Darned right it’s hard. It’s frustrating. It’s slow. It’s so easy to give up.
But here’s the thing. Sometimes we get so locked in on what we haven’t achieved yet, that we forget how much we’ve already learned just by showing up and trying.
Every rig you built, every scene you blocked, every mistake you fixed, those aren’t failures, they’re proof of growth. The only thing really holding you back is not recognising how far you’ve already come.
So what’s one thing you’ve learned on your animation journey that you’re proud of, even if it felt small at the time?
That really hits. It is slow, and yeah, it can get frustrating when things don’t look the way you imagined.
One thing I’m genuinely proud of is learning how to control secondary motion instead of just letting it happen randomly. Early on, whenever I worked with characters in Character Creator and sent them into iClone, everything had that floaty “spring” feel. At first I thought more movement meant better animation.
Over time, I figured out how to dial things back, remove unnecessary spring effects, and make movements feel more intentional and grounded. It sounds small, but that shift made my animations look way more professional.
It reminded me that animation isn’t about adding more, it’s about controlling what matters.
Curious to hear yours too.
I cannot fathom iclone so I persist with CA. I was very pleased when I added a movie clip into a Cartoon Animator scene and by using another software program was able to animate the flow of water creating a bit of realism.
If I want to start learning from scratch, what is the best route? I’ve only used programs that had animated characters like Create Studio, but all of what I’m seeing here looks so advanced, I feel like I’m about 10 generations behind the curve. Just wow!
