Reddit reviews Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures

Getting good at drawing is like getting in shape: sadly there's no easy way to do it other than to be disciplined and work hard at it every day. Enroll in a figure drawing class. Ask friends to sit for you for 2/5/10/20 minute poses. Draw from life as much as possible, anywhere. Go to a cafe and do a big panoramic spread of the whole room. Go to an art store and buy a bunch of different drawing materials; don't just draw with pencil. Get some pens, force yourself to draw without an eraser. Look at the masters like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Ingres or contemporary artists like Alex Katz and David Hockney. Look at what techniques they're using with their figures, what kind of lines, how do they render volume. Copy from them and steal from them. Pick a new artist every week and try out drawing like them. The most important thing: draw all the time, draw everything you see. You won't get better unless you do it all the time. If you keep it up for even six months, you'll notice a big change, and it will make jumping into animation much easier (you'll know how to do perspective, pose characters, rotates volumes in your head, etc).

Here are a couple of animation specific drawing books that you might find useful/inspiring: Drawn to Life http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449817164&sr=1-1&keywords=drawn+from+life // The Animators Survival Kit (mostly an animation book, but opens with a great chapter about drawing) http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/086547897X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449817420&sr=1-1&keywords=animation+survival+kit

I think you're on the right track, definitely spend time modeling and animating before leaving your current job.

I would recommend getting started doing modeling and rigging yourself (then feel free to use pre-built rigs and such if you want). This is basically just so you know what's going on behind the scenes of rigs you'll use in the future. Even if you never create a model or rig throughout your career as an animator at a studio (which many times may be the case), you'll have the knowledge to communicate with modelers / riggers to get what you need to animate.

For animation, I do think it's worthwhile to have some experience in 2D animation (a little easier to get started in and helps you practice fundamentals you'll end up using in 3D) Acting for Animators, Animators Survival Kit, and Drawn to Life are all highly recommended books for 2D animation. Oh, and good news! you can practice all the fundamentals of animation with stick figures!

On that note, I would highly recommend practicing drawing. Ctrl+Paint has some decent video things on drawing and painting. While you don't need to be Da Vinci to go into modeling / animation (I'm not great at drawing / painting myself) it does help to be able to sketch out quick ideas (concepts for models, storyboards, etc). Just a little practice each day goes a long way!

As far as 3D software goes, it depends on where you work what you'll use, but the fundamentals will all be roughly the same. The company I work at uses Motion Builder for our animation, though I primarily use Maya for any work (and I know plenty of people using 3DS Max, Blender, and other software for the whole process). Some companies may even use proprietary software that you have no access to outside of the company and will expect you to learn it after being hired. Just stick with whatever you use, learn it well and you'll be able to transfer that knowledge into whatever software you'll need in the future

TL;DR Take your time, learn some 2D animation, draw stuff, and learn a 3D modeling / animation program like the back of your hand.

PS. I know a lot of people say you don't NEED 2D animation, and I'm not saying you NEED to know it, it's just useful.

In addition to the other comments, more specifically to figure drawing, getting a good handle on gesture is how you keep your figures from being stiff. You learn how to not just copy the gesture of the figures you're looking at but to push the gesture, exaggerate it enough to really get across the movement and rhythm of the pose, without pushing it so far that it turns into caricature. Pretty sure it was Walt Stanchfield who said that gesture drawing is drawing verbs instead of nouns: you're not drawing a person in a running pose, you're trying to draw running. You're not trying to draw someone in a leaning pose, you're trying to draw leaning.

(That book I linked to, by the way, and the second volume that follows it, have a ton of stuff about gesture drawing in them and are well worth reading. They're taken directly from Walt's classroom lecture notes from when he was teaching gesture at Disney animation.)

You'll need to get the basics down, using resources such as these will help you learn the Principles of Animation:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571238343/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=30T6VO4VE88VV&coliid=I1WXJPDZ88EXNM
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=XGJ08AG811TMQCZ3Y3QZ

Then there's software such as OpenToonz (2d) and Blender (3D) that are free open source options for you to put your work into practice. YouTube tutorials and trial and error are a great way to learn. If you can't figure something out, Google it.
Lastly, draw. A lot. Every day. https://line-of-action.com/ is a great resource for reference images for anything from 10 second gesture sketches to full on concept poses.

Good luck!

Drawn to Life: Volume 1

Drawn to Life: Volume 2

Drawn to Life

Not so much "How to draw" as "How to think about drawing"

I recommend these two books for general art learning.

https://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961

https://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240811070

For pixel art, you need basic art knowledge, and practice making pixel art. If you are a super beginner a good exercise is to copy 1:1 a square of a pixel art sprite you like without using the color picker. Do that a bunch of times, and you'll learn which kinds of colors work well together and many of the techniques that go into producing good looking pixel art.

You might be interested in this book: http://www.amazon.ca/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y/181-1157278-5783305

Gesture is really about design. Simplifying the big movements into a beautiful shape.

Understanding traditional arts will always help you no matter what because it helps develop an analytically eye. I would try to find places around your location that offer figure drawing sessions for like $20. Doing figure drawing sessions will help you come to a greater understanding about shape, form, weight, pose; All of those are extremely important to understand in animation. You don't have to draw well by any means (if your doing 3d), just develop your eye.

If you're not coming from an art background, I recommend reading 'Drawn to Life', 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brian' or 'Understanding Comics' as these will help change the way you think about art. They have to do a lot with Art Philosophy.

Understanding Comics: (a vastly underrated book)
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-Mccloud/dp/006097625X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319966876&sr=8-1

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774195/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319966921&sr=8-1

Drawn to Life:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319966942&sr=1-1

First, I think a 12F port-a-disc, some 12F paper, and a pack of col-erase pencils would make a good starter set for about what you're looking to spend. Just be sure the holes on the paper match the pegbar on the disc. Check out http://www.lightfootltd.com/

Next, something I've been looking into is the Don Bluth DVD tutorial series. What I've seen on youtube looks really solid, and informative (9 DVDs for $155): http://donbluthanimation.com/index.php?act=viewCat

Finally, a personal favorite - Walt Stanchfield's Draw to Life (2 volumes of notes from his Disney master classes): http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961

Thanks for the links and the advice! Not that I'm anything but an amateur, but I'd like to add:

• Take figure drawing classes. Drawing from the computer screen just isn't as good as a real model. In real life your brain will receive vital depth information that is missing from a two-dimensional projection of a 3D object. Digesting this information is crucial as you learn how to pose the figure's volumes and understand the contours that run over his or her shapes.
  
  
• Check out Walt Stanchfield's two volumes called "Drawn to Life." Although you may not be interested in animating, animators intimately understand figure drawing, gesture, and capturing the spirit of the pose.
  
  
• Draw every day! Do what Jerry Seinfeld does and mark off a red X on every day you do something. After a while you'll be extremely uncomfortable going a day without seeing an X there. I've committed to drawing every day and I've been doing it for just over 300 days now.
  
  And allow me to plug a link to my FA in case anyone is kind enough to give me advice, criticism, or comments: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/foxipso/ (some of it is NSFW). I've been trying to focus on figure construction, pose, and appeal, but I'd greatly appreciate any input or criticism. I admittedly feel I know the least about painting, and feel I need to take a course or get some more material on it. I'm not sure if I'm even at a point in drawing where it's holding me back, however. I'm never really happy with the overall construction of my characters and underlying anatomy. Hopefully one can see progress by going back through my submissions, however.

If you like this type of material, it might also be worth checking out

Drawn to Life

It's a collection of drawing lessons / philosophy given by Walt Stanchfield to budding Disney animators. Great stuff.

Drawn to Life Volume 1: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: (and/or Volume 2).

I constantly try to everyone I can about these two books, Drawn to Life Vol 1 & 2: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures. They are super heavy in terms of theory, and took me a few years to read through both volumes fully, but no other book has impacted the way I think about and practice drawing then these two.

https://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519436955&sr=8-1&keywords=drawn+to+life

Framed Ink has been really helpful for me in beginning to understand the art of sequential story telling, and the thinking behind different framing choices.

https://www.amazon.com/Framed-Ink-Drawing-Composition-Storytellers/dp/1933492953/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Add into that David Chelseas book Perspective for Comic Book Artists. It explained (and continues to explain) perspective in a way that makes sense and is incredibly detailed. (I alone would buy the book for how he explains the hanger method of sizing characters of the same size but on different planes in the correct perspective.)

https://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Comic-Book-Artists-Professional/dp/0823005674/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519437238&sr=1-1&keywords=perspective+for+comics

These are just a couple from the top of my head, but if you'd like more recommendations, or ones on specific topics I can see if I have any that would fit your need.