Within my first year as Animation Team Lead at Gamesys, I was responsible for hiring three traditional animators. I knew the work coming our way wouldn't always call for traditional animation, and at times we'd go weeks without drawing frame by frame. Since I've always believed animators are like athletes who need training to stay sharp, I wanted to give the team a chance to train every day, so I came up with "warmupanimations."
Every day, first thing in the morning, the animators, or anyone else who wanted to join in, could take 10 minutes to create an animation. Sometimes we picked a subject to explore, but mostly it was random. As the initiative became popular across the wider department, I encouraged people with no animation background to give it a go too, with whatever technique or style suited them.
