Career in Art—Animator

Skills Necessary

Animators, whether 3d or 2d, create an illusion of movement using image sequences.  While that is the basic foundation, there's other aspects to this job, too. Storyboarding, the first step, is roughly sketching each scene to capture action. Rendering, which is usually the last step, is adjusting the light and colors on a scene.

A scene from Toy Story, before and after rendering

Creativity and an understanding of movement are needed. For 2d animation, drawing skills are necessary. For 3d animation, math skills may be required to understand rigging, which is adding a "skeleton" to a character and having it move realistically.

While exact credentials vary from studio to studio, it's always recommended that animators have a portfolio and years of experience and practice.

A typical day of working as an animator in an animation studio would include attending meetings and having the director assign tasks, shooting reference videos and studying them, working on an animation software, and recieving/implementing feedback.

Useful college majors for this job include graphic design and illustration. The top schools that teach these are the California institute of the arts, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Gnomon School of Visual Effects