I fall victim to animators block alot. I find myself playing video games and barely working on my contest entry. What are some good ways to motivate myself to animate? Right now I keep telling myself "Today I'll do nothing but work on my entry!" then I start working, my mom calls me to do some chore and then I start playing video games... -_-

Quote from Rather Cheesy

I fall victim to animators block alot. I find myself playing video games and barely working on my contest entry. What are some good ways to motivate myself to animate? Right now I keep telling myself "Today I'll do nothing but work on my entry!" then I start working, my mom calls me to do some chore and then I start playing video games... -_-

Before I get into this, I have to ask: did Zulu even let you in yet?

I know you guys disagreed, and you ended up not on the list, but do you think you'll be able to enter?

Anyway:

I commonly suffer from this condition. It's why I never finish even collab entries. (lol sorry raffi. :P), and other projects as well...

I plan things, and when I must work, I end up not finishing them because I thought it wasn't so much work to begin with.

So here's how I've been getting over it for this animation:

1) Away from the games I go.
2) I prepare myself before working. I use the bathroom, get a snack with a draynk, do my chores, and other various tasks I feel necessary before getting to animating.
3) To get warmed up for being on the computer to animate, every time before animating, I go onto newgrounds.com and watch a REALLY ****ing good movie. ie: The Yuyu, Aladin 3150, IRON BADDDDD, and some Castlevania animations so I can relate my own video to how they have done.
4) I am using a big piece of music for the duration of my animation. Seeming as it sounds awesome, I go onto my computer, and listen to it. I think of the animation being played to this as it plays to get the idea flowing in my head again.
5) I save every hour or so, and take a break to watch TV, Play a game, or Internet it up.

I recently went with this workflow, and I feel its quite effective. The only problem is, in by breaks on the internet, I get caught up with a game, or a long post that helps people with animator's block out.

:P

Another suggestion would be to not bore yourself with your animation. I find no use in doing something you don't enjoy for a month only to be bored, and due to this workflow, have a fruitless effort. I use a lot of shortcuts, tweens, new effects, and techniques while animating for the first time, and making them work out is keeping my mind really occupied so I don't screw up.

I hope I helped you out. Good luck!

Quote from Kitsune

Before I get into this, I have to ask: did Zulu even let you in yet?

I know you guys disagreed, and you ended up not on the list, but do you think you'll be able to enter?

Anyway:

I commonly suffer from this condition. It's why I never finish even collab entries. (lol sorry raffi. :P), and other projects as well...

I plan things, and when I must work, I end up not finishing them because I thought it wasn't so much work to begin with.

So here's how I've been getting over it for this animation:

1) Away from the games I go.
2) I prepare myself before working. I use the bathroom, get a snack with a draynk, do my chores, and other various tasks I feel necessary before getting to animating.
3) To get warmed up for being on the computer to animate, every time before animating, I go onto newgrounds.com and watch a REALLY ****ing good movie. ie: The Yuyu, Aladin 3150, IRON BADDDDD, and some Castlevania animations so I can relate my own video to how they have done.
4) I am using a big piece of music for the duration of my animation. Seeming as it sounds awesome, I go onto my computer, and listen to it. I think of the animation being played to this as it plays to get the idea flowing in my head again.
5) I save every hour or so, and take a break to watch TV, Play a game, or Internet it up.

I recently went with this workflow, and I feel its quite effective. The only problem is, in by breaks on the internet, I get caught up with a game, or a long post that helps people with animator's block out.

:P

Another suggestion would be to not bore yourself with your animation. I find no use in doing something you don't enjoy for a month only to be bored, and due to this workflow, have a fruitless effort. I use a lot of shortcuts, tweens, new effects, and techniques while animating for the first time, and making them work out is keeping my mind really occupied so I don't screw up.

I hope I helped you out. Good luck!

Yeah, Zulu let me in, check out the first post, He finally let me in and called me "Rather Stubborn" =P Besides, even if I wasn't I'd still want to complete the entry simply because I have enough ideas for it, plus I know I can pull most of it off without having to learn that many effects.

This helps me out somewhat, I'm sort of doing something like that now, I'll do about an hours of work then go play a game or something, but i get caught up in whatever I'm doing and just not want to go back to animating. I'll try to get like a really big cup of drink, and put a large play list of songs on Winamp then hopefully that can keep my attention for awhile >_>

I don't want to listen to the music I'm using because every time I do that, I end up hating the song by the time the animation is done.


Still, more cures for Animators block would be awesome cause I tend to get it alot >_>

Bump, more cures please... >_>

Eliminate distractions.
Turn on some motivational music.
Animate.

Quote from Dark

Eliminate distractions.
Turn on some motivational music.
Animate.

Murder of my parents and brother g=coming right up! *goes to get a shotgun*
nah, jk, but I already knew that, but I mean, how do I motivate myself to want to animate?

well, you could just get yourself into a collab or project from school that way even if you dont wanna animate, you have to. Ideas will spawn eventually during the project of not before.

Quote from Cory

well, you could just get yourself into a collab or project from school that way even if you dont wanna animate, you have to. Ideas will spawn eventually during the project of not before.

I'm homeschooled...

EDIT: and besides, schools out for me anyways.

Home schooled?
Shit, I would so go columbine if that was me. The parents around nearly 20/7 *shudders*


well join some more collabs then

... Dude, I'm the ****ing 'Collab Messaih". I don't need to join more collabs. besides, I dropped out of a couple collabs so I could work on my entry. I'm trying to motivate myself to work on my entry, not animation on general.

Unplug your internet.

Listening to hard, fast rock music helps me get motivated.

Planning everything out first also helps.

Well planning the whole lot of the animation helps me, like a storyboard. I have a huge load of storyboards on a big notebook, most of them aren't even animated D:

Usually I listen to some nice fast paced or slow classical music to get me motivated. I also first watch some inspiring animations. Mostly from newgrounds.

That's all, sorry if I didn't help. :/

Quote from Scorpioxxx

Unplug your internet.

lol, I have a laptop with a switch that turns my wireless on and off, it'd be to easy and tempting to turn the internet back on.

Quote from Raffi

Listening to hard, fast rock music helps me get motivated.

Planning everything out first also helps.

Quote from James Moer

Well planning the whole lot of the animation helps me, like a storyboard. I have a huge load of storyboards on a big notebook, most of them aren't even animated D:

Usually I listen to some nice fast paced or slow classical music to get me motivated. I also first watch some inspiring animations. Mostly from newgrounds.

That's all, sorry if I didn't help. :/

Planning out sounds like good idea. How do you guys plan out a story board? I've never done one before >_>




Right now I have:
A gigantic cup of sweet tea.
Listening to "They Might be Giants" albums [not hard rock, but they inspire me to be random =P]
Watching some of the older and/or retro animations before animating.
Getting rid of all foreseeable chores and duties [LOL POOP JOKE!].


Now I want to plan out my animation...

Go watch so damn much movies, get inspired like hell and of you go!