Tony White's Animator's Notebook

Principles of Animation; Generic Walk; Personality Walks; Quadruped Walks; Runs; Jumps; Weight; Arcs; Anticipation & Overlapping Action; Eyes; Flexibility and Fluidity; Essential Dialogue

Tony White, renowned animator, director, professor, lecturer, and author, has been in the animation industry for over 30 years, and currently teaches 2D animation and oversees principal animation production classes at DigiPen Institute of Technology. White began his career working with legendary industry professionals like award-winning illustrator Ralph Steadman, animation gurus Ken Harris, Art Babbit (original lead animator on Pinocchio, Fantasia, and others at Disney). He also personally assisted, then directed/animated for Richard Williams (3-time Oscar winner and author of The Animator's Survival Kit). In addition to being the Dean of Fine Art and Animation at DigiPen, White founded and presides over The Animaticus Foundation, which he formed to preserve, teach and evolve the art form of traditional 2D animation.

"Tony White's Animator's Notebook PDF series offer something new: a LIVING book, where pages can be read like a book but they are not static like a book. They come to life with full animations that leap from the page with just a quick click of the mouse. This is a great idea for learning about animation. A textbook alone isn't enough to understand the rhythms of animation. Visualizing the goal through embedded sample videos will help all animators. Currently, these PDFs are available on the Focal Press website. Perhaps they'll be offered as a more flexible eBook in the future. The neutral grey text displayed in the sample make it a little difficult to read, but you should check out the sample for yourself. (I couldn't get the animation to playback tho)."--Ninja Crayon Blog "Tony White's Animator's Notebook: Personal Observations on the Principles of Movement is a real treat if your newbie is fascinated with creating characters that really move around. The book focuses exclusively on the details of animating various kinds of movement and comes with an associated website (password requires having access to a hard copy of Tony White's Animator's Notebook). This text and website combo provides the explanations plus animated examples of all the principles outlined in the book, as well as demonstrations of core principles found in all of his books. This is quite neat because you get to see White's animations in motion and you can compare his results to your own. Bonus treat on the website is one of Tony White's own animated productions on the Japanese artist Hokusai - a lovely film."--Animation World Network (awn.com)

"Tony lays out the nuts and bolts of the craft in one of the most readable, accessible and smart books on movement and animation I've seen in a long while." -Don Hahn, Academy Award-nominated producer of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King

"Tony White's The Animators Notebook is a very easy-to-follow guide to the core principles of creating animated movement. Presented as an intimate personal set of reminders in a lifelong animator's scrapbook, The Animator's Notebook will be essential reading for all animators, from beginners to seasoned pros looking to dip back into the fundamentals to reinvigorate their work."  -Tomm Moore, co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, and director of Academy Award-nominated film The Secret of Kells

"Kudos to Tony White! He has done an exemplary job of analyzing and explaining the core principles of animated movement. This is definitely a worthy addition to any animation library, especially for the serious student of either traditional 2D or computer assisted CG (or any other form of animation, for that matter). Well done!" 
 -Ruben Aquino, supervising animator, The Little Mermaid (Ursula), The Lion King (Adult Simba)