How Long Will it ACTUALLY Take to Animate...? 

About the SOFTWARE I use: A huge amount of my production involves Adobe CC (my affiliate link tinyurl.com/v7fvqgo) I use Adobe photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, Audition and sometimes Animate. I would be nowhere without these softwares. You can get them all with a comfortable monthly subscription, or you can get subscriptions to individual plans. Check them out and see what works for you. The main software I'm using to actually animate frame by frame is called TVPaint. Here's more information on that: www.tvpaint.com/ It's a great software :) And if you need a Graphics tablet, I highly recommend this one for you ballers out there: geni.us/vy8xUZB It's the best tablet money can buy :) And here's a great low-low cost alternative: geni.us/LLYv

took me like an hour to animate a low key cartwheel. Big respect to you animators

7:38 "Maybe you don't have a life" Truth really hurts 😧😧😧

Yes my masterpiece should only take 5 years. Wait...

Short answer: MUCH longer than you think it will.

Dang, 2 months for a 2-minute animation. That's INSANE work! MAD respect for those who work in this industry.

Big Ups to animaters It is the most tedious thing to do and I am not an animator I am just a comic book colorist. I did my first coloring of a animation and it was just a simple one-on-one fight scene no background or nothing. and it took me to damn near 2 days just to lay the damn flat out and I still have to put in simple shading and be consistent about it. Excellent video.

First time I'm watching this and I'm so impressed you take the productivity curve into account. That's super realistic and something more people need to take into account. No one works at linear productivity and so many mis estimations happen because of this component not being taken into account.

I can't wait to get a tablet and start animation

if you dont bother calculating, youll have 20 extra minutes to actually animate lol

That is good to know information. The general public should realize how labor intensive and time intensive animated movies take, so they can appreciate the quality of the final product more. (Side note: buy some new erasable markers before you shoot such a video. That is part of pre-production for videos.)

This is a great video explaining how time consuming animation really is, and it is really helpful formula as well. Nice!

3 years on, and this video is such a big help. I started animating a year ago, and have 4 projects - all in the 4-5 minute length range fighting for my attention. This is helping me look at them realistically and made me set an order of priority - and most importantly, is helping me budget my time. Thanks for publishing this! You may have saved this beginner animator from some serious overwhelm that threatened these projects!!!

i really appreciate the effort and time you put into making these kinda videos. i wish i could support you. I recently started taking animation serious and im most likely to start freelancing but so far I've only had a year and a half experience and i feel my skill isn't good enough for me to actually get commissions or animation jobs on the internet. So i'd like to know how you started out if you could give advice to beginners like me. It'd be great if you could make a video on that. Also I have problems opening your website. Doesn't open at all

I'm working on an animation project for my school and this really helped me to work out a sched since I also have a full-time job. Thanks! :)

I've been asking this for my entire animator life. Thanks.

Someone send this man a good marker lol. Great video though :) I'm not very good at animating yet, but your videos really help me with learning perspective drawing. Even just for kids who want to see how to get some quick sketches that look cool, your videos really help. Thanks for putting in time to get people to tell their own stories and letting your process be the focal point of these videos. Not a lot of timelapses that make the work seem unachievable, just good kindhearted commentary and help for those who want to have a way to express themselves even if it's just a hobby.

Thanks for sharing this, for professionals creating art related content is always hard to convey how much time is needed to make a certain work, without looking unprofessional or putting your talent into question, clients expect high quality content in the shortest amount of time possible.

Thanks for the video, Howard. I'm really bad at estimating project time. That simple multiplication of original estimated time is definitely something I'll implement.

quick mafs

Bro i love so much your channel. Your animation gave me the determination and inspired me to become an animator. You do an amazing job. Thank you

Thanks for making this video, this is really going to help me when I start college in fall

The poor markers dying-

Dude this helped a me alote it's really a a great video u are really good at animating Question in your next video are u going upload the short film

That was very useful. Thanks for the breakdown, I needed to see this.

i usually watch stuff that my mom call garbage. my mom is always on my screen but this time she thought i was watching something really profesional ( well it is the case) because of the board and righting

Pretty cool seeing this part of the process. Also, I really dig that shirt lol.

anyone else have to replay part of the video because u found urself staring at his shirt n losing time? no? me neither..... lmao

Wow. You are amazing howard. Thanks man. Like big time.

This is everything i was looking for. Massive Thanks 🧡

This is extremely helpful! I'm wanting to make an animation that might end up a bit more than 2 minutes, this will help me calculate how long it could take. Thank you so much!!!

Excellent breakdown; thanks so much for this. I've been giving clients an estimate of one month per minute of footage for a while now, but now I think maybe I should give myself more time. :D

I appreciate your videos man

Dude thank you so much this was super helpful

Hi Howard! Great vídeo! Thank you Very much.

Love to see how a professional manages his time with reasonable quantitate data !

im a begginer animator, when he started talking about animating on 2'os, 3's my head just *POP*

I love your videos please keep going!

Just commented on your most recent video asking this exact question. Turns out you already answered. Amazing. Dude. You're amazing.

This video is VERY helpful. I will use this math in the future. I'm a complete amateur and didn't realize how long drawing would take. It took me like ... a week to make a very bad one minute animation. Thanks for making this a lot easier to figure out! :3

This was very helpful, thank you very much.

damn, I thought it took 1-2 days for pro animators, and I could never get close to this level. Thanks for the information, you inspire me to be an animator!

I cut a lot of corners ,I dont storyboard that much (usually just make an animatic for more complicated stuff) usually I try to make stuff as simple as possible for animating but to make it look at least decent. I hope my first animation (actual animation that Im working on now) will be finished in at least month and a half. But Im still a hobbyist so that is kinda obvious ;D Luv u Howard you help a lot!

This is going to help me alot. I'm making my own anime series and I was thinking how to pace my self between drawing and frame rates. 😊Thanks for explaining man👌

This tutorial is a life saver. I'm so glad I found it before I even attempted to try animation for fun. This is a serious artform, but I didn't realize how serious until now. The amount of time, energy and love you have to invest in this is crazy scary. 😱 Talk about selling your sole for perfecting your craft. 😅 Sign me up 😏.

Honestly, your version of calculation seems pretty valid, got close to how long it took me to make a larger project I did. Really it is hard to estimate so you got to always instead of given the best time give the worst length it will take to clients. The problem really is if you trying to be a RU-vidr animator you have to be very regular so you don't get harpooned by the algorithms of YT but that impossible because the less active your account is the less it turns up on the first pages of searches. Then another thing a YT animator gets stabbed with is that 10-minute rule. They should design an algorithm and rules separately for animators. The best option then might be for animators to do 30 seconds to 1-minute animations to keep the channel active and then put the number of episodes you done together for bigger blocs.

such a great informative channel

This Video is a Godsend! thank you!

Nice video dude

From animator to animation teacher to math teacher. What now? U gonna be an president? Well? I would vote for you though.

i watched this 2 years ago and again watching this full video without skipping

doing my first animation for a game. this is helpful

the x2 and x3 kinda hit me hard, like it's crazy how huge the degree of safety should be

As if we are in a classroom and its ur report day about how long it take to animate, then im really focus on the lecture til the markers is out of ink and boom i noticed u look so cute trying to use the black one heheh, but honestly ur video is really helpful. thanks

Thanks so much! I just started working on a huge project. This will be useful..

I prefer to do it the other way around. Take the duration and divide it with the allotted production cycle. The difference is basically which variable you're solving for. In the videos case you get the final production time, which is fine if you have no external deadlines. But usually you have one. So moving backwards you start with the runtime. Say, one minute. Multiply with 60 to get the seconds. 1×60= 60 seconds. And I think seconds is a good unit moving forward since nr of seconds per minute is constant but the nr of drawings per frame can vary wildly. Then take the production time you have. Say, 1 week. Divide that to working days, say, six (one day for pure socializing, woho!). That means 6 days to get 60 seconds. Divide sixty seconds by six days and get 10 seconds of final animation per day that needs to be in the can. You are insane so you schedule 10 hrs of drawing per day so you get 1 second of runtime per hour of work... On average that is. And this does not account for the pre and post. But say, you are more insane and skip the free time day and you get those hours for the stuff around the animation. So you still get one hour for 1 second. Divide that then with the framerate of that second to get the number of minutes you can spend on each drawing. 24 fps becomes 60 min/24 = 2.5 min or 2 min 30 seconds from creating the new blank frame to hitting the button to summon the next blank frame. 12 fps becomes 5 min per drawing. 8 fps becomes 7 min 30 sec per drawing... Again. We are talking about averages. If you make one frame in 1 minute and then let that play for the eternity of 4 seconds as a still image you get a huge boost in minutes you can spend on the next second, because 4 seconds equals 4 hours of work freed up. Making so you can allocate 24 fps for the next second without a huge drop in drawing quality... Or you make that one 4 sec drawing really detailed and let it eat up 4 hrs of work. Of course for this equation to be realistic you will need to accept some pretty dodgy individual drawings on average. And probably no background art. But doing it backwards like this makes you realise what effort needs to be spent and the drawing quality you can expect to reach the seconds quota you have each day. That makes me more realistic in my approach. So I can choose between really smooth moving primitive shapes or detailed stills for each shot with confidence.

This is really helpful. I'm aspiring to be an animator. Thanks for the advice. Btw you kinda remind me of Taron Egerton.

This literally feels like math class - the dulling marker, the light shining on the white board making it harder to see, the confusing math that my brain takes twice as long to process Yup. Takes me back😂

This came in so handy

If only i can do 5 min animation per week..

My productivity graph would look like a heart-rate monitor

Thanks 🙏🏾

Alright, I'll give myself by the end of the year. Going for 1 minute, let's go!

Jesus Christ man. I’ve seen clearer video of Bigfoot than this video.

You´re so helpful

quite a challenge to be both an animator and an absolute unit

Finally I find the Answer.. Thank you Soo Much

10 years… o my god...

how do u avoid jerky animation in the process. I always have this trouble when animating :'(

Just discovered that my 3d series gonna take more than i thought which was 1000 days ...imma still gonna do it tho

It will literally take me to the end of time to make an animation

I’m not sure if you e already made a video on this but can you go over how you color your animations? I’m not sure if there is a better way color them than to just use the paint brush tool on a layer behind the outlines. Great video by the way 😁👍 This channel and community is really inspiring!

Out here doing God's work again. Thank you very much for your work.

So about the storyboard & preproduction, is it 160 per hour?? I'm really confused on that part

Thunks Howard.

You’re awesome.

And we complain about the artwork in anime’s when the poor souls only have one week to put it out. Yes with a studio, but still

girl i need to make a 3 minute animation in 2 weeks < 33

Would this be the same case for vector looking shows like powerpuff girls? It looks like those are simple enough they'd be a lot quicker.

mean while, some kid making a 3 minute long 12ps fully voice acted and edited stop motion animation using LEGO in under a week:

Fun fact You can reduce time a LOT Just by adding dialogue scenes

I love this like

Can i know which software you are using for animation and background

@Howard wimshurst, can u pls tell me which is more time consuming, 2d or 3d animation for a similar project?. As we don't have to create every single drawing of a character in 3d as we have to draw in 2d. But, it takes time to get a character ready for its first shot, in 3d. I'm not that technical, can u pls tell as I'm working on a project. Thanks..

Respect for animators

So I'm guessing it would take 1 person 3 years to make a good quality 30 minute short. Is 1 month a minute what you were saying is what working solo would be like ?

Being a freelancer honestly sounds like hell I mean god damn the amount of math required looks exhausting are there no simpler ways to calculate when you finish an animation. My life was shortened by a couple years just watching a couple minutes of this.

somebody send this boy some markers !!

Im thinking about making a 3 min short movie 3d animation i think it will take one and a half year or more all by myself

I don't really get how you get the estimate for the storyboard

very nice but I guess that average anime episode is 3000 drawings so 2 minutes would be more like 300 or 350 drawings (if its not 2 minutes fight scene) and sometimes 5s of animation is just camera movement on some background or only one drawing so it wouldnt take 56 days but more like 15 or 20 days

I’m trying to make more episodes of gravity falls because I am not satisfied with the ending, still have so many questions, and I got kind of emotional when I finished it :’3

Hey how much you charge per minute if client provide you script

Me: oh I love this song I want to make a 4 minute animation! It's gonna have all the being! *sees video* Hmmm..... okay maybe we ate gonna cut some corners-

Yes

Good video. Is it impossible for a solo animator to work on their own project while just doing animating for living ? , it seems even if working with commercial works, animator are difficult to spend their time to complete their personal project. Which always bothered me to think if i suitable to be a animator or doing animator for living . :(

Dog, I love your videos but you gotta get a darker marker

So if it's a hobby a decent standard at 2 mins will be 3 years 😮

2 min animation = 168 days wow..

dude the white board is not visible correctly