If you have a student who is interested in animation, here’s a wonderful resource that they will love:
“Advanced Animation” by Preston Blair remains one the a all-time greatest cartooning books ever…and every page has been lovingly scanned and posted by the wonderful folks at AnimationResources.org
From the website:
Preston Blair was one of the finest draftsmen to have ever worked in the field of animation. He animated Mickey Mouse in “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, and he was one of the top animators at MGM, where he animated the legendary Red Hot Riding Hood. His book, titled simply “Animation” crystalized the basic principles of cartoon animation, and profoundly influenced a whole generation of young animators. He passed away in 1995.
Preston Blair’s book “Advanced Animation” is one of the best books on the subject. It is the text Animation Resources’ drawing course is based upon. When Blair put the book together in 1947, he used the characters he had animated at Disney and MGM to illustrate the various basic principles of animation. Apparently, the rights to use some of the characters were revoked after the book was already in the stores. Publication was halted for a time, and he was forced to redraw most of the MGM characters, replacing them with generic characters of his own design. The revised edition went on to become a classic, and the first edition was forgotten.
You can go to THIS PAGE on AnimationResources.org and read more about this classic book and the online course they offer based on the book…
Or for a direct link to the PDF download itself, you can RIGHT CLICK HERE and “save link” to your computer. Mac users, press the “control” key then click the link and save file to your Mac.