This is kind of really long :| can’t think of a short way to summarise it since it all depends how you like learning stuff…

If you like reading and instruction I can recommend The Animator’s Survival Kit. It explains the various principles/basics of animation, and provides examples of everything usually with exaggerated posing, so it’s fairly simple to understand.

There are also lots of good tutorials out there, here are a few I think are good for techniques like breakdowns, easing, and general basics.

You could also find a challenge list and jump straight in if you prefer trial and error, here is a list that starts with the basics and works up.

Referencing video footage or animations you like is a way you could start, making observations of movement and timing, going through frame by frame. Then trying to reanimate it or apply to your own animation. Try to avoid flat out copying the timing though, just make a note of how they interpret it.

You can also rotoscope/trace. This is how I started animating (as well as just jumping in with trial and error), I’d print off individual frames from animations I liked and trace over them. For me, being able to feel how someone else grasps timing was really helpful and helped me get my own sense of timing. Note! not endorsing art theft here! If you do trace please keep it to yourself (also keep in mind this was when I was 12 :\ and I balanced it with my own stuff). Tracing doesn’t have to be the whole thing either, it can just be the main line of action or a few key movement points. Avoid replicating what you trace when making your own work too, learn from it don’t copy it.

But yeah, a lot of it is trial and error. If something looks weird, try finding something that’s animated similarly and compare, find a reference, or make your own video reference! Even when you’re not animating, try making note of things around you. Observe how you walk, how you move your arm, how others move etc.

Kind of hard to explain, I think of it as understanding the weight and energy of something, so when you observe your arm moving, pick up on how weight is affecting you, what energy are you putting in if that makes sense. Or what stages are in-between point A to point B, do your fingers change position? do they move at different times? the push and pull, force and resistance.

And practice! when I say practice I mean educated practice, drawing the same thing over and over again isn’t necessarily helpful, have to try out a bunch of stuff and add on to what you know. You could animate 100 ball bounces but that might not be helpful.

If animator is a career you want, it may also be worth looking at what the industry is like in your area, there may be certain programs or skills which are needed in your location more so than others. Good to have a general understanding though!

Hope some of this garbled mess is helpful ^^’

That depends what program and tools you’re using! In my case I tend to just hand pick every colour, find it’s easier than trying to blend. If I do need to mix stuff, the SAI brushes I use have a tiny bit of the colour blend setting on them (but it’s really just enough to soften the edge or give a hard blend). It makes the edge between the colours have a little blob of whatever is in between, so in the event I do need a mixed colour I’ll use the colour picker tool to grab it from there…if that makes sense ^^’ don’t really work with mixing a lot, most of what I do is fairly solid stuff.

I’ve got a few videos up that show when I’m doing the line work, like this. Usually use the first brush I mention here. I sometimes work with different bits separately then merge the layers down. One of the last steps I generally do is colour the lines with either a clipping mask or opacity lock, up until then I leave the lines black. And uh…that’s about it really :\ can’t think of anything else…

It’s not a stupid question! bit hard for me to say though since I’ve been fiddling with my SAI brushes a lot lately ^^’ here are the most common brushes I use:

The first one is for lines and flat shading, and I use all of them for general shading/painting. The last one I only use for lines on my comic pages (and only at 600dpi). I’ve got some of my other brushes here. If there’s a specific picture anyone is interested I can try and be more specific! :) I do tend to mess around with these settings while I work though.