Rating: 
Summary: A must have for Flash Animators
Review: A must have for anyone wanting to learn the art of animation and/or Flash animation techniques.
This is not just another flash book. It's also an how-to animate and draw cartoon book.
Mr. Ibis Fernandez goes into detail on how to use Flash by incorporating traditional animation principles. Valuable tips and techniques are covered. Great for beginner and advanced users of Flash and for animators wanting to learn flash from an animation point of view.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the $40
Review: I bought a lot of books about Flash animation to better improve my skills in the subject. I got this one along with a few others. This book taught me nothing that I didn't already know. This stuff I already knew wasn't from other books, it was from common sense. Sure, I guess if you are completely new the program this book may be useful somewhat, but not much at all.This book had some pretty awful ideas. Something about drawing each frame onto paper then scanning it in. It kept referring to capture cards to capture video. Wait, I thought we were making the video? The fact that this book was in black and white didn't help at all. What few good pictures it had, they really needed to be in color to understand what was going on. For $40, you'd expect a good book and a CD-ROM with all the examples in FLA source format. Nope. You get a pretty bad book with no cd at all. Be smart, don't buy this book. I'd recomend THE FLASH ANIMATOR since it was written by a true professional who has made a landmark on the internet (Sandro Corsaro).
Rating:
Summary: Keeps on giving
Review: I found this book to be pretty good. Not knowing a single thing about flash and some about animation it was able to meet all my needs in learning more about the two together. The greatest thing about this book was the author, i was confused on how to do something in Flash so i emailed the author and he emailed me back the same day with clear info on how to fix my problem. I really apprecited him taking his time out for me, i was trully suprised when i got his very helpful emaiil. Thanks again, and to all of you out there that are thinking about getting this book please do you woun't be disapointed.
Rating:
Summary: Good stuff
Review: I got this book, because I'm interested in animating online. Since this book was (...), I decided to purchase it. Also, if it really stunk I could return it, and get a new book. To my surprise, this book is a stellar release. This book is different than most others. Instead of teaching you to use the Flash tools efficiently, it just tells you what they are and what they do. You're thinking, that's it, it must stink, but it doesn't at all. The book takes a new technique and teaches you to draw (really, pencil and paper). It then suggests scanning them and optimizing in Flash. I had never read a book like this. Most say spend $(...) for Illustrator or Freehand, but Fernandez recommends using cheaper methods, and just using an everyday scanner. The highlights are the facial expressions, characterizations (for example, if you want to draw a jock, broad shoulders, small legs, etc.), and lip synching. The lip synching just illustrates what mouth to draw on certain sounds. If you can draw, know lip synching, and characterizations, you shouldn't get this book. But for most of you out there, this is a solid buy.
Rating:
Summary: simply awsome
Review: I heard about this book at Karl-Peter Gottschalk's website... He had some great things to say about it and gave it a five star rating. After checking it out for myself all I have to say is that this book rocks! While most books on the topic concetrate on teaching the sofware and not nesesarally acoplishing anything as far as teaching people any real skills or techniques, this book sets out and acomplishes what it it suggest, which is to instruct on animation and catooning. To all readers out there. Don't buy this book if what you want is to learn how to use Flash. Get the Flash Bible instead... This is where this book comes in. If what you want to do is to learn how to animate cartoons then this book is pretty extensive and in many cases demonstates techniques and procedures thats are highly and advanced. This book is definatelly worth every penny.
Rating: 
Summary: Uneven but with some great sections
Review: I teach Animation at the University level and love parts of this book and hate others.
What's good about it:
Speach,sound and syncing;
Scripting, production details
General introduction to Flash's interface and drawing tools;
Key concepts of cartoon figure drawing;
It's in Black and White, which means you get 430 pages for a $... list price. Color is lovely but too expensive for this level of book.
What it's bad at:
Details on Flash use (You will need another book for that);
Walk cycles, these are crucial and his examples are horrible;
Corny old character types -- these will make your work look generic in the extreme. Kills the imagination.
Overall project planning, he's good on the details but poor on the big picture, especially for beginners with small projects.
Too much space used on specialized tricks -- some are trivial, some are ugly, some are wonderful(like channelling video)but they should be there taking space from a more thorough examination of either Flash fundamentals or basic planning
What doesn't matter:
Fernandez doesn't draw brilliantly. He's good enough to get the point across. Some drawing is so good that it intimidates learners. Most sucessful animation is far more dependant on timing, motion and script than drawing skill.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I think this is a great flash tutorial book on how to make cartoons. Its wonderful! So simple to catch on to. This is not any ordinary tutorial book its one of the funest ones I've ever purchased. Instead of the book be dull and boring like other tutorials this book takes a fun twist. I highly rate this book for everything. I hope that Ibis Fernadez comes out with another tutorial book just as great as this one!
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I was delightfully surprised that a book about cartoon animation covered so much ground in a single volume as this one does. Being a professional animator myself, and being quite familiar the type of material available out there for independent study, I have found that a book this big usually takes a team of 4 maybe even 5 separate artists to create. I was especially impressed by the amount of detail the author placed on the subject of screenwriting and story construction. I have never seen this done in any other animation book (at least not to this capacity) but it makes perfect sense being that the most important part of any production is in fact, the writing itself. This section alone is like a book within a book. Furthermore this author's unique approach to flash animation is simply beyond the norm. Who'd ever thought that you can use a live video feed in conjunction with Flash? You'd figure a book a bout Flash animation would actually encourage the use of tweens and movie clip symbols; yet, Mr. Fernandez makes states a good case against their usage. In some cases it's as though the author is directly challenging the manufacturer of the software itself with references to poorly named objects unusable procedures. This is not one of those 25 dollar - 80 page "coffee table" books that you buy simply because of the "pretty pictures" and maybe some interviews with prominent members of the industry and yet have no real instructional substance to offer the reader. This book is one of those, required reading, type of books that anyone interested in production oriented animation in Flash (not just beginners) should consider as part of their arsenal.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, what you talking about Willis!
Review: Ibisfernandez.com was my favorite website of all time. It was the first only one at the time dedicated to actually cartooning and animation with flash. I think this book does a great job at providing a much needed refference on the subject. The only thing that could have made this book better is if it were in color and maybe expand a bit more on working with audio.
Rating:
Summary: Cartooning One Star, Flash Examples One=A big Dud
Review: If you had no cartooning instruction, nor opened a 'How to Cartoon' book, and had a limited understanding of Flash this would be a good place to start. If you are well advanced in your study of both cartooning and Flash and want to put together quality animation I'm sorry to say this book will be poor help.
I bought the book shortly after it was published, went to the authors website and never went back to either. To make cheap, shoddy animation you don't need an overly priced book like this...
The "Illusion of Life" book for Flash Animation, with fine examples of how Flash can move the net, has still to be written.
You've been warned.
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