ANIMATION ANARCHY: THE ART COLLEGE CRASH COURSELESSON 29 – HOW TO ANIMATE FASTER WITHOUT LOSING QUALITY (OR, WHY YOU’RE WASTING TIME ON UNNECESSARY FRAMES)

ANIMATION ANARCHY: THE ART COLLEGE CRASH COURSE

LESSON 29 – HOW TO ANIMATE FASTER WITHOUT LOSING QUALITY (OR, WHY YOU’RE WASTING TIME ON UNNECESSARY FRAMES)

(Or: How to Stop Animating Like You Have an Unlimited Budget and No Deadlines.)

🔥 WELCOME BACK TO ANIMATION ANARCHY – WHERE WE TEACH YOU HOW TO STOP TAKING 500 YEARS TO FINISH A SCENE.

🚨 FACT: If you’re animating slowly and inefficiently, you’ll:

❌ Never finish your projects.

❌ Burn out before your animation even looks good.

❌ End up hating animation because it takes FOREVER.

✅ Good animators know how to work fast without sacrificing quality.

❌ Bad animators waste time on frames no one will even notice.

🎭 Today, we’re fixing the biggest mistakes that slow down animators—and how to animate smarter.

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🔥 WHY YOU’RE ANIMATING TOO SLOWLY (AND HOW TO FIX IT)

🚨 1. YOU’RE DRAWING TOO MANY FRAMES.

• Beginners think more frames = smoother animation. (WRONG.)

• More frames = More work. If you’re animating on 1s when you could be on 2s or 3s, you’re killing yourself for no reason.

🛠️ THE FIX:

✅ Only use more frames when necessary. Not everything needs to be on 1s.

✅ Animate snappy actions on 2s or 3s.

✅ Watch classic animation—it’s rarely full-frame, but it’s still smooth.

🔥 EXAMPLE:

• Good approach: A character’s idle movement on 3s, with only fast motions on 1s.

• Bad approach: Animating every single frame at 24fps when it’s unnecessary.

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🚨 2. YOU’RE NOT USING SMOOTH KEYFRAMES FIRST.

• If you jump into straight-ahead animation without a plan, you’ll waste time redrawing bad poses.

• If your keyframes are weak, your entire animation will fall apart.

🛠️ THE FIX:

✅ Focus on getting strong key poses first.

✅ Don’t worry about in-betweens until your keyframes are solid.

✅ Good animation starts with good planning.

🔥 EXAMPLE:

• Good workflow: Block out key poses → Add breakdowns → THEN in-betweens.

• Bad workflow: Start animating frame 1 to frame 100 without thinking.

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🚨 3. YOU’RE ADDING DETAILS TOO EARLY.

• Detail work should come LAST. If you’re perfecting every single drawing before you even finish the motion, you’re going to burn out.

• Your animation should work in rough form BEFORE you clean it up.

🛠️ THE FIX:

✅ Animate in rough form first. Don’t waste time on details before the movement is solid.

✅ Use simplified placeholders for complex elements.

✅ Refine only AFTER the motion is correct.

🔥 EXAMPLE:

• Good workflow: Rough sketch pass → Motion check → THEN clean-up.

• Bad workflow: Spending 3 hours shading a single frame before even finishing the scene.

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🚨 4. YOU’RE NOT USING THE RIGHT SHORTCUTS.

• Smart animators reuse elements to speed up production.

• If you’re redrawing everything from scratch when you don’t need to, you’re wasting time.

🛠️ THE FIX:

✅ Use copy/paste with slight variations for repetitive motions.

✅ Use smears, motion blurs, and holds to avoid unnecessary frames.

✅ Set up reusable assets for things like blinking cycles, breathing loops, and secondary animation.

🔥 EXAMPLE:

• Good approach: Copying and tweaking a hand motion instead of redrawing it from scratch.

• Bad approach: Redrawing the same hand wave 20 times when a simple loop would work.

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🚨 5. YOU’RE NOT USING THE “3-STEP RULE” FOR SPEED.

• The fastest way to animate efficiently is to work in 3 passes:

1️⃣ Key Poses (the structure) – Establish the main storytelling poses.

2️⃣ Breakdowns (the motion clarity) – Define how the movement flows between poses.

3️⃣ In-Betweens (the smoothness) – Only add frames where necessary.

🛠️ THE FIX:

✅ ALWAYS animate in 3 passes. Never try to animate everything at once.

✅ If it doesn’t work in step 1, it won’t work in step 3.

✅ Don’t waste time over-inbetweening early on.

🔥 EXAMPLE:

• Good approach: Sketch rough key poses first, refine movement, THEN add in-betweens.

• Bad approach: Animating every single frame one by one with no planning.

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🔥 COMMON MISTAKES (AND HOW TO FIX THEM)

🚨 FAIL #1: “MY ANIMATION TAKES TOO LONG.”

🛠️ FIX: Stop animating on 1s all the time. Use 2s or 3s when possible.

🚨 FAIL #2: “I KEEP REDOING MY FRAMES.”

🛠️ FIX: Focus on key poses first. If they suck, your in-betweens won’t save them.

🚨 FAIL #3: “I’M STUCK IN THE DETAILS TOO EARLY.”

🛠️ FIX: Work rough first. Perfect later.

🚨 FAIL #4: “MY SCENE LOOKS SLOW AND BORING.”

🛠️ FIX: Use snappier timing, remove unnecessary frames, and exaggerate motion.

🚨 FAIL #5: “CAN I SKIP SOME IN-BETWEENS TO SAVE TIME?”

🛠️ FIX: Yes! Smart animators know when NOT to add more frames. Let the audience’s brain fill in motion when possible.

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🔥 FINAL THOUGHTS: SPEED DOESN’T MEAN SLOPPY—IT MEANS SMART.

🎬 If you animate inefficiently, you’ll never finish projects.

🚀 Work smarter, and you’ll animate FASTER and BETTER.

💀 Or keep wasting hours on unnecessary frames. Your call.

🔥 NEXT LESSON: HOW TO SURVIVE AS A SOLO ANIMATOR (OR, WHY YOU’RE PROBABLY OVERWORKING YOURSELF).

💬 COMMENT BELOW: What’s the slowest, most painful animation mistake you’ve ever made? (We all have one.)

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🔥 Animation Anarchy starts NOW. 🔥