Animation Books

This book is a fun way to draw funky, animated creatures. It taught me how to draw cartoons better. I have half of this series of books. I think this is a great idea for kids to learn how to draw animated creatures. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cartoon drawing.

I bought this product for my grandson who loves to draw. I used to teach drawing, so I'm pretty fussy about the so called "art" products out there for children. So many do little to foster creativity, but this one inspires. All the artist gets is two 3-D, swivel eyeballs that protrude through the drawing tablet and the rest is up the him/her. He sat down right away and began drawing. Days later, he was still drawing and had his mom fax me a favorite.


If you have a budding artist in your family, I recommend this or one of the related animation drawing books. Limited gimmicks but lots of fun.Eyeball Animation Drawing Pad & Handbook (Eyeball Animation!)

Jake is a wonderful artist and has gotten really serious about drawing animations. I saw this beginner book by a search on Amazon and ordered it. He loves it and has done many great monster and creature sketches in the book and loves to show them off to all his family and friends. There are other book in this series and I will be buying them for his enjoyment.

Our son already has this book. He's had hours of fun drawing different creatures, we had to order a second copy. If you have a child who likes to draw pictures get this book.

I read this book to my two daughters and then we watched the video. Understand that my olderst daughter is one who is very slow to release her anger and takes this out on me (Her father). To my amazement 2 minutes after she was angered by something she came up to me and wanted a big huh and say sorry. I said wow what's going on? She said " Look Daddy, I,m like "Rindin"... Anger is not who I am! I could barley contain my joy and tears. Rodger Anthony (Author and motivational speaker) of this book is amazing.

This book is darling and I'm amazed at how all children respond to the film. It's fun and has beautiful animation! Exceptionally done! It also has a good message for children, something sorely lacking in most media today.

What a fish story!! But not like those that fishermen tell.

Rindin the Puffer should be in your animation library, right next to the best animation offered by Disney, Fos, Warner PBrothers, Pixar, and the rest. The quality of the art work rivals the best 2D art in the business, and thw story is right up there with A Shark's Tale and Finding Nemo.

Buy the Book -- Buy the movie. In either case, you will be pleasantly surprised at what a small animation studio, didicated to the art of animated story telling can do. FatCat Animation is a force to be reconed with in the animation world.

If your kids love the "Land Before Time" series, they will love RINDIN. My 3 year-old nephew loves the book and watches the DVD over and over again. Now that he is starting pre-school the book/dvd combo is a great vehicle to talk about how important it is to respect individual differences.

Highly recommended!

Over the past couple of months I've read a small pile of computer graphics books from the "Inspired" and New Riders [digital] series and others. I would put 3D design in the position of being one of the first practial how-to books a beginner should work with. Each section is clearly laid out, doesn't confuse with too much detail, and helps you gently step into CG. This book will get you oriented and everything after this will just be deeper studies in specific areas.

A lush, beautiful introduction to the world of 3D. Perfect for newbies and those just wondering what 3D is all about. Plus it includes a Cinema 4D tutorial (building a photo-realistic pool cue).

This book left me wanting more from this publisher and this author.

The BEST book out there for beginning 3D artists. Period. Should be included with all 3D software packages. If you're thinking about getting into 3D design, buy this first!!!!!!

Digital 3D Design is like a visual dictionary for the 3D design world. Out of all the 3D books I own, this is the one I recommend the most in teaching 3D and animation classes (with Bill Fleming's Photorealistic Toolkit a close second!).

It covers concepts and terms (introductory and advanced) in very clear and concise ways, fully illustrated.

It discusses all the major 3D packages, including Maya, LightWave, Cinema 4DXL, ElectricImage, SoftImage and others, discussing advantages of each.

It covers views, 3D space, lighting, shading, textures, resolution, UV mapping, splines, curves, polygons, points, advanced modeling concepts, raytracing, rendering, radiosity, setting up skeletons, animation, inverse kinematics--everything you'd expect if you were looking for the ideal textbook for a 3D class (I'm using it for my modeling and animation classes).

All this for around less than $30. A book every 3D designer, and instructor, should own! Highly recommended.

Admittedly, I was drawn to the book (no pun intended) from the many hours I spent as a child playing the animated game, Dragon's Lair. The book is great for the examples that it provides from Bluth's studio animations -video games and feature film animations. It provides great insight into the process, although you can tell that it is a little dated in technique (computer references are a little lean). But the drawings, pages and pages of storyboards, and the transcripts from pre-production conversations are invaluable for providing creative insight. I would highly recommend this book to accompany other materials on the storyboarding process (such as Storyboarding Design Course by Giuseppe Cristiano). This is a great book and a has a wealth of content.Don Bluth's Art Of Storyboard

Very helpful book on stroyboarding from the master himself Don Bluth. Really enjoyable and fast read.

I think this is a decent overview of the storyboarding process. OF course each of his subjects could require a college-level class and large book to seriously cover, but I appreciate Bluth's perspective on what he views as the signficant elements of the workflow and his explanation of why they are important.

"Don Bluth's Art Of Storyboard" is a great "crash-course" for those interested in storyboarding. I loved the references to musical tempo as well as the commentary on the boards of past Bluth films.

The storyboards for "The Secret Of NIMH" are covered in detail, and are among the most beautifully staged boards I've seen! Bluth (and crew) used pen and grey markers to convincingly portray texture, perspective, and relatively sophisticated lighting (personally, markers and I never got along, so I can appreciate the difficulty level). Many cinematography and acting cues seen in other, more technical books are cleverly and entertainingly utilized in the storyboards of films like "NIMH", "All Dogs Go To Heaven" and "Anastasia".

Overall I'd say this is an excellent tool for beginners. It can also be a great gift for the experienced story artist who just happens to be a Don Bluth fan...

This book is pretty thorough in covering all the aspects of digital cinematography, such as what the production process looks like, how to construct a compelling story, camera direction, lighting..... The sections on Lighting are especially thorough and very much tailored for the "Digital" part of Digital Cinematography, with easy to follow examples of how to create different lighting schemes in a 3D environment. Also, the artist spotlights on professionals working in the animation industry are very good to read as they add other insights and help you understand how they think and use this information. With most of the educational art books that I look for, good visuals are very important, and this book doesn't dissappoint. Great examples of 3D animation to illustrate the points of the book.

Exploring Digital Cinematography is the perfect source to inspire or inform those looking to leap into the fields of animation and film. From those with little to no experience to those with countless numbers of years in the field, this book provides detailed knowledge about topics such as color theory, cameras, and lighting that will help pave the way to create a visual masterpiece. Mr. Donati provides plenty of pictorial guidance to help ease students into learning the subject material. He also provides some hard truths that few beginners to the field realize before making the decision to enter animation. One specific overtone to this book that makes it a great reference is that animators are film makers and artists first. There is no way around that. Make great films, animation, and art with the help of this book. Highly recommended.

This book is a great resource for animation instructors or anyone looking to improve their skills as an animator. As the title indicates, it is built around the premise that good animators are first and foremost filmmakers--a fact that few budding animators consider. Donati walks readers through the entire animation process, and I've used several of the sections in both intro and upper-level classes. It conversational tone makes the text fun to read and there are plenty of graphics to reinforce the lessons. His thorough explanations of color theory, storyboarding and camera work make my lessons in these areas more effective. The accompanying CD-rom is full of helpful material as well, including a fantastic tutorial on 3-point lighting. If every 3D student followed this, there would be no more floating figures hovering above the ground when they should be running on it! Finally there's a book that covers the essential cinematographer's skills as they apply to animators. Strongly recommended.

This book is perfect for anyone hoping to gain a greater understanding of all facets of digital cinematography and producing films/animations.

Super for use in the classroom and personal projects. The thing I like most is that the chapters give a nice basic overview then go into great detail for those that want a lot more.

-Michael

This book should be considered a combination of art/animation history,as well as a bible for Felix fans!

John Canemaker has the rare gift of bringing the human side of great animation to life. He is at the top of his form in this book, which follows the story of Felix the Cat from his creation by Otto Messmer through the present day. Very highly recommended for anyone interested in Animation in any form whatsoever.

An excellent book filled with early pictures of Felix the Cat. A must for anyone (like me) who has an interest in early animation. In the book are interesting facts about the first comic superhero that was born about 65 years before Bart Simpson. Did you know that Walt Disney admitted to stealing some of the way Mickey Mouse looked from old drawings of Felix the Cat? I have found this this black-and-white coffee table book very useful in my research for my Felix the Cat web page. (http://w3.nai.net/~eifert)

Canemaker takes the reader through the amazing roller coaster ride that is the career of Felix the Cat. From the shady past of producer Pat Sullivan, to the brilliant career of Otto Messmer, this is a great read. Complete with rarely seen Felix memorabilia, this book has it all. It is just too bad that there aren't more books like Canemaker's out there for the dyed-in-the-wool fan. Pick it up!

Like so many others, I'm self-taught in Photoshop, InDesign ... and now I'm tackling Final Cut Pro.

Visual QuickPro Guides are quickly becoming my "go to" books for technical learning. I have found them to be:

1. Packed full of information;
2. Easy to read (the pages are set up perfectly for us visual learners);
3. Well indexed to find information.

Lisa Brenneis' FINAL CUT PRO 6 guide is quickly becoming well-worn as I learn the ins and outs of final cut.

If you're teaching yourself Final Cut like I am, this book is a must-have.

Enjoy!

Learning FCP by reading the manuals is like running in mud. Turning to Visual Quick pro is a great way to get a jump start on learning FCP. Using this book is perfect for finding answers to simple yet mounting tasks when editing with FCP. Great book to keep on hand weather you're new to FCP or an old pro. This book will save you time and cut down on the trial and error process.

I own most books written on Final Cut Pro. I love all the Apple Pro books. But.......this is the first book I always tell everyone to purchase. It is the essential FCP reference for most situations. Of course it doesn't go into everything like the manuals but I feel this book is a must read and is never far from my editing room.

The guys at the Genius Bar in the Apple Store in San Francisco recommended this to me, and I'm happy they did. It's simply excellent!

a great book for any flash student with superb examples . a must for anyone connected to computers..

This is a quite thorough book that picks up where Mohler's intro book leaves off. It's written as if a Flash instructor literally transcribed his class presentations, which is good and bad. Explanations are long, but at times are wordy and dull. It will remind you at times of tedious homework assignments and drills. There is quite a bit of slogging through pages with only two or three long paragraphs with no Flash code. That's not bad, but it's a sign that an editor probably could have tightened up the writing here.

Also, these authors need to lighten up and learn to write! The tone they take is often "academic", with all the snobbiness and overuse of big words and long sentences that comes with that. Often it's clear that one or the other of the two authors has written a particular passage--and there are some awful clunkers there. Better instructors and writers strive for a more human, friendly tone.

Also, there are coding techniques that seem to me not to reflect current or common Flash coding practice, like the frequent use of the eval() function and the set() function (which I've *never* seen other advanced Flash authors use).

One good thing: the two long projects in the book are kind of neat, definately better than in some other big Flash books.

I'm a beginning flash user, and I picked this book up as a follow up to Mohler's first book. Even though it explores advanced scripting, the explanations are clear enough for beginners like myself to understand. I actually understand OOP because of the great dog class example. There are some really great examples on the cd-rom. It's so helpful to have an actual Flash file to play with, so I can see exactly how it works.

I bought this book a couple of weeks ago and I love it. It has tons of examples in the CD. It is a great book to learn complex actionscripting.

I bought this book for my 18 month old because we like birds and the illustrations looked cute. I love the sweet story and the singsong rhymes like Dr. Seuss. Such a fun story and great illustrations - it didn't take long until I had memorized the whole thing, which is nice because my daughter can hold the book and turn the pages and jiggle the eyes while I recite the story to her. Highly recommend it!

We read to our children every day and I look forward to reading this book especially. It is so enlightening and a joy to read. I wish more stories had such a positive inspiration as Friends of a Feather!

An adorable book that easily catches your eye as well as the eye of your child. Arlen Cohn writes in a Dr. Suess like style which children and adults will enjoy together. An imaginitive story that introduces your children to different kinds of birds, with a summary at the end, giving a non-fiction description of each bird in an interesting way that is sure to keep your childs interest. The illustrations by Don Sullivan are absolutely fantastic, sure to make for hours on enjoyment! Highly recommended!

A wonderful book, both the pictures and words, and it really informs you about lots of birds. A sense of adventure that's mixed with suspense, the joy and the fun of the book is intense. The story is brilliant, the drawings sublime, and they manage to carry it off all in rhyme. So buy it, enjoy it, it's full of surprise, and not to forget, it's got googly eyes. Now the author's my brother, I have to confess, but that won't mean that you'll like the book any less.

Interested in game animation for a long time. The book is a good starting point. The book is well written and laid out. Also comes with a educational version of Maya which is a definite plus, which allows anyone to work on 3D animation for games and CGI projects. Definitely recommend for anyone wishing to learn animation for games or otherwise.

Very comprehensive and well orgenised book. McKinley explains every aspect of
character animation. Could do a bit more on animation it self.

As with his former book on Maya, McKinley explains the process in a very clear an easy to follow way. This book is an excellent guide to character animation in Maya. Simply brilliant!

R.L.Borsheim

the game Animators guide to maya is a very indepth look into game animation in maya. It describes every feature in a way that anyone could understand. The writing in this book is almost like he is just talking, Mike uses a very interesting mix of technical and casual terms which make it entertaining and educational!
i suggest this book to anyone who is interested in maya and game animation.

-Andy (Joopson)

ps. ok so i am above 13, im 14. But in order to leave a review you need to buy the book from here, so i just did a kids review.