5 Essential Animation Books

Boost your animation skills in 2024 with these must-read books. A curated list blending art, technique, and industry wisdom for animators.

If you are an amateur or a professional animator, I'm sure you would benefit from some reading in general, and so maybe if you started with something familiar you might not fall asleep immediately! Let's learn how to read together!

In all seriousness, I'm an animator myself so I speak from experience! These animation books will keep you at the edge of your seat the whole time (with the same bad posture you develop whilst animating for hours on end).

1. The Animator's Survival Kit - Richard Williams

The late Canadian-British animator, voice actor, and painter, Richard Edmund Williams is best known as the animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and as the director of his unfinished feature film The Thief and the Cobbler (1993) (Personally one of my favorite animated movies of all time! Although it is technically unfinished... And it took them more than 20 years to not finish it...!).

Suffice it to say that Richard Williams has been one of the true innovators, and serves as the link between the golden age of animation by hand and the new computer animation successes.



In this book, The master provides the underlying principles that every animator needs.

2. The Illusion of Life - Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

Both Thomas and Johnston worked with Walt Disney himself as well as other leading figures in a half-century of Disney films and were part of the so called "Disney's Nine Old Men" (and Oliver Martin Johnston Jr. particularly was the last surviving of the group at the time of his death from natural causes). They personally animated leading characters in most of the famous films and have decades of close association with the others who helped perfect this extremely difficult and time-consuming art form.

The Illusion of Life is not to be mistaken for just a "how-to-do-it" this voluminously illustrated book is intended for everyone to enjoy. Even Animals...! Well, only anthropomorphized animals, I guess...!

Additionally these books aren't money grabs. They are written by old masters that have accumulated the required information to write a fully substantial volume without all the empty blank statements that tend to fill best-sellers up!

3. Cartoon Animation - Preston Blair

Blair is kind enough to share his vast practical knowledge to explain and demonstrate the many techniques of cartoon animation.

The late animator (there seems to be a trend here...! I hope we aren't next!) was an American character animator, best remembered for his work at Walt Disney Productions and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio.

Cartoon Animation shares the fundamentals of animation and the trial and error process of learning that every has pioneer gone through, with us. In chapter one, Preston shows how to construct original cartoon character designs by developing their shape, personality, features, and mannerisms. The second chapter explains how to create movements such as running, walking, dancing, posing, skipping, strutting, and more. Chapter three discusses creating key character poses and in-betweens. And for chapter four you might need to get it yourself...!

4. Timing for Animation | Harold Whitaker & John Halas

Harold Jackson Whitaker was a British animator (again: "was"...! I guess that's the fate of an animator...!), whose credits included Animal Farm (Orwell's adaptation) in 1954 and Heavy Metal in 1981 (Both incredible films by the way! I hope I could add my personal opinion like this on Wikipedia, too...!).

John Halas or Halász (also) was a pioneering British animator. He co-founded Hungary's first animation studio, Coloriton, in 1932.

Timing in animation is an elusive subject. It only exists whilst the film is being projected, in the same way that a melody only exists when it is being played. A melody is more easily appreciated by listening to it than by trying to explain it in words. So with cartoon timing, it is difficult to avoid using a lot of words to explain what may seem fairly simple when seen on the screen.

- Timing for Animation | Harold Whitaker & John Halas

5. Character Animation Crash Course | Eric GoldBerg

Eric Allen Goldberg is (finally someone "is" alive!) an American animator, known for his work at both Walt Disney Animation Studios and Warner Bros. Animation. Famous for animating the Genie in Aladdin and directing Fantasia 2000 the sequel to the 1940s original.

His book guides you though the creation of animated characters with distinct personalities. And it teaches the importance of making your animation "readable" and accesible to audiences from "age 6 to 96". Well I know, the fifth in every list feels like a repetition but that's maybe because you don't need the five! Try the one that captivates you the most, that's my recommendation!

But, maybe, there is something missing after all...! I mean, you can't show your work to Richard Williams after you finish his book, he is dead...! Did you know that in Domestika you can learn without reading too much and also get feedback on your projects from your teacher? If that sounds good to you, the animation course by Andres Rossi might be just the thing you are looking for!

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