Anonymous asked: Yo Niko, hope you don't mind me asking a few questions? 1. I'm trying to get into cartooning and what not, are there any books you would suggest that would help me a bit? 2. I am also trying a hand at flash animation. How did you learn? Any resources? Thanks!

I don’t know if I can be that much of help because I’m self taught in all areas. Drawing, animating, and I learned Flash by myself as well. For Flash, it’s just kind of playing around with it and discovering new things. Granted, when I started, I was using Flash 4 which is SO much simpler than the current version, CS5. For me it’s just been a matter of taking what I already know and adapting. But not everyone can just pick up a program and learn it, so if you need tutorials, I’m pretty sure Newgrounds is a good place to go for that, and I wouldn’t doubt that there are probably a bunch on Youtube.
As far as drawing goes, I would actually recommend NOT using any books. At least to start out with. There are books to better yourself once you get a knack for it, but ask anyone and they’ll tell you any sort of how to draw book or how to make cartoons is awful. Just draw for yourself. A LOT. And observe, too. Don’t right out copy someone else’s style, but if you look at someone’s art and say something like “oh, that’s a good way to draw that pose,” give it a shot. Just don’t think too far into it. The more you think, the more you’ll worry and restrain yourself. If you draw for fun, your own style will just come out. Observation is also pretty much how I learned to animate. I just watch a lot of cartoons and sometimes I’ll see how certain animators make certain motions or different tricks and try them out and modify them so they work for me. You could always go one frame at a time through certain parts of cartoons to see how they did one movement that your curious about. You may find a lot of surprises by doing that too.
I hope that at least helps you a little bit.