Most beginners think learning animation starts with software. After more than 30 years in the industry, Colin Giles, Vancouver Film School鈥檚 Head of Animation, has a different perspective. Before students learn software, they need to learn how to observe.
Colin Giles still remembers climbing into a dumpster to retrieve an animation scene he'd thrown away.
At the time, he was working on Mickey's Phonics Quest for Disney Interactive, back when animation was still created the traditional way: pencil on paper, hundreds of individual drawings painstakingly assembled into movement. Giles had completed an entire scene when the director reviewed it and asked for changes. The production had evolved, and the animation needed to evolve with it. Like every animator working in a studio, he took the note and started over.
A week later, the director returned. The production had changed again. This time, they needed something much closer to Giles' original version.
"There was no recycle bin," he says with a laugh. "I'd thrown the drawings into the garbage."
So he climbed into the dumpster outside the studio and recovered roughly 80 per cent of the discarded scene.
It's a story that usually gets a laugh, but that's never been the reason Giles tells it. Looking back, he sees it as one of the first moments he understood that succeeding as an animator required far more than learning how to draw or animate well. The lesson wasn't really about recovering lost artwork. It was about organization, communication, adaptability, and accepting that creative work is almost always iterative.
"I needed to maintain a sense of organization and professionalism that went beyond just producing good work," he says.
That lesson has stayed with him throughout a career spanning more than three decades. Giles has worked as an animator, director, and educator during a period of enormous technological change. The paper drawings of his early career have given way to sophisticated digital pipelines, real-time rendering, cloud collaboration, and AI-assisted tools. Yet despite how dramatically animation itself has evolved, he believes the questions new artists ask have remained remarkably consistent.
What software should I learn? Do I need to know how to draw? Should I start with 2D or 3D? How long will it take before my animation looks professional?
They're all reasonable questions. Giles hears them every year from students beginning their animation journey at Vancouver Film School. They're also questions he believes can send aspiring animators in the wrong direction if they're asked too early.
One of the biggest misconceptions he encounters is the idea that becoming an animator begins with choosing the right software. It's an understandable assumption. Search for "how to animate" online and you'll find thousands of videos comparing Blender, Maya, Toon Boom Harmony, Procreate Dreams, FlipaClip, and dozens of other applications. Spend enough time on YouTube and it quickly starts to feel as though learning software is synonymous with learning animation.
Giles has never seen it that way.
"They ask what software they should learn," he says. "They should be asking why they're making something in the first place."
That distinction lies at the heart of how he teaches animation. Before students think about software, they need to understand movement. Before they animate characters, they need to understand timing. Before they worry about building a portfolio, they need to learn how to observe, receive feedback, and understand why a performance works.
The order matters.
Over the course of our conversation, Giles returned to that idea repeatedly. Every beginner wants to jump ahead 鈥� to characters instead of pendulums, acting instead of bouncing balls, software instead of observation. Professional animators, however, tend to learn in almost the opposite order. They isolate individual skills, master one concept before introducing the next, and gradually build a foundation that supports everything else they'll create throughout their careers.
That progression forms the backbone of this guide. Drawing on more than 30 years in the animation industry and decades of teaching future professionals, Giles explains where beginners should actually start, why certain exercises have remained industry standards for generations, how software and AI fit into the learning process, and what separates animation that simply moves from animation that genuinely performs.
In many ways, it's less a guide to animation than a guide to learning animation well.
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE BEGINNERS MAKE
If there's one misconception Giles would eliminate tomorrow, it's the belief that software makes someone an animator.
He sees it every year. Students arrive eager to learn Blender because they've heard it's the industry standard, or they become convinced that mastering a particular application will somehow accelerate their progress. Giles understands why. Modern creative industries are built around software, and animation is no exception. It's natural to assume that learning the tools is the same as learning the craft.
"The easiest answer is that software solves all your problems," he says. "Coming into it going, 'If I learn this software, I'm an animator,' or, 'If I learn this software, I'm an effects artist or a compositor.' That's the furthest thing from the truth."
Instead, Giles encourages students to think about software the same way they would think about any professional tool. Opening Microsoft Word doesn't make someone a screenwriter. Buying an expensive camera doesn't make someone a cinematographer. The tool only becomes meaningful once the person using it understands what they're trying to communicate.
"It's about process," he says. "It's about learning how to develop ideas, how to communicate those ideas, and also having a point. Giving it a reason why."
He recalls one student who became fixated on learning a particular piece of software, convinced it would dramatically improve the quality of their work. Rather than immediately correcting them, Giles allowed the process to play out. Sometimes students need to discover for themselves that the software isn't solving the real problem. Once they do, they're far more receptive to a different conversation 鈥� not about technology, but about intention.
He often compares it to buying the latest pair of professional running shoes. The shoes may help, but they won't make someone a faster runner overnight.
The same is true of animation software.
Whether it's Blender, Maya, Toon Boom Harmony, or the latest AI-assisted tool, Giles believes technology should always serve the artist 鈥� not the other way around.
"We have to figure out why before we figure out the how."
That philosophy quietly shapes every other aspect of learning animation. It explains why beginners start with deceptively simple exercises, why observation matters more than most people realize, and why some exceptionally talented artists still struggle when they first begin animating.
And according to Giles, it all begins with one deceptively simple skill: observation.
BEFORE YOU ANIMATE ANYTHING, LEARN TO OBSERVE
If software isn't where animation begins, what is? Giles doesn't hesitate.
"Observe."
It's one of the shortest answers he gave during our conversation, but it may also be the most important.
People often assume animation begins the moment they open a piece of software or start sketching their first character. In reality, Giles believes the process starts much earlier. Before you can animate convincing movement, you need to understand movement itself. You need to notice how people carry themselves, how emotion changes posture, how weight shifts from one foot to another, and how tiny, almost invisible details communicate intention long before a character speaks.
Those observations become the foundation of every performance an animator creates.
That's also why Giles draws an important distinction between drawing and observation. The two often go hand in hand, particularly in disciplines like Classical Animation, storyboarding, and visual development, but they aren't the same skill. Some artists can produce beautiful illustrations yet struggle to make those drawings feel alive. Others may never consider themselves exceptional illustrators, but instinctively understand movement, rhythm, and performance.
"Animation is about sequential drawing," Giles explains. "It's about sequential ideas. It's about sculpting an idea over time. Literal time. Over frames."
It's a subtle distinction, but an important one. A still illustration captures a single moment. Animation asks what happens before that moment, what happens after it, and why each movement exists in the first place.
Giles often encourages students to think less like illustrators and more like actors. A character reaching for a coffee mug isn't simply performing an action. They're revealing something about themselves. Are they exhausted? Nervous? Angry? Distracted? Late for work? Relieved that a difficult conversation is finally over?
On paper, the action is identical. The performance isn't. Those differences don't come from software. They come from observation.
For Giles, learning to observe means paying attention to the world in ways most people never think about. It means watching how someone shifts their weight before standing up, how a runner slows after crossing a finish line, or how a child pauses for a split second before committing to a jump. Every one of those moments contains information that can later become animation.
"You need to learn how to observe the world around you in order to form your own artistic opinion and study," he says. "The importance of context and storytelling will inform any tools you use to create."
That idea surfaces repeatedly throughout Giles' approach to teaching. Students often arrive eager to create elaborate action scenes or expressive character performances, but he knows those ambitions are built on dozens of smaller skills. Before an animator can exaggerate movement, they need to understand believable movement. Before they can stylize a performance, they need to recognize what makes the original performance feel authentic.
Observation is where that process begins.
It also explains why Giles encourages students to look beyond animation for inspiration. Great animators borrow constantly from the real world. They study athletes, actors, dancers, wildlife documentaries, old home videos, commuters waiting for a bus, conversations in caf茅s, and the tiny moments of behaviour that most people overlook. Every observation becomes another piece of reference that can later be exaggerated, simplified, or transformed into something entirely new.
The goal isn't realism for realism's sake. The goal is understanding.
Only once you understand why movement feels believable can you begin making creative choices about when to push it further, when to simplify it, or when to ignore reality altogether.
That philosophy becomes especially important as new technologies continue reshaping the industry. AI can already generate poses, suggest animation ideas, identify technical issues, and help artists work more efficiently. Giles sees genuine value in those tools, particularly once an animator already understands the fundamentals.
What concerns him is when technology replaces observation instead of supporting it.
"AI can assist in finding issues with your process or giving advice and prompts for animation choices," he says. "But by skipping key learning opportunities, it can stunt the development of artistic choices, artistic taste, and remove the meaning of the artist's intent."
It's a distinction that echoes one of the central themes of our conversation. Tools will continue to change. Workflows will continue to evolve. Software will continue to become more powerful. The need to understand people won't.
In many ways, that's what animation has always been. Whether you're drawing on paper, posing a 3D character rig, or experimenting with emerging AI-assisted workflows, the audience isn't judging the technology behind the performance. They're responding to whether the performance feels truthful.
And that's why Giles believes observation deserves to come before everything else. Not because observation is an exercise, but because it's the skill every exercise is quietly trying to teach.
WHAT SHOULD YOU ANIMATE FIRST?
Once students begin looking at the world differently, the next question usually comes quickly. If observation is the foundation, what should you actually animate first?
Most people expect the answer to be a character. Perhaps a walk cycle. A facial expression. A dialogue scene. Something that looks recognisably like animation.
Instead, Giles points them toward something much simpler. A pendulum.
It's often the first exercise 杏吧直播间 Animation students complete, and for good reason. A pendulum strips animation down to its most fundamental ingredients. There's no acting, no dialogue, no complex anatomy, and no character design competing for attention. The exercise exists for one purpose: helping students understand timing and spacing 鈥� the two principles that sit at the heart of the illusion of movement.
"Generally, animating a bouncing ball is the best place to start," Giles explains. "However, the very first exercise we have students practice is a pendulum swing because it showcases the most basic aspect of timing and spacing, which is at the core of the illusion of movement."
At first glance, the exercise can seem almost disappointingly simple. Students eager to animate creatures, superheroes, or expressive characters are instead asked to make a weighted object swing back and forth.
But simplicity is exactly the point.
A pendulum removes almost every distraction. Without having to think about performance, dialogue, anatomy, or personality, students can focus entirely on how movement behaves over time. They begin noticing acceleration, deceleration, spacing between drawings or poses, and the subtle relationship between gravity and momentum.
It's the first opportunity to apply the observational skills Giles has been encouraging from the very beginning. Because before an animator can convince an audience that a dragon is alive, they first need to convince them that a simple weighted object obeys the laws of motion.
And once that lesson begins to click, the next exercise becomes much more intuitive.
The bouncing ball.
At 杏吧直播间, students develop visual storytelling skills by sketching ideas, planning sequences, and learning to communicate through movement. WHY EVERY ANIMATOR STARTS WITH A BOUNCING BALL
If the pendulum introduces timing and spacing, the bouncing ball is where those concepts begin to feel alive.
For decades, it has been one of the first exercises taught in animation schools around the world. Ask professional animators where they started, and chances are many will point to a bouncing ball. To someone learning animation for the first time, that can feel almost anticlimactic. After all, the goal is usually to animate expressive characters, cinematic action scenes, or memorable performances, not a simple geometric shape.
According to Giles, that's precisely why the exercise works.
"The bouncing ball is the best place to start animating because it's a simple geometric shape that allows new learners to focus on the foundational principles of animation without being distracted by details or layers."
There's nowhere to hide.
A detailed character can disguise poor timing with appealing design or expressive facial animation. A bouncing ball can't. Every mistake is immediately visible. If it accelerates too slowly, the audience notices. If it hangs in the air too long, it feels wrong. If the spacing is inconsistent or the timing lacks rhythm, the illusion of weight disappears almost instantly.
That's exactly what makes it such an effective teaching tool.
For Giles, the bouncing ball isn't really about the ball at all. It's about helping students isolate one idea before introducing another. Rather than asking someone new to animation to think about anatomy, acting, dialogue, lip sync, staging, camera movement, and timing all at once, the exercise removes almost every variable except the one they're trying to understand.
"It's much easier to learn one thing well than ten things poorly," Giles says. "Every exercise should build on the one before it."
Although animation is often taught through the famous 12 Principles of Animation, Giles doesn't expect students to master all 12 at once. Even the bouncing ball, simple as it appears, introduces several of them naturally. Timing, spacing, squash and stretch, arcs, and easing all begin revealing themselves through repetition and careful observation.
"The three animation principles I'd encourage every beginner to focus on first are timing, squash and stretch, and arcs."
Those principles aren't chosen at random. Together, they explain why movement feels believable. Timing determines when something happens. Squash and stretch communicate flexibility, impact, and weight. Arcs reflect the way movement behaves naturally in the physical world. Once those ideas begin working together, even the simplest animation starts to feel convincing.
And that's the goal. Not perfection, but instead 鈥� believability.
WHY YOUR FIRST BOUNCING BALL PROBABLY WON鈥橳 WORK
One misconception surrounding beginner animation is the idea that improvement should happen quickly. Watch enough online tutorials and it's easy to believe that a few hours of practice are enough to produce professional-looking results.
Giles has watched enough first attempts to know otherwise. Generally, he says, it takes two or three attempts before most students produce a bouncing ball that's technically sound. That isn't because the exercise is especially difficult. It's because students are learning to see differently.
The first version often reflects what they think a bouncing ball should look like. The second begins responding to feedback. By the third attempt, they usually start recognizing issues before someone else points them out.
That's when genuine learning begins. It's also why Giles places so much emphasis on review and iteration rather than endless repetition.
"The most important aspect of improving your animation is getting it reviewed," he says. "A professional will be able to point out what worked and suggest ways to improve it. From there, iterating on that cycle of application and review will speed up the learning curve for any animation exercise."
That process becomes a recurring pattern throughout an animator's career. Create something. Receive feedback. Revise it. Learn from it. Repeat. In Giles' experience, students who embrace that cycle almost always progress more quickly than those trying to perfect everything in isolation.
Even a simple character performance relies on the same core animation principles: timing, weight, arcs, and believable movement. WHY FEEDBACK IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ANIMATION SKILLS YOU'LL EVER LEARN
When people think about learning animation, they usually picture drawing, software, or technical exercises. Very few think about feedback. But Giles does. In fact, he believes the ability to receive feedback may be one of the biggest factors separating artists who continue improving from those who eventually plateau.
Over the years, he's watched students arrive with every imaginable level of experience. Some have been drawing since childhood. Others have never animated before. Talent certainly plays a role, but it isn't always the best predictor of long-term success.
Mindset is.
One former student remains particularly memorable. She struggled during the early months of the program. Software didn't come naturally, and she often found it difficult to translate the ideas in her head into convincing movement on screen. On paper, she wasn't the student most people would have predicted to excel.
But she had one quality Giles rarely sees to the same degree. She loved feedback.
"She almost became addicted to it," he says. "She could see that if she took the feedback from an instructor or mentor and applied it, the work got better. She didn't have to figure it out on her own."
That willingness to iterate transformed her progress. Every critique became another opportunity to improve. Instead of defending her work, she became curious about it. What wasn't communicating? What could be clearer? Which change would make the performance stronger?
Over time, those questions became habits.
After graduation, she found work creating systems-flow animation for an HVAC company before eventually moving into playground design 鈥� a career path few people would immediately associate with animation, yet one Giles points to as a perfect example of how broadly animation skills can apply.
Her success wasn't defined by following a conventional route into the industry. It came from developing the ability to learn. Giles has seen the opposite, too. Artists who spend years practising without significantly improving because they're repeating the same process over and over again.
"You can have five years of experience," he says, "or you can have one year of experience five times."
It's one of those observations that extends well beyond animation. Experience alone doesn't guarantee growth. Reflection does. Feedback does. The willingness to rethink an idea, try a different approach, and remain open to being wrong does.
That's one of the reasons Giles deliberately creates an environment where students can experiment, make mistakes, and receive constructive criticism before they're working under the pressures of a professional production.
"The stakes are very easy here," he says. "It's a soft landing." He pauses before adding something that often surprises people. "We're predicting your failure, and we've designed it into the curriculum."
At first, that sounds harsh, but it isn't meant to be. It's an acknowledgement that learning any creative discipline involves making mistakes 鈥� and that those mistakes are most valuable when they're made somewhere safe, where they're followed by thoughtful feedback instead of real production consequences.
For Giles, failure isn't the opposite of learning. Handled properly, it's one of the fastest ways to accelerate it.
DO YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW TO DRAW TO ANIMATE?
It's one of the first questions almost every aspiring animator asks: Do I need to be good at drawing before I can learn animation?
The answer, according to Giles, isn't as straightforward as many people expect.
杏吧直播间 Head of Animation Colin Giles reviews student work, reinforcing one of his core teaching philosophies: meaningful feedback accelerates learning. Drawing is unquestionably valuable. In disciplines like Classical Animation, storyboarding, character design, and visual development, it's one of the primary ways artists communicate ideas. Even in 3D animation, being able to sketch a pose, thumbnail a sequence, or quickly communicate an idea visually can make collaboration significantly easier.
But drawing and animation aren't the same discipline. "Once we get into production, drawing doesn't become a necessity," Giles explains. "But knowing how to communicate visually is."
That distinction is an important one. People often assume animation is simply the process of creating a series of drawings. Giles sees it differently. To him, animation is about building a performance over time.
"Animation is about sequential drawing," he says. "It's about sequential ideas. It's about sculpting an idea over time. Literal time. Over frames."
That's why someone can be an exceptional illustrator and still struggle when they first begin animating.
WHY GREAT ARTISTS SOMETIMES STRUGGLE WITH ANIMATION
Over the years, Giles has watched students arrive with extraordinary drawing ability. They understand anatomy, perspective, composition, colour, and character design. Ask them to create a single illustration and the results can be breathtaking.
Then they begin animating. Suddenly, the skill that earned them praise no longer solves the problem in front of them.
"They're really, really solid at drawing a single image," Giles says. "But when it comes to animation, there are other things that need to be considered."
A beautiful drawing doesn't automatically become a convincing performance. Animation asks a different question altogether: How does one drawing connect to the next? How does the audience feel the weight of a character before they even think about it? Does the movement communicate confidence? Hesitation? Frustration? Joy?
Those answers don't exist in a single frame. They emerge over dozens, sometimes hundreds, of frames working together. That's why Giles often describes animation as performance rather than illustration. A drawing captures a moment. Animation captures behaviour.
He points to himself as proof that the two skills don't always develop equally.
"I'm a much better animator than I am a drawer," he says. "It takes other people to elevate my work, but my skill is in being able to build a performance."
It's a perspective many newcomers find reassuring. They assume every professional animator is also a world-class illustrator, when in reality studios are filled with specialists. Some artists excel at character design. Others at modelling. Others at rigging. Others at acting through animation.
Animation has always been collaborative, and Giles believes that's one of its greatest strengths. What matters most isn't becoming exceptional at everything, it's understanding the role you're trying to play.
WHY SOME BEGINNER ANIMATIONS LOOK ROBOTIC
One of the quickest ways to spot a new animator is stiffness. Characters hit poses precisely, but they rarely feel alive. They start and stop abruptly. Every action happens at the same speed. Limbs move exactly where they're supposed to, yet something still feels artificial.
Giles believes robotic animation usually has less to do with software than observation. Beginners often animate what they think movement looks like instead of what movement actually does.
In reality, almost nothing in the physical world starts or stops instantly. Bodies anticipate movement. Weight shifts before a foot leaves the ground. Arms rarely travel in perfectly straight lines. Even standing still involves subtle adjustments as people unconsciously maintain balance.
Those are the kinds of details audiences rarely notice consciously. They simply notice when they're missing.
That's why Giles encourages students to spend time studying real performances before trying to create their own. Watch someone stand up from a chair. Notice which shoulder moves first. Watch someone reach for a backpack or hesitate before opening a door. Observe how emotion changes posture without changing the action itself.
Those observations eventually become instinct. The software simply gives animators a way to communicate them.
It's also why Giles introduces animation principles gradually rather than asking students to master everything at once. Timing, spacing, squash and stretch, and arcs don't exist as isolated technical exercises. Together, they help remove the stiffness that makes animation feel mechanical.
As students become more comfortable applying those principles, movement begins to flow naturally instead of feeling constructed. And eventually, they reach another milestone every aspiring animator looks forward to.
Strong animation isn't about complexity, it's about performance. Even the simplest characters can communicate personality through movement.WHY WALK CYCLES ARE HARDER THAN THEY LOOK
Ask someone outside the animation industry what a walk cycle is, and they'll probably describe it as one of the simplest things a character can do. But animators know better.
Walking combines almost everything students have learned up to that point. Timing. Weight. Balance. Arcs. Overlapping action. Personality. Observation. Even something as ordinary as taking a few steps becomes surprisingly complex once you're responsible for creating every frame yourself.
It's one reason Giles doesn't rush students toward it. By the time someone reaches a walk cycle, they should already understand how objects move through space, how gravity influences motion, and how subtle adjustments in timing can completely change the feeling of an action.
Only then does walking become more than placing one foot in front of the other. It becomes performance.
That's also why Giles is reluctant to put timelines on creative development. Some students become comfortable with walk cycles relatively quickly. Others need considerably longer. The difference is rarely determined by talent alone.
It's determined by how willing they are to observe, revise, receive feedback, and keep refining their work.
Because by this point, students are no longer just learning how to animate, they're learning how to think like animators.
FINISHING SOMETHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN STARTING SOMETHING
Animation has a reputation for being painstaking work, and for good reason. Even a few seconds of believable movement can represent hours (or days) of observation, planning, blocking, refinement, and revision. For someone learning animation, that reality can be frustrating. The temptation is often to abandon a project halfway through and move on to the next exciting idea.
Giles has seen it countless times.
"I think one of the things that is important is to finish something," he says. "A lot of new artists like ideas, and they like the idea that they have an idea."
It's a line that usually earns a smile, but it speaks to a pattern he recognizes in many emerging artists. Coming up with ideas is exciting. Talking about ideas is exciting. Beginning a new project is exciting.
Finishing one is harder. At some point, every animation stops matching the version that existed in your imagination. The movement doesn't feel quite right. The acting isn't landing. The timing feels off. Suddenly, a new idea seems far more appealing than wrestling with the current one.
For Giles, that's precisely the moment students need to push through.
"You have an idea in your head. Just make it," he says. "Even if it's not the way you envision it in your head, it is now done."
A finished animation teaches lessons that an unfinished one never can. Once a project reaches the finish line, students can step back and evaluate it objectively. They begin recognizing what worked, what didn't, and what they'd approach differently next time. That experience becomes part of the next project, which becomes part of the one after that.
Every completed animation becomes another building block.
"You've put a period at the end of that sentence," Giles says. "Now you can move on to the next one."
It's a philosophy that mirrors the way professional productions work. Every project becomes preparation for the next. Artists continue building experience not because every piece is perfect, but because every piece teaches them something they didn't know before.
From initial concept sketches to finished designs, students learn how strong visual development supports believable animated performances. WHAT MAKES AN ANIMATION FEEL ALIVE?
By the time students reach their first acting shot, something fundamental has changed. Pendulums taught timing, bouncing balls taught weight, walk cycles brought those ideas together, feedback taught iteration, and finishing projects taught discipline.
Now the question is no longer 鈥渉ow do things move?鈥� but 鈥淲hy are they moving?鈥� According to Giles, that's exactly why they're taught in that order. Every exercise has been preparing students for a much bigger question. Can you make an audience believe what a character is thinking?
"What would you tell someone creating their first 10-second animation?" I asked. His answer wasn't about software, rendering quality, or technical complexity.
"Focus on performance. Focus on context. You should be able to answer what the motivation of the character on screen is." It's deceptively simple advice, but it quietly reframes everything that came before.
A convincing performance isn't created by moving a character from point A to point B. It's created by understanding why they're moving in the first place. A character walking across a room isn't interesting simply because they're walking. They're interesting because they're nervous about the conversation waiting for them. Or because they're excited. Or because they're trying not to wake someone sleeping on the couch. The physical action stays largely the same. The intention behind it changes everything.
That's why Giles spends so much time encouraging students to observe behaviour instead of simply copying movement. Performance begins long before a character takes a step or raises an arm. It begins with motivation.
Every animation principle students have learned up to this point supports that goal. Timing helps communicate intention. Squash and stretch communicates weight and impact. Arcs help movement feel natural. Observation informs every creative decision the animator makes.
None of those principles exist in isolation. Together, they help an audience believe that a collection of drawings 鈥� or a digital character rig 鈥� is capable of thinking and feeling.
Animation, Giles believes, has always been an acting discipline as much as a technical one.
Animation encompasses a wide range of artistic styles, from stylized 2D productions to richly illustrated environments and cinematic storytelling. WHAT MAKES A GREAT ANIMATION PORTFOLIO?
One demo reel has stayed with Giles for years. It didn't feature an elaborate character rig, photorealistic rendering, or complex visual effects. Instead, the animator used two of the simplest objects imaginable: a ball and a box. The ball behaved like a cat. The box behaved like a dog.
"There were no faces. No dialogue. No expensive production values," Giles recalls. "But you instantly understood who those characters were."
It was one of the most memorable portfolio pieces he'd ever seen. Not because it demonstrated technical complexity, but because it demonstrated something far more difficult to teach: performance.
The animator was eventually hired at Pixar. For Giles, however, the story has very little to do with Pixar and everything to do with what the artist chose to communicate. The animator wasn't showing they could make a ball bounce. They were showing they understood personality, motivation, timing, and storytelling using almost nothing at all.
That's exactly what Giles hopes students remember as they begin assembling their own demo reels.
Many assume a portfolio exists to prove they can animate. Giles sees it differently. "I'd much rather ask, 'What do you actually like to do?'" he says. "When you're staying up late at night and you're working on a project, that's the kind of work I want to see."
It's advice that runs contrary to what many emerging artists expect. They're often searching for the perfect formula or trying to anticipate exactly what a studio wants. Giles encourages the opposite 鈥� to show your curiosity and interests. Show the kind of work you'll continue creating even when nobody is asking you to.
That doesn't mean ignoring the fundamentals. A portfolio still needs to demonstrate craftsmanship, an understanding of performance, and strong animation principles. But technical proficiency alone rarely makes someone's work memorable. Personality does.
STUDIOS DON'T HIRE YOUR PORTFOLIO
It's one of the most interesting observations Giles made during our conversation. "When I'm looking at a portfolio," he says, "I'm not hiring that art. I can't use that art. I can only hire the artist."
It's an easy point to miss. The work in a portfolio has already served its purpose. A recruiter isn't evaluating whether they can use those exact shots in production. They're trying to answer a much more important question.
What might this person create next? That's why Giles pays close attention to personality. Not personality in the sense of quirky artwork or unusual subject matter, but evidence that an artist has their own perspective. Their own curiosity. Their own way of solving problems.
He sees it when students move beyond simply completing assignments and begin making creative decisions because they genuinely have something they want to communicate.
That's the point where technical exercises become artistic expression. It's also the point where portfolios become considerably more interesting. A bouncing ball may still appear on the demo reel. The difference is that it no longer behaves like every other bouncing ball. It behaves like yours.
Animation is a collaborative art form. 杏吧直播间 students share work, exchange feedback, and refine their ideas throughout the creative process. THE WORK ISN'T YOURS. IT'S OURS.
When Giles first entered the animation industry, he imagined most of his time would be spent drawing. It didn't take long to realize that professional animation required something else entirely.
"The one thing I didn't realize, especially as I got more and more responsibility, was that it's a lot of professional effort," he says. "You constantly have to learn new things."
Some of those lessons had nothing to do with animation itself. How do you communicate with a director? How do you contribute ideas without becoming defensive? How do you receive feedback from people whose job is to improve the project? How do you work as part of a creative team instead of as an individual artist?
"Really, that's half the job," Giles says. "The other half is: How do I communicate? How do I learn how to contribute? How do I receive feedback?"
Looking back, he believes that realization shaped his career as much as any artistic breakthrough. One sentence, in particular, has stayed with him throughout decades in the industry.
"The work isn't yours," he says. "It's ours."
For artists, that can be a difficult mindset to embrace. Students often spend years developing a personal style and learning to express themselves creatively. Then they enter a studio, where every shot becomes part of a much larger production involving writers, directors, storyboard artists, designers, modellers, riggers, compositors, editors, producers, and dozens (sometimes hundreds) of other artists.
A note from a supervisor isn't a criticism of the individual, it's an attempt to make the film, game, or series stronger. That shift in perspective changes everything.
Instead of asking, How do I make my shot better? Professional animators begin asking, How do I make the project better? According to Giles, that way of thinking is one of the defining differences between someone learning animation and someone building a career in it.
"The attributes that contributed to the length of my career weren't just about being a good artist or a good drawer," he says. "They were about understanding how to work with people."
And ultimately, that's what every studio is hiring. Not simply someone who can animate, but someone who can create alongside everyone else.
WHERE AI FITS INTO LEARNING ANIMATION
It's impossible to talk about learning animation today without talking about AI. New tools are appearing at a remarkable pace. Some can generate concept art in seconds. Others can create rough animation, suggest poses, identify technical issues, or help artists iterate more quickly. For someone just beginning their animation journey, it's easy to wonder whether learning the fundamentals is still worth the effort.
Giles believes it is. That doesn't mean he dismisses AI. Quite the opposite. Like every major technological shift the industry has experienced, he sees AI as another tool that animators will need to understand. Used thoughtfully, it can become part of an artist's workflow.
"It can assist in finding issues with your process or giving advice and prompts for animation choices," he says. The distinction, however, is that AI should support artistic judgement 鈥� not replace it.
By skipping the slower process of observation, experimentation, and problem-solving, Giles believes new artists risk missing the very experiences that shape their creative instincts.
"AI can stunt the development of artistic choices, artistic taste, and remove the meaning of the artist's intent," he says. "The learner may not be able to understand how or why the animated scene was made."
That concern echoes the philosophy that has run through this entire guide: technology changes, but fundamentals don't.
Whether the tool is a pencil, a 3D character rig, or an AI-assisted workflow, the animator still needs to understand weight, timing, performance, storytelling, and motivation. Those aren't problems software can solve on its own, they're artistic decisions.
As Colin Giles explains, great animation begins with strong fundamentals, not technology alone.SHOULD AI-ASSISTED WORK BE INCLUDED IN A BEGINNER PORTFOLIO?
For experienced professionals, AI may eventually become another production tool alongside countless others. For someone learning animation, Giles believes the answer is much clearer.
"No."
His reasoning isn't rooted in resistance to technology, but rooted in education. "AI should only be used after a learner fully understands and has practised the principles of animation and has been able to observe the mechanics of motion."
It's a perspective that reflects everything we've discussed throughout this guide. The goal of learning animation isn't simply producing finished work as quickly as possible. It's developing the judgement required to make meaningful creative decisions.
Those instincts take time to build. And they're difficult to develop if software is making too many of the decisions for you.
SHOULD YOU LEARN 2D OR 3D ANIMATION FIRST?
Another question Giles hears regularly is whether students should begin with 2D or 3D animation. Like many aspects of learning animation, the answer depends less on industry trends than personal interests.
"If you're passionate about drawing, 2D animation is always the best choice," he says. "However, many animators can do both."
That flexibility has become increasingly common throughout the industry. Modern productions often blend techniques, and many artists move comfortably between disciplines over the course of their careers. The fundamentals remain remarkably similar. Timing, spacing, weight, arcs, observation, and performance don't suddenly change because the tools do.
That's another reason Giles encourages students not to become overly attached to software. "The technique of animation is software-agnostic," he says. "Software only matters for the expected outcome 鈥� style, budget, medium."
Those are production decisions. Learning animation comes first, while choosing the most appropriate tool comes later.
YOUR FIRST 30 DAYS OF LEARNING ANIMATION
By now, a pattern has probably started to emerge: Start small, observe constantly, master one concept before introducing the next, seek feedback, and finish what you start.
With that in mind, what should someone realistically hope to accomplish during their first month of learning animation? According to Giles, far more than most beginners might expect.
"The goal isn't perfection," he says. "It's understanding."
Rather than trying to animate elaborate fight scenes or polished short films, he encourages students to build their skills one layer at a time.
Week 1: Learn to Observe
Before worrying about software shortcuts or polished visuals, spend time watching the world around you.
Pay attention to how people stand, shift their weight, hesitate before making decisions, or carry themselves when they're tired, excited, or frustrated. Study athletes. Watch actors. Observe children playing. Watch animals move.
Then animate something simple. At 杏吧直播间, that first exercise is usually a pendulum. It may not feel glamorous, but it teaches the timing and spacing that underpin every convincing performance you'll ever create.
Week 2: Make a Bouncing Ball Feel Real
Once timing begins to make sense, move to the bouncing ball. Don't worry about making it perfect, worry about making it believable.
"The bouncing ball is the best place to start animating because it's a simple geometric shape that allows new learners to focus on the foundational principles of animation without being distracted by details or layers," Giles says.
Expect to revise it several times. In fact, Giles says most beginners need two or three attempts before they produce a technically sound bouncing ball. That's completely normal.
Week 3: Build Movement, Not Complexity
Only after those fundamentals begin to click should you start introducing more complex movement. Simple walk cycles are often the next milestone. At this stage, don't focus on style. Focus on weight, rhythm, balance, and above all 鈥� feedback.
"The most important aspect of improving your animation is getting it reviewed," Giles says. "A professional will be able to point out what worked and suggest ways to improve it."
Week 4: Tell a Story
By the end of the first month, Giles hopes students are beginning to think less about movement and more about motivation. Your first acting shot doesn't need elaborate cinematics or complex dialogue. It needs purpose.
"What would you tell someone creating their first 10-second animation?" I asked.
"Focus on performance," Giles replied. "Focus on context. You should be able to answer what the motivation of the character on screen is."
That's the point where animation begins to evolve into storytelling. By the end of those first 30 days, Giles believes students should be able to create a simple piece of animation that demonstrates an understanding of the 12 Principles of Animation. Not mastery, but understanding.
Because once you begin asking why a movement feels believable instead of simply how to create it, you're no longer just completing animation exercises, you're beginning to think like an animator.
Colin Giles mentors the next generation of animators through hands-on critiques, demonstrations, and real-world production insight.COLIN GILES' ADVICE TO ANYONE LEARNING ANIMATION
After spending several hours talking with Giles, one thing became increasingly clear 鈥� he isn't trying to train artists who simply know how to use animation software, he's trying to develop thoughtful observers. People who ask questions and pay attention. People who remain curious enough to keep improving long after they've graduated.
When I asked him what advice he'd give someone creating their very first animation, he didn't mention rendering settings or hardware requirements. He talked about motivation. "Focus on performance. Focus on context. You should be able to answer what the motivation of the character on screen is."
Looking back over three decades in the industry, that advice feels remarkably consistent with everything else he shared. Observe before you animate, understand before you stylize, finish what you start, seek feedback, stay curious, and figure out why before you figure out how.
Those ideas won't make learning animation easier but they鈥檒l make it far more meaningful.
CONCLUSION
Search for how to animate and you'll find thousands of tutorials promising faster workflows, better software, and shortcuts to professional results. Colin Giles has spent more than 30 years proving that the process is rarely that simple.
The artists who continue growing throughout their careers aren't necessarily the ones who memorise software the fastest or complete the most tutorials. More often, they're the ones who develop a deep understanding of observation, performance, collaboration, and storytelling 鈥� the qualities that remain valuable no matter how dramatically technology changes.
That perspective is perhaps the biggest lesson to emerge from our conversation 鈥� animation has never been about making things move, but about making movement mean something. Everything else 鈥� pendulums, bouncing balls, walk cycles, software, portfolios, feedback, even AI 鈥� is simply another tool for helping artists achieve that goal.
And perhaps that's why Giles still remembers climbing into a dumpster all those years ago.
The story isn't really about recovering a discarded animation, but about discovering, very early in his career, that becoming an animator meant learning far more than animation itself. It meant learning how to observe, how to collaborate, how to adapt, and how to keep improving.
The technology has changed dramatically since then. The fundamentals, however, have not.