Couldn't agree more. Got this book with my already meager college student funds but it's a great investment. My edition came with a DVD in the back advertising a DVD collection about his lectures. Which I kind of want to get some day, but the book is already an invaluable resource.

Hey, nice work! The design is consistent and he's an appealing character, too.

I've come to realize that I never properly learned to rig. I did the beginner's tutorial with the hideous purple guy, but when building your own characters there's a lot more to it than that. So, thanks for this. :) By the way -- is there really 27 minutes of black screen after your tutorial ends, o...

You should probably also read through this thread , if you want to get an idea of what the job is really like from someone who's been in the business for a while already. Warning: it will probably destroy most idealistic expectations you may have.... but I feel like this is good to know about sooner...

Gosh, sometimes I wish it were called something other than Anime Studio! Isn't it a little ironic that relatively few animations out there made with this program are actually done in the "anime" style?

At least, that's what it seems like in my experience...

slowtiger, you make me smile.

I want to chime in and agree with the rest! Great drawings, wonderfully laid out atmosphere -- those little 18 seconds were enormously intriguing. Can't wait to see more!!

I see, so with rotation it's important to set the origin right between the wings.

Awesome. I have a competent butterfly now.

The files/suggestions were extremely helpful -- thanks, guys!

Is this what you're trying to do? http://flashpulse.com/moho/catch_me.html Yes! Yes, that is what I'm trying to do! @Vern: Right now I'm not doing any fancy angles for the butterfly; it's just a straight-on view where you can see his body and his full wingspan. I grouped the layers under a bone lay...

I first built the parts (right wing, left wing, body) on three separate vector layers, because I had noticed that I might get the effect I was going for by moving the wings with the "Rotate Layer Y" tool. The only problem with that was that there was nothing to keep the wing attached to th...

I guess as far as this file's concerned, I am out of luck. Not that it's a serious project, anyway; I'm just trying out things to get a better feel for the program. But thanks for the suggestions/examples/files to pick apart. I'll definitely keep these ideas in mind when I work on future projects. :)

I'm adding shading to a character (via masking) and it's going great, except that it's also affecting the parts of the strokes that fall under it. So the outlines of the character are discolored in areas, and that's not cool. I'm pretty sure there's some way to get the strokes to show through withou...

I've owned AS Pro for over a month, and I'm so eager to learn that I'll take anything I can get, but thankfully I have access to quality tutorials like this one. The way it's set up is also really great. Thanks a lot.

No kidding! I saw your other two characters and they're all so rich and wonderfully stylized. Great work.

The timing couldn't have been better! I'd just gone through the other two parts and was wondering when the third was going to be posted.

Lengthy or not, I'm learning so much from them, and I'm grateful you took.... several hours out of your life to make these tutorials.