Animation Unleashed: 100 Principles Every Animator, Comic Book Writer, Filmmaker, Video Artist, and Game Developer Should Know Paperback – Illustrated, October 1, 2008

There are plenty of animation books that cover the technical process of animation: keys, inbetweens, etc... but I don't know of one that focuses strictly on the purpose of animation and how best to use it. That's where Animation Unleashed comes i .This book seems geared less toward actually teaching you to animate and more toward simply showing you what animation is best at so that you can make the most of the medium.This book doesn't seem to be aimed at accomplished animators, but more for people in other related disciplines like comics or video games that could really benefit from knowing some of the underlying principles of animation.The book makes reference to a fairly diverse range of films to make its points. Several of the films mentioned are less well-known shorts largely from the National Film Board of Canada. Almost all of them can be easily found on Youtube. Ironically, one of the few I couldn't find was by the author herself.All in all, Animation Unleashed isn't a typical animation book, but if you're looking for a book that lays out the strengths of animation as a medium, this is a good one to have around.

It is a struggle to find well-organized, single-volume sources for animation instruction that are both succinct (attention spans these days must be accomodated) and practical (not linked to a specific software).When an animation book can accomplish this in 240 pages and still be entertaining, well, it must have come from Ellen Besen. If you're starting out, the basics are all here, and if you're looking for a brush up on techniques, you'll find a lot to like as well. If you can master the contents, you can apply them to traditional animation, to Flash, to Maya, Toonboom, even my DOSsy Autodesk Animator Pro. A fine book.

I work with Autodesk Maya (3d program)and this books is great because it easily explains what all the different concepts are. It doesn't go on and on in text it shows you two pictures on whats right and wrong (if there is a situation with comparison. If you want to add more detail to emotions I would so get this book. Also it really helps you expand your creativity.

My son is an avid comic writer so when he got into making you tube videos I thought this would be a useful book!

I have taught animation and video game design in high school for 6 years. This is a great book for educators because it explains the creative process and, techniques, and principles of animation and WHY we do things a certain way. Anyone who is learning animation and who is teaching it will get a lot out of this book. It's definitely worth the space on my bookshelf.

If you want to know what animation is about, this is the book for you. This is a very good choice, with concise, easy to read lessons, specially if you are starting in the world of animation.

The content in this book is disappointingly basic. The marketing copy described this as "useful for both professional and beginner animators," but I found very little of value in it — and I'm not a highly experienced animator by any stretch of the imagination. Even where it touches on subjects that are kind of new or unfamiliar to me, it barely seems to scratch the surface of them.

An excellent book. You can't go wrong with this book.