The animation and VFX industry is growing globally. A career in animation comes with opportunities, and room for experimentation, and can fuel your creative drive.
Remember watching your favorite cartoons for hours during summer breaks? Or admiring creative visuals in sci-fi and superhero movies? If you’re looking forward to working in animation and the VFX industry, this blog will provide an overview of the discipline and tell you exactly what a career as an animator would look like.
Role of An Animator
An animator creates a sequence of images. These can be 2D or 3D. This sequencing makes the images appear moving. These images could be manually drawn, digitally made, or created using CGI.
Animators are required to conceptualize characters, brainstorm ideas, and design backgrounds. They make storyboards and build plots as well. Developing drawings, and creating sketches, illustrations, and models – both manually and using different software are other tasks an animator has to undertake.
Since all of this requires a team of professionals to work together, a career in animation means having a collaborative attitude, great communication skills, and promptness to efficiently meet deadlines.
Aptitude, Skills, and Qualification to Become A Highly Proficient Animator
Beyond artistic capabilities, animators have to be proficient in multiple areas. They also need industry exposure to build a resume. Enrolling in a professional animation course after 12th can help build skills and get a glimpse of how the industry works. It helps connect with professionals and create a strong portfolio.
Educational Qualification
A B.Sc. in Animation and VFX is a good start to an animation career. It is a 3-year program that would acquaint you with 2D and 3D animation and knowledge of the latest software. You would design and create characters, storyboards, backgrounds, and compositions, and get familiar with the industry. You can also look for Diplomas in Animation to get a brief and holistic understanding of the subject.
There are Master’s Degrees and specialized certification courses available as well. These are perfect to add to your skills and seek better opportunities.
Industry Experience
Internships and classroom projects provide a sneak peek of how animators work in real life. It helps with practical experience, allows you to work with acclaimed professionals, and opens doors for even better job roles in the future.
Essential Skills
A career in animation demands versatility. You need to upskill yourself constantly and learn the latest techniques, tools, and software. In addition to these skills like graphic designing and post-production techniques also come in handy.
Storyboarding – Storyboards are sequenced illustrations that depict concepts/frames of a movie or a video in order. It is a visual tool used by filmmakers, animators, and other professionals as a reference during the making and production of a movie/game. It helps in effectively conveying the idea among all the team members and facilitates professionals to identify and resolve any potential challenges.
Artistic Qualities – In addition to a high creative drive, animators need to be skilled at drawing characters and backgrounds and have an eye for details. Working on different concepts and creating storyboards requires the use of shapes, forms, and other artistic elements requires artistic skills and abilities.
Digital Competency – Modern animation depends on digital aids. From creating 2D and 3D graphics, compositing, and sequencing, to post-production software, you will need to get acquainted with all of them. Digital animation is used by almost all the leading companies today, and being proficient alongside traditional methods increases your employability and helps you adapt to the ever-evolving needs of the industry.
Versatility – Professional animators need to be familiar with manual and digital animation, as well as different forms, types, styles, and mediums. Versatility adds to artistic skills, and digital mastery, and ensures your career in animation is free of obstacles.
Where Can I Work as an Animator?
Wondering what are the industries that hire animators or what the job profile might look like? Well, there are multiple options in terms of industry and job roles that you can explore as a professional animator –
Industries That Hire Animators
Animators are commonly hired in gaming and entertainment industries as VFX artists, game developers, and 2D and 3D animators for creating interactive frames, designing backgrounds, building stories and characters, and giving life to the plot. They use manual and digital techniques to draw and sequence images that you see in video games and animated movies.
Advertising companies hire graphic designers, graphic designers, and animators to add to their campaigns, create mascots, design interactive web pages, and so on. Fields like Medicine, architecture, and forensic science also offer jobs to 2D and 3D animators who facilitate the visualization of complex procedures and recreation of places and scenes.
Emerging Areas
The use of AR-VR in gaming, entertainment, and advertising has led to the expansion of the animation and VFX industries. These are useful for interactive storytelling and creating a better user experience with customized touches.
Mixed Reality is another emerging popular field that blends animation and AR-VR with real-life experiences. It is particularly popular in the entertainment and advertising industries due to its cost and time efficiency.
Freelance Vs. Full-time Employment
With a strong portfolio and industry experience, you can opt for a full-time or freelance career in animation. Depending on your interests and area of expertise you can contact recruiters and HR managers at the companies of your choice, or approach potential clients through your network on online platforms available for freelancers.
Many animators and other creative professionals choose a freelance opportunity because of the flexibility and creative freedom it offers. However, the pay can vary greatly in Freelance work. While a full-time animator can earn between ₹4-5 LPA in the beginning, a freelancer can earn anywhere between ₹2.5-8 LPA based on the complexity of the projects, number of clients they work with, and so on.
What are the Different Types of Animation?
Much like any other discipline, there are plenty of niches in animation. If you’re pursuing a formal course, your university will most likely introduce you to these and more –
1. Traditional Animation
While the major steps from conceptualizing, and storyboarding, to character development and compositing are quite the same, traditional animators use hand-drawn frames. The backgrounds are illustrated on paper, and celluloid sheets with characters and other elements in the foreground are manually placed over this frame-by-frame. Although more time-consuming, a lot of professionals still prefer this as an authentic technique.
2. 2D Animation
2 Dimensional images – both hand-drawn and digital – have been used in animation for decades. These images vary in terms of height and width, but lack the third criterion – depth. Comic Book and graphic novel Illustrators often use 2D art.
3. 3D Animation
3-Dimensional backgrounds and characters provide a sense of depth that is often needed in movies and video games. It manipulates shapes and forms using modeling tools and meshing techniques to create a simulation. These provide a sense of reality with their life-like motions and can create a real-world experience for the audience.
4. Stop-Motion
Do you remember flip books from your childhood? And the sense of movement you got when you flipped through these? Now, imagine one page in a flip book is like one frame. These frames are arranged in sequence to create an illusion of movement. These frames could be hand-drawn, digitally made, 2D or 3D, and can use puppets, cut-outs, and other elements.
Future of a Career in Animation
Technological innovations in the last decade have massively accelerated the growth of the animation industry. The future holds endless possibilities for exploration and experimentation with emerging and traditional techniques.
AI-driven animations have reduced production time, improved human-like features, and given birth to more realistic characters leading to higher creative freedom and reduced costs.
Hybrid Animation uses both 2D and 3D animations to appeal to the demands of the plot and play with shapes, forms, and depth. It is more flexible, creates a unique aesthetic, and reduces the time and cost of production significantly, making it quite profitable.
Interactive Storytelling is an audience-centric approach especially used in video games. It’s aimed at putting the viewer in control and lets the animator explore a multitude of possibilities in terms of storytelling and character development.
The Job Market is expected to grow 8% between 2022-32 in the USA (Special Effects Artists and Animators: Occupational Outlook Handbook:: U.S) while India might witness a 20%-25% CAGR by 2025 (Desai, 2023), creating thousands of new job opportunities for recent graduates. The demand for animators, especially in the movie industry is a major contributor to this expanding market.
Jobs in Animation as a Recent Graduate – Roles and Expected Salary
Once you get a degree in animation, you can opt for different job roles based on your skills, interests, and other factors. Here are a select few high-rated professions and their salaries for animation and VFX graduates –
| Job Titles | Approximate Salary Range (entry-level) in INR – ₹ (Per Annum) |
|---|---|
| Motion Graphic Designer | 2,70,000 – 5,00,000 |
| VFX Artist | 2,15,000 – 4,40,000 |
| Video Game Developer | 4,00,000 – 4,50,000 |
| Assistant Animation Director | 4,00,000 – 5,00,000 |
| Storyboard Artist | 3,00,000 – 3,90,000 |
| Compositor | 2,20,000 – 3,60,000 |
| Broadcast Designer | 3,50,000 – 5,00,000 |
| Assistant Animator | 2,90,000 – 3,20,000 |
| Character Designer | 2,00,000 – 3,50,000 |
| 3D Animator | 2,50,000 – 5,00,000 |
| 2D Animator | 2,00,000 – 4,00,000 |
| Stop Motion Animator | 3,00,000 – 5,00,000 |
| Comic Book/Graphic Novel Illustrator | 2,80,000 – 3,40,000 |
Conclusion
Animated content isn’t solely targeted towards children anymore. There’s a huge market for video games and animated shows, thanks to tech innovations. Animation is one of the hottest and most lucrative professions, creating jobs and employing millions globally.
AAFT University offers B.Sc. and Diploma courses in Animation. Our courses focus on providing the best quality infrastructure, required industry exposure, and facilitating skill development through expert lectures and projects. Keeping up with the industry standards and helping them familiarize themselves with the latest technology are some of the key features of our programs.