So first of all as an animator its very important to get lots of reference for what you animate. In my case its penguins! Doesn't everybody just love penguins! haha
My wife and I recently took a trip to a local place that has a bunch of penguins and it was a ton of fun to see real ones moving around and interacting with each other!
Don't you just love the way they walk! 
So even though those pictures were great and reference IS important, that's not actually what I wanted to talk about. But I figured, who doesn't like to look at funny little penguins! The real topic I wanted to talk about was that feeling you may sometimes get where you feel like you don't know what you're doing or that your not good enough. BUT first, I have to show you a picture of the bus that takes you to this penguin habitat!Isn't that hilarious! hahaha
Ok, now down to the real stuff! So as I was saying as an animator or student of animation you may sometimes feel like you don't know what your doing or your not as good as you should be. First of all you need to understand that this feeling is completely normal and surprisingly common. Through AnimationMentor I have heard that its when you stop feeling that anxiety that you start to hit a wall. As crazy as it sounds that feeling actually pushes you... you just need to push back. You cant give up!
I just read something by one of the mentors at AM who had a visit from Glen Keane a while back. Glen told him that when he was assigned the Beast in Beauty and the Beast he got that same feeling. He felt that this was when everyone would figure out he couldn't animate. And this was after he had already animated Ariel in the Little Mermaid! Obviously he could animate!!
The point is EVERYONE gets that feeling. Funny enough I read that story the other day at work, and as coincidence may have it I was feeling that anxiety at that moment. I was working on a really long shot with more characters than I have ever animated at once... and its very physical! I was just thinking... this is it, working in the industry was fun, but surely they're going to send me to the firing squad after this. I had no idea how I was going to animate that! My wife kept telling me I was hired for a reason, but I just wasn't sure. I had spent at least a few days on this shot getting absolutely NO where.
Then I read that story, and I thought well if Glen Keane can feel that way, I suppose I can too. So I kept working... and kept working... and kept working! I tried harder and harder, and then I got it. I figured it out. And I learned two things from that shot. You really cant give up, even when you feel like there is no way you can animate that shot. You just need to try harder than you knew you could and you'll get it. It may take some time, but you WILL get it!
The other thing I learned from that shot is that sometimes the hardest shots you have will be the best shots you animate. They may end up being your favorite. For me that is certainly the case. Out of all of the shots Ive animated at work, that's probably the one I'm most proud of. I didn't even think I knew how to animate it and now its going to be on TV. I learned a TON from that shot, and now I know that if I ever have a shot that's in any way similar, I know that I can do it, and I even know how.
Never give up. When a shot pushes your limits, push back and you'll learn more from that than an easy shot that goes smoothly. That's why animation is so rewarding, because it challenges us.
Keep animating!
Matty
Congrats for a job well done! :)
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