animation book. Good thing the rest of us don't have to wait until then. We have this terrific book right now. Brad Bird -- Writer / Director, The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille

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Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: Silman-James Pr; Paper/DVD edition (July 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879505975
• ISBN-13: 978-1879505971
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Animation book by far, August 8, 2008

By 

Dane Romley - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Character Animation Crash Course! (Paperback)

This book is without a doubt one of the best how to animations books out there. Believe me there are many others but the fact that it was written and fully illustrated by master animator Erik Goldberg makes this an absolute must have. His drawings just pop off the page with life and it is very inspirational to look at. Goldberg takes a different approach to teaching animation because here he assumes you already know the basics and shows you how to make your animation come to life with style and fluidity. It's different from say the Richard Williams book The Animator's Survival Kit because in this book it covers things like walk cycles and what not but in a more technical way. Don't get me wrong that's a wonderful book as well, but Goldberg expands on what Williams did. An example would be Williams talks about mouth shapes but Goldberg shows how and when the shapes should be used effectively; such as hitting accents with a bigger shape and pose. This is not for someone who is just starting out but more for someone who knows a little already and wants to improve to the next level. I've been a professional animator for years and nothing has helped me more than this book. I would highly recommend this book to students of animation and working professionals. The golden age isn't dead yet!

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yeah, Get This One Too, October 18, 2008

By 

Grant Beaudette (Missoula, MT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Character Animation Crash Course! (Paperback)

Animation is an insanely broad topic. Far too huge to ever cover in one book. Listening to master animators on "The Animation Podcast" and else reveals that everyone's approach to this artform is different. And yet most animation books cover the same content.

For many years, Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit has been the gold standard of animation books, and rightfully so. Lucky for us, fellow animation guru Eric Goldberg's "Character Animation Crash Course" isn't just overlap from Williams' work and teaches us different aspects of animation that other books haven't covered.

Goldberg covers aspects of animation far less academically than Williams and rather focuses on things from a character standpoint, how you could apply a technique to a specific character. He also list several classic cartoons (most if not all of which are on DVD) for examples of each particular technique.

He also covers how control the overall shape volume of what's moving, even for flat, graphic characters, and goes in depth on animation "gimmicks" like smear drawings, zip lines, staggers etc... that are often mentioned, but never properly explained.

Probably the most informative part of the book for me was the section on character construction, covering many of the ins and outs of designing an animatable character that I haven't seen in other books.

"Character Animation Crash Course" also has the one big thing "Animator's Survival Kit" doesn't: A CD-ROM of the animations shown that you can watch and frame through to better understand the lessons in the book.

Hopefully someday other master animators will do what Eric Goldberg's done with "Character Animation Crash Course." Write an animation book that has unique outlook on the artform and that imparts some new pearls of knowledge on the subject. Until then, you have to at least add this book to your shelf. Right next to The Animator's Survival Kit of course.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Animation Timing & Breakdown Manual published so far., August 23, 2008

By 

Ronald Doucet (Nova Scotia, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Character Animation Crash Course! (Paperback)

When I went to animation college 10 years ago, there were NO books to instruct you on actually HOW to practice weight balance, mass and volume in your character animation tests. Plenty of old books existed with great artwork, with the exception of Preston Blair's book Cartoon Animation (The Collector's Series) and later on (after I graduated) the great Richard William's book The Animator's Survival Kit. But there was nothing to actually show you step by step the principles of posing, timing and movement for hand-drawn animation, Richard's book had some nice technical stuff for walk cycles and timing, but Goldberg's book is a first for really outlining the basics efficiently.


This book IS the first and best book to lay out the principles of character movement; antics, overshoots, settles, squash and stretch, break downs, in-betweeing, timing, spacing and all the other basics needed for any classical or CG animator.

I highly recommend this book to all students, teachers and even veterans, because not only does it cover all the fundamentals but it goes beyond into more advanced concepts that ALL types of animators must know and practice, whether it be 3D, traditional paper, or stopmotion animation, this book is definitely worth it.