Can I learn character animation?

I guess this is a taste of how uneventful my blog will be whenever I get a full time job. Besides going to work (and constantly tweeting how many hours I have left), I’ve been spending the rest of my time working on composing the underscoring for a documentary, which I mentioned last week, which I think is going well, though I wish I could do it a bit faster (while not sacrificing quality, of course). And, of course, I wish I could do it full time!

I did post a new YouTube video the other day. That’s one of the cues I wrote for the documentary.

Um… yeah… not really much else…

Oh, I have been looking into this online animation school: Animation Mentor. I came across it exploring animations on YouTube. (I was researching stop motion animation with the ambition of buying a camera and filming some shorts.) It looks extremely tempting; I would LOVE to learn to do the kind of character animation they teach. The thing is… it costs quite a bit (like, $18,000). It would basically be like going back to college. But still… gah, does it look tempting. It’s a definite maybe. I mean, I’d apply right away if it cost less, so it’s mostly a matter of financial support… and even if I applied, I might not get in… though I think I meet all the requirements (there aren’t many), I don’t know how selective they are, or if they might have a preference for people who have studied art, animation, and drawing longer than I have… after all, I majored in Computer Science! But of course, I never had an opportunity like this… anyway, it’s feeding my daydreams for the week.

Things that look good about it:

• Taught by pros from the big studios, like ILM, Pixar, Blue Sky, etc. with actual online interaction with them.
• Very focused on just character animation, not diluted with software specifics, or how to model things, or do lighting, etc.  Just character animation!
• Few requirements.  I don’t have to submit a portfolio, like many art schools require.
• Very nice looking showcase reels from previous students.  (Though some students’ reels don’t look as good as others (some on YouTube look pretty awful), the ones that make it to the showcase are pretty spiffy.)
• Very good reviews online found by Googling around about it.