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  • Alright, this is Learning How to Learn. This is when you find the Brony fandom makes really

  • cool things. And you're really interested in how you might go about learning those things.

  • Because you'll see amazing things on Youtube, or you'll see amazing fanfics, and you only

  • see the end product, but you don't really know how they got there.

  • And there's kind of a process to it. Bronies make a lot of content. We have 1.6 billion

  • words of My Little Pony Fanfiction, there's just a lot. Staggering amounts of fanart,

  • and lots and lots of analysis videos. And there's even a subsection of YouTube for audio

  • fanfic readings. You have a lot of different people that read fan fiction out loud and

  • do a lot of audio recording stuff. That's not even saying PMVs where you haveWell,

  • you have simple PMVs you see on Equestria Daily which are just clips from the show.

  • And then you have the more detailed motion graphics art. Where people are moving things

  • around. And ponies are doing interesting things. That's also there.

  • And that's not to mention animation. Which is mostly the hardest one of all which really

  • does require a big group of people to work together for it.

  • So our big question: "How did they learn how to do that?" Because there's just so much

  • content and how did they figure that out? So this panel is for people that are non-creatives

  • or mildly creative that are interested in seeing kind of a glimpse of what other people

  • have done. And how they learned that process of how to do that.

  • And it's also to help you figure out what you don't know you don't know. Because until

  • you figure out what you don't know you don't know, you can't stop and Google it.

  • Also, for people that are just curious how some of this stuff is created.

  • So the biggest question is: "How do I Iearn how to do that?"

  • Because other people learned how to make it, and they're humans, and I'm also human so

  • I can also figure out how to do something. Because everything is learnable.

  • Let's kind of go through the agenda of the panel.

  • We're going to be going over Emotional Barriers to learning new skills. Because there's always

  • angst when learning how to draw for the first time and it looks terrible. And other skills

  • too. There's also writing, particularly writing

  • fan fiction. Though you'd be surprised by the amount of writing that happens in the

  • Brony fandom, even just comments on YouTube. And being able to praise other people for

  • the content they create. That's also something we'll be going over.

  • As well as drawing. And a subsection of drawing you may not have heard of called vectoring.

  • Which is another part of this fandom. As well as audio recording fanfic readings, as well

  • as video production, and kind of what goes in with that. And a little bit of animation.

  • I don't personally have experience with doing a full animation project. But I've watched

  • lots of tutorials enough to be like: "Wow! That's a lot of work."

  • I can at least point you in the right direction, and that's mostly what this panel is. It's

  • pointing you in the right direction for how to learn things if you would like to.

  • And tell me if I talk too fast. I always listen to things at doublespeed on YouTube and so

  • it affects my speech. So yeah... I can slow down if you want.

  • A thing to keep in mind. So a lot of you are probably used to going to school, and you'll

  • learn: "This is the War of 1812, this is what happened in the War of 1812." And I don't

  • know why I picked that example because I have no idea what happened in the War of 1812 besides

  • that it was a fight against the British... So school mostly focuses on Book knowledge,

  • but what we'll be delving into are skills. And skills are a little bit different. I think

  • the biggest difference you can see would probably be taking something like "wood shop" where

  • you'd have to learn something like carpentry. And focus, and hammer things together. That

  • is a skill. It is carpentry. But you need to separate those two different

  • categories. Because learning knowledge, you could learn it from a book. It's relatively

  • simple. But learning a skill, is something you do

  • have to get hands on and create things. Okay, I do have a caveat here: People are

  • different. Like, there's a big giant: "IT DEPENDS" over all of humanity. Because some

  • people may be better suited for certain things, and others may be better suited for other

  • things. Also, this panel focuses a lot on watching

  • and following along with YouTube tutorials. Perhaps that's not the best way for you to

  • learn, which I... well that's what I'll be showing because that's what helped me learn.

  • And being able to follow somebody else do something is a pretty good way to learn things.

  • So... overcoming emotional barriers. I had, like, the weirdest worldview in High School.

  • I had this thing where I thought people were born knowing how to draw.

  • Like, I'd see people that knew how to draw and I'd be like: "Wow, they are so good at

  • drawing! They're so good at what they do!" And I had no idea that: "Oh! That is because

  • they worked hard, they practiced, and they did it."

  • So among the emotional barriers to go over is to realize that: "Everything can be learned."

  • Everything you see around you was either designed or created by people. Like, take this room.

  • An architect designed it, and then you had groups of people working together to actually

  • build the materials and you have this whole global supply chain.

  • And you can learn all that if you really want to. And it's really cool that ALL of this

  • is learnable. I'm a big fan of learning random stuff.

  • And... realize that it's never "too late" to learn a skill. You can learn how to play

  • the piano at 70 if you want to. That's perfectly fine. Or you could learn how to draw something.

  • Sure there's some talent that might be innate, but that talent increases far more through

  • hard work. So, I think some of you may have heard of

  • this book: "Outliers." This is a really good book. It's all about the 10,000 hour rulethat

  • it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to reach world class performance.

  • This is said a lot. People talk about JanAnimations and I'm pretty sure he's put in his 10,000

  • hours of professional, amazing, fantastic work. And it shows.

  • However, for the purposes of this panel, we're not going into 10,000 hours of stuff because

  • we just want to have fun! "I just want to learn enough about writing to write my first

  • fanfic. And maybe see if it'd be fun." Or: "I just want to draw a little bit, to

  • just draw my OC." So that! How long does that take?

  • So based off of this book, I'd say about 20 hours. This is one of my favorite books. This

  • is: "The First 20 hours: How to Learn Anything Fast" by Josh Kaufman. Basically, it takes

  • 20 hours of deliberate practice. Like, plan it out: "I'm going to learn this at this time,

  • and do this at this time." And it takes about that long to learn a new skill.

  • And that's enough just to have fun with it. You're not going to be a world class master

  • at it. But you'll know enough to have fun with it. And get your feet wet and understand

  • the process and maybe see: "Do I like this?" "Maybe not?"

  • It's all about overcoming that barrier in the beginning of: "This is too hard."

  • Another emotional barrier is: "Knowing what you want to do."

  • Have a goal in mind. Like, if you wanna write a fanfic, a drawing. If you wanna make an

  • animated gifthose are really simple to make. If you Google "Gyazo Gif," it allows

  • you to make Gifs really easily. It's great. I'll have a link in these presentation show

  • notes. Basically, the more you understand what you

  • want to make, the better chance you have to succeed.

  • And my big problem with this was: "I saw all these Bronies making content, making these

  • animations and videos and all this other stuff. And I was like: 'What do I wanna do?' 'EVERYTHING!'"

  • Let's rephrase that question. Instead of: "What do you want to do," "What do you want

  • to do first." Because if you can answer that question you can do a lot more things with

  • your time. Rather than being trapped in a dazed state like: "What do I wanna do~?" But

  • if you can set what you want to do first, it can be really helpful.

  • And this is one of my favorite sayings for this kind of stuff: "A problem well stated,

  • is a problem half solved." So if you can figure out: "Here is my problem, I don't know how

  • to do THIS. I don't know the process for THIS." You can expand that out. Let's say you're

  • having a problem with... Well... when you understand the vocabulary

  • for motion graphics you can be like: "Okay, how do I make a clipping mask in After Effects

  • to achieve this effect?" Like, the more you can narrow down your problem, it can be really

  • helpful. Let's see, another emotional barrier is not

  • giving up immediately. The CMC are a really funny example of this. Because they try something

  • once and they're like: "Well! Not for me!" The cutie mark algorithm analysis thing didn't

  • work. So they didn't get their cutie marks, so: "Obviously this isn't for me."

  • But that isn't really how it works in the real world. It does take effort, because no

  • one is good at it immediately. So I would say to really understand if this is your thing

  • or not your thing, to give it at least 20 hours of consistent, deliberate, practice

  • before just shoving it away. And I know that drawing at first feels painful because it's

  • just like: "AAAH! This does NOT look good at all." But it's okay.

  • Just give yourself some time. Learn to forgive yourself enough to at least overcome that

  • frustration barrier. And remember: "If it was easy, it wouldn't be fun."

  • Another aspect of this is: "Breaking down the skill."

  • So you have these big giant skills like animation. That is actually made up of a ton of different

  • component skills. So earlier in the day we had M. A. Larson talking about the writing

  • aspect of animation. And that's it's own, like, writing skill.

  • And then you have the actual drawing skills that people have. Of sitting down and learning

  • how to draw and doing that a bunch of different ways.

  • And so, being able to break down these skills into their component parts, you can put them

  • into bite sized portions you can use to actually learn things.

  • So... other things I have a problem with. I have a problem figuring out time management.

  • Like, that is the bane of my existence. So if you want to read a big business book about

  • it. "Getting Things Done." I recommend it if you can handle business books. It could

  • be boring. I dunno, it depends. Basically, just write things down. And the

  • more you write it down, it gives your brain permission to let it go, flip to it later

  • and realize: "Oh! I wanted to learn this thing." As you write things down you'll notice: "Oh!

  • This is coming up more often. Perhaps I should do this thing because my brain is constantly

  • reminding me to do this task." And other things I've found useful. Putting

  • my phone in airplane mode, and turning off the Wi-Fi.

  • If I'm trying to write, let's turn off all the distractions and get into "Deep Work"

  • and work on something. That's not going to work at first for some

  • of this, because you'll be watching a YouTube tutorial while doing something else.

  • And remember to set apart time per day. And another really good book that I like...

  • this is one of my favorites! It's: "The War of Art"

  • It is a punch in the face. It is really, really painful because it outlines this enemy towards

  • creativity called: "The Resistance." And how hard it is to get things done. Because any

  • time you are trying to do a creative endeavor, everything is going to go against you. Whether

  • it be to learn it, or to do it in the first place.

  • Some drama will happen. Or you'll have six finals. Which... do your finals first. But...

  • it can be a problem. I highly recommend this book if you want a

  • punch in the face, but in book form. To tell you to do art.

  • Another aspect that I've had a problem with was: "focusing too much on the tool."

  • So... let's take the carpentry example. No one stops and says: "I'm going to learn how

  • to use a hammer." No, they're goal is: "I want to make a birdhouse." And the tool happens

  • to be a hammer. And I'm going to use a hammer and a nail to create this birdhouse.

  • That is also how to treat the things we're learning. If you're learning drawing, you're

  • learning drawing, not Photoshop. Though that may be an aspect of it that may improve your

  • drawing because it's a tool you use. So... you want to learn novel writing, not

  • specifically the program: Scrivener. While that is a good program that helps you write

  • novels, it is just a tool in your toolbox. So separating the skill itself from the tool

  • can be helpful. And something that I needed to keep in mind

  • as I was trying out lots and lots of different software. I dunno, I started learning Adobe

  • Illustrator before I realized: "I have to learn how to draw to use this?" And it was

  • very funny experience to realize that and so I kind of learned all these tools in different

  • orders. Okay, so let's go to our first thing we're

  • learning about, which is: "Writing." I have a soft spot for this. One of the first

  • things I made for the Brony fandom was a fanfic. It was really exhilarating from start to finish.

  • And also really angsty. And all sorts of stuff. But it's fun. I recommend it.

  • "What are the barriers to entry for Fanfiction?" Luckily, the cost is free. If you have a pencil

  • and paper, you can write fanfic, you can write things.

  • And this is one of my favorite comics, I don't know if you've seen this before.

  • It's Derpy lying on the ground and Pinkie goes up and says: "PONY! PONY! PONY!"

  • And Derpy's like: "Yes but... WHY do we pony?" I think that's beautiful because I think that's

  • so much of writing fan fiction. The frustration barrier for that is just like: "What am I

  • doing!?" I'm writing stories about horses having fun... and yeah... it's a strange.

  • The frustration barrier is pretty high. And also that feeling of "What am I doing?"

  • But it's a lot of fun when you give it a chance. And yeah... I would recommend this for you

  • if you get story ideas you can't stop thinking about. Like, my first story I wrote. I didn't

  • intend to write it. But then... it was the middle of the night and I could not go to

  • sleep and so I decided to "just write down the idea" so I could go to sleep.

  • And I just kept writing and writing and yeah... and by the end of it I had a fanfic!

  • It's kind of fun how that works out. This is arguably the easiest to start because

  • putting words on pages is something you've kind of been taught at school. "Please! We

  • want you to write! We want you to write this essay." This is already using that same skill

  • you're getting at school, but in a different way. And a much funner way.

  • Because usually at school you have to worry about citing your sources. Do all this other

  • stuff. Writing is very free-form. It's one of the most free-form things you can do. It's

  • basically painting... words? I don't know how to describe it, but it's really fun.

  • So let's break down writing into it's constituent parts.

  • So we have two hugely different skills that everyone kind of lumps together. Keep in mind

  • that these are two different skills. One is writing, that is actually the process of getting

  • words onto paper. It's putting one word in front of the other. "I am writing this right

  • now." And then there's also editing, which is it's

  • own skill of taking those words, and refining them. Like, you have this long paragraph description

  • of something, but you could shorten it down to one sentence. Or "Oh, look, you didn't

  • really understand the grammar principle here." Or: "You forget to spell check a word." Or

  • worry about your: "There, they're, and theirs." Which is kind of like the law of it. So it's

  • the lawyer approach to writing, is editing. And trying to get it to fit these things.

  • And that is important. No one is going to read your stuff if it's not properly edited.

  • And it doesn't look right. And those are two skills that are pretty important.

  • And I highly recommend: "Don't publish your first fanfic without at least letting an editor

  • see it." Because they're going to know rules that you're not going to notice. It just helps

  • to have a second pair of eyes. Arguably writing can be difficult because

  • it's so useful to have a friend. And having that friend/editor look at it.

  • And also writing is pretty cool because it shows up everywhere. Like, you'll start writing

  • but it also has ties to animations, because you need to have a script. Their's writing

  • for pony analysis videos. Like, even Dr. Wolf, the hardest part of his

  • job is writing the script for the video. And that's what most people care about. They don't

  • realize that's what they care about the most. But the additional pictures and everything

  • else is really more of an afterthought to make it more effective.

  • So I have plenty of weird advice for writing fanfic. This is just stuff that I found useful.

  • Writing is so free-form that everyone has their own sets of advice. And so you really

  • have to try one pattern and go with it. So my strange advice, is when you're first

  • writing, just write. Just put your fingers on the page and just

  • go forward. Don't look at "how it's done" or style guides until after you've written

  • something, and gotten the words on the paper. And say to yourself: "I am writing right now.

  • And I will be editing later." Tell yourself that, to give yourself permission to just

  • write. So you find yourself and picture yourself in the story. How the story is coming about.

  • What do the characters say in this situation? And where they've gotten to.

  • At the beginning, write as if you and you alone will read it. And the most important

  • thing to do: "Have fun!" This is a hobby. You're not getting paid for

  • this, especially not for fanfiction. So write for fun.

  • Also realize that you may... well... this may help you. Because there's a lot of different

  • kinds of writers and different kinds of perspectives on it.

  • There's people called: "Pantsers." They're writing "by the seat of their pants." Because

  • they have no idea what's going to happen next. It's like: "I don't know what's gonna happen

  • next, but I'm going to keep writing and writing to find out as I go along."

  • The author is just as surprised when the characters do something as the characters are, and the

  • audience as well. And then you have: "Planners." They know every

  • aspect of the story. I know VikingZX on Fimfiction, he wrote a blog about how: "Oh! I had my characters

  • visiting the griffon kingdom, but I hadn't figured out a griffon monetary system that

  • they'll use when they're going to buy something." So he stopped and researched monetary systems

  • of the world for, like, four hours. And then he figured out this perfect system that the

  • griffons would use in the griffon lands for their monetary system.

  • Then he finally wrote this scene for how things should work.

  • So they're planners and world builders. Which, sometimes that works for people, sometimes

  • it doesn't. You just gotta figure out what you feel the most comfortable with.

  • And then there's what's called: "Flashlighters." This is me. This is: "They're in a dark room,

  • they're shining a flashlight thinking 'I THINK the story goes over here' but then they keep

  • looking around at the plot and trying to see it." And basically they know what's going

  • to happen in the next three chapters and they may have an ending they want to see happen.

  • But they're not really sure. And the characters may go off and do something they didn't expect.

  • So those are three types of writers you may turn into. This is pretty subjective, but

  • these are good to know about. So writing resources. Number 1: FimFiction.net.

  • This is THE place. If you don't know about it yet, this is where fan fiction gets published,

  • read about, and where you'll probably put stuff if you're writing My Little Pony fan

  • fiction. There's also a great, great website called

  • Writeoff.me. These people are harsh. If you want people

  • to read your writing and give you harsh feedback, or like, or sometimes good feedback. I dunno.

  • It's just full of critics. You go to writeoff.me, and they have these

  • contests every month with these anonymous writing competitions. Where people write a

  • story based off of a prompt. And it could be from 2000-8000 words. Or in mini-fic competitions

  • they're 750 words. And those are really fun, and you'll get lots

  • of anonymous people putting up fanfic. And people rate them, and write critiques about

  • it. And at the end it's revealed that: "Oh! This person wrote this." And it's a lot of

  • fun. And it can be really ego depleting. Especially when you don't do as well and people give

  • harsh feedback on something that you thought was amazing. I dunno, it's a process.

  • Also, this is not My Little Pony related. WritingExcuses.com is a really great podcast

  • if you wanna get used to writing and having writing on your mind. They're 15 minute writing

  • episodes from New York Times bestselling authors like Brandon Sanderson and other people. And

  • they're talking about how to write. Highly recommend that as well.

  • And I'll probably recommend this link several more time during these slides. Equestria Daily

  • has a tutorial index where you can look at all these tutorials about all sorts of stuff.

  • And they have a writing section in there as well. So those are things that can help.

  • Let's see... more strange advice. There's a website called "Written Kitten." I love

  • this site! You type words into a little box and every hundred words, a kitten pops up.

  • It just gives you a new picture of a kitten. It's great. And very silly. Maybe it won't

  • work for you. And also, if you like countdown timers. They

  • get me to do things. I'm just, like, setting a counter for thirty minutes and I have thirty

  • minutes to write so "Let's go!" It's pretty helpful.

  • I have also used a creativity Twitter account. Where I've gone and said: "I wrote 20 words

  • today." Hopefully not that low. "I wrote 1000 words today." And just kind of reporting my

  • status. I don't have very many followers, I don't bother that many people. But it's

  • a way for me to publicly say: "Hey, I did something today."

  • That can be helpful to you as well. My last piece of weird advice about writing is: "keep

  • a journal." I found this really helpful because... 1. You're writing from you're own experience.

  • And then you're writing it like, well... it depends on how you write your journal whether

  • typed or handwritten. I handwrite it. And it allows you to better learn how to explain

  • and articulate yourself using words.

  • And then since it's a private journal, you don't have to worry about editing or all that

  • other stuff. It's just words on a page. It doesn't really matter. It's pretty simple

  • and it gets you to write everyday. And will enable you to keep up a writing habit.

  • So that was the writing section. And now we're going to go into a much different

  • animal: Editing. Yes, you do have to edit. So once you are

  • done with your story. Or if it's beyond a certain number of words, like, 5000 or so.

  • You want to learn how to start self-editing. Which can be it's own process.

  • Because English is this ridiculous language with lots of rules that don't make any sense.

  • And like: They're, their, and there. And... oh gosh.

  • It is something you'll have to learn if you want to write. And remember, I'm just going

  • over this section but we'll be going over other skills later. But I'm just trying to

  • let you know what you're getting yourself into if you do decide to write.

  • Editing resources. I think the main resource you want is Ezn. She (or he) did a 20k word

  • long writing guide on FimFiction. It's literally right under "FAQ->Writing Guide" that you

  • can go into. That tutorial will probably get you 80% of the way there.

  • Just follow the tutorial and look and see if you're making these writing mistakes. You're

  • going to have to look through your story and edit it. You're not adding to the story like

  • adding plot elements (though you could... Man, writing is so subjective). But this is

  • the part where you are going to make it more concise and better and make sure it follows

  • all the rules. And then, for the next 15% (because you got

  • 80% of the way there with the writing guide and knowing all the rules). The next 15% would

  • be getting help. And this is when you maybe call a friend, and use collaborative tools

  • like Google Docs. So what you can do in Google docs, what you

  • can do is go highlight a phrase or word and click: "Comment." And then you can have these

  • entire dialogue trees with your friend or editor. And be like: "Oh. Should I do it this

  • way?" or "Oh! I just realized the concept of having a leather pouch in Equestria doesn't

  • really work very well." Just stuff like that. So yeah... using collaborative tools. Google

  • docs is probably the standard for this for fanfic authors. If you want to pay money,

  • there's Microsoft Word which has it's own editing system. As well as Dropbox, which

  • is free and you can share Dropbox links. Okay, so that is 95% of the way there. You're

  • story has gotten there once... look at the writing guide, make sure [your writing] is

  • following these patterns as well as getting help from a friend.

  • The next part is basically knowing when to quit. I dunno, I had a weird experience where

  • I wrote my first novel. It was 50,000 words. It was amazing! And then I sat on it for a

  • year and a half. And I finally just published it, and it took me so long to get it out there.

  • But at some point know that you actually have to publish the words you write. You don't

  • have to, but it's recommended. That's where all the fun parts happen. You get comments

  • and people that like it and people that hate it. But it's fun.

  • Just understand that writing is a cycle of writing and editing and writing something

  • new and editing that, and writing this and editing that. So it's a process.

  • So that is the writing and editing portion. And next I'm going to go into a different

  • topic and to address that topic I'm going to explain my strategy for watching YouTube

  • videos. I know that sounds strange, but when you watch

  • a lot of video tutorials this helps. There's this really, really useful Chrome extension

  • called "Video Speed Controller." You can use this to increase the speed of YouTube. Because

  • right now on YouTube, you can only go to Double-speed, but with this you can go beyond doublespeed.

  • You can go to x4 speed and after that you don't really hear audio.

  • Using this you can skim over a video and see, like, "Do I wanna watch this?" "If I watch

  • this tutorial on how to do this dust effect in After Effects, will it actually teach me

  • what I want to know?" And you can skim watch it, see if it covers

  • what you wanted to know. And then: "Oh, it doesn't." OR: "Oh! It does!"

  • And then you can go back and watch at single speed. And actually follow along. And by "follow

  • along" I mean: "When the person on the screen does something, you mimic that person." This

  • is useful if you have multiple monitors and on one screen you have the tutorial, and on

  • the other screen your actually working at it and typing and moving the mouse.

  • So those are my ways to do things. Watch it quickly to get a brief overview and then watch

  • it again, but slower as you follow along. So next is: "Drawing."

  • Aw man, this is a lot of fun! It's so weird... but... I dunno.

  • These are some of my first sketches just Google image searching ponies because I wanted to

  • draw my OC which was a pegasus. And "let's see if I can draw that." Just trying to carefully

  • match what I saw on the screen. So this is pretty free if you're doing the

  • pencil and paper variety. I recommend that you try to learn how to do this if you really

  • wanna draw you're own OC. And work on that. You're initial tools will be paper and pencil.

  • Maybe later on, beyond the scope of this panel, consider buying a tablet and drawing software

  • like Photoshop, or Paint Tool Sai, or Manga Studio. For now, just focus on sketching and

  • that kind of stuff. The initial hurdles for drawing is that it

  • is genuinely difficult to get yourself to do things you aren't good at. Especially with

  • drawing, because with writing you may be able to fool yourself and you don't know your writing

  • is bad until much later on. But here, you can immediately see that "this

  • doesn't look quite right." Some of the proportions on that are way off. I'm not sure what's going

  • on. So the frustration barrier is really high. So if you can spend the first 20 hours just

  • deliberately practicing it, you can overcome that frustration barrier.

  • Another thing that helped me were these online tutorials. Where someone would describe how

  • to draw something. I think this is the most famous one: "How to draw a My Little Pony"

  • has lots of views. And kind of the key things to learn from there when you're first drawing

  • is using the guidelines and circles. You're gonna see on these videos a lot, someone's

  • gonna go up there and they're gonna show a picture of an actual pony and it looks great.

  • And then they're gonna start drawing circles and saying: "This is how it all comes together."

  • And you do not see how it all comes together. And it's really weird.

  • But they're all into these circles for some reason. They know what they're doing. You

  • don't know what they're doing but you'll kind of learn as you go along how to use these

  • circles to guide how you're going to draw. And they're using guidelines to figure out

  • that: "Oh! This is about where the eye should go." And it doesn't really make sense at first,

  • but practice along with them. And it'll become more clearer as you draw

  • what they're drawing. And you'll see that using guidelines helps them plan out the character's

  • pose. Another thing to keep in mind is: "Drawing

  • from reference." I know some painters, they have to go out,

  • get a photographer, take a picture of what they want to draw in the right pose (or whatever

  • pose they're doing). And they literally just draw that [photograph].

  • You also need to understand that it's perfectly okay to look at a picture of what you're drawing

  • as you're drawing it. Because most of our experience looking at other people drawing

  • is: "Oh, they're just doodling on the side and they're not using reference." But when

  • you draw, go ahead and Google what you wanna draw. And the pose you'd like. And try to

  • figure it out. One of the books that's helped me with this

  • is: "Steal like an Artist." This is really short. Maybe get it from the library because

  • you'll read it in, like, an hour. There's also a TED talk.

  • Yes. YouTube it at doublespeed. So yeah.

  • In your initial stages, you just wanna learn how to emulate the styles of others. Even

  • in your later stages, still keep learning. Here's an example of something I did. Because

  • I really liked this: "Spike the Butler." I love that art. It's really well done. So I

  • tried to emulate on the right how he would look like if he was flying and it doesn't

  • look... that... right. But I'm getting there. I'm practicing. It's fun.

  • So kind of go back and forth between watching tutorials in specific poses as well as Googling

  • "How would I draw this in this pose." The king this is to just deliberately practice

  • what you want to do. And tweak other peoples drawings. Steal their style, but then kind

  • of make it your own. There's a little bit of derivation involved.

  • Because no creative work is done in isolation. There's a really good YouTube series called:

  • "Everything's a Remix." It's true, because everyone is influenced by other people. Feel

  • free to let yourself be influenced. So that's my recommendation for breaking down

  • drawing. Find a good tutorial, watch it. Google other things you want to figure out. And kind

  • of practice drawing for a while until you... well... until you continue or keep going or

  • give up... or whatever makes you feel comfortable. Another aspect of drawing — I never did

  • get the hang of thisbut after you draw with paper and pencil, you can (with a pen)

  • go over it with better lines. And then erase the pencil drawings later and you have this

  • more pristine artwork. Though, I don't know too much about this but

  • this is something recommended for a Google session.

  • Or you can digitally ink using software. So I'm going to go into that a little bit now.

  • Which is vectoring. This is how you get the show's style. Because the show is using all

  • these mathematical methods of creating these characters. It's really funky the first time

  • you do it. So it's the process of using these mathematical

  • curved lines in order to create drawings. And so that's what the show uses.

  • I'm going to give you a brief demonstration of how that works now.

  • Let me give you a brief example of what a vectoring program would do.

  • So this is Adobe Illustrator. So what you see right here, this is a sketch I made. It's

  • a little derpy since I'm not the best artist, but I do enough art to have fun with it.

  • So what I can do is scroll in real close and see all these pixels. And so what a vector

  • program does is recreate it mathematically. So you can have pixel perfection no matter

  • how much you move in or out. Let me give you an example of that. So I'm

  • going to create a new layer here. And I can click a point right here.

  • And drag it off over here. And make another point. I'm going to curve it a little bit

  • right here. Add another point. Curve a little bit over here. And create another point like

  • this. So I have this leg. I can even adjust the thickness as needed

  • to make it look a little bit better. I can change the colors to something better.

  • So that's kind of how it works. So what you would do is end up creating all these vector

  • drawings for all parts of this guy. So I could vector over here, and kind of create his body.

  • And adjust the layers as needed. So this leg goes on top.

  • I could do this leg below. And that's kind of how this works. You kind of repeat that

  • pattern, many times. Oh, wow that doesn't look good. Oh, that's why.

  • Let me adjust my paths... It's helps if you label these.

  • So "Left Foreleg." And... chest.

  • Yeah, you get the idea. Just to make sure you got it look right.

  • And so for the final product, let me turn on these layers on.

  • As you can see, the neck was really long, so I adjusted it around to make it less long.

  • And you can do that in Illustrator, just pick the parts you would like. And move it around

  • as you see fit. Yeah, that looks really odd. But there's a lot of work involved in getting

  • things to look just right. Especially, when you're vectoring things.

  • And so you see all these little lines where things happen. And you can adjust these curves.

  • You can see that on the show, they would extrapolate this out to entire scenes, where each and

  • ever single frame is an adjusted version of this. And moving around all these various

  • pieces. And making it look nice. So that is Adobe Illustrator, a brief, brief

  • rundown. I recommend finding a good tutorial and just watching it and following along with

  • the artist. And how he or she does it. Just so you know, the cost is free if you're

  • using Inkscape. So I recommend that. Not free is the Adobe Illustrator and Flash. I'll talk

  • about the Adobe Creative Cloud later because that's it's own different animal.

  • Let's see, I recommend learning this, if you've learned enough about how to draw and want

  • your drawings to look more like the show. This is what the show is using. It's using

  • this vector program. Or if you hate drawing but tracing is fun. So you can trace it digitally

  • and end up with these pristine drawings even if you don't have high drawing skills.

  • For this, just follow good tutorials online. There's lots of tutorials out there for this.

  • There's one on Inkscape I'm linking to from a user named Dashohalite.

  • He did a very good series. I also watched this other one on Adobe Illustrator

  • that was fantastic. It's super long. If you're comfortable sitting down and spending two

  • hours watching a video on YouTube and just following along and trying to recreate it

  • step by step. Because that is what it takes to learn this.

  • Following along with someone's tutorial and working it from there.

  • And once you have that skill you can apply it to lot's of different things.

  • Other good resources: "The MLP vector club." These guys are really strict. Like, it's hard

  • to submit things to them. Like you have to submit show-quality vectors to even be in

  • their club. But they do have lots of resources available. And you can look at that. As well

  • as the tutorial Codex is pretty good. Another thing that I've dabbled in is Audio

  • recording. This is a lot of fun!

  • I've done fanfic readings before and some of my best stuff on YouTube is just fanfic

  • readings. It's a subset of two different skills: "Voice Acting."

  • Which is actually getting a mic and talking in front of it and emoting and being, well,

  • an actor. And that's interesting. There's all sorts

  • of tutorials for that. As well as stopping and emulating other voices

  • to try to talk like them. And also trying to work on your own voice.

  • And then there's a completely other different skill that's almost unrelated. But it's a

  • package deal if you want to do this all yourself. And record the audio, and edit the audio later.

  • Editing the audio involves using a Digital Audio Workstation (some kind of software)

  • to go in and move aspects of the audio and change them around. And change where you did

  • the flubbed lines. When I do audio readings, I pretty much do

  • each line about three times. Because I say it the first time and I'm like: "That didn't

  • sound right." And then I say it again. "Oh that sounds better." And then I say it again.

  • "Oh, that worked better that time." And I end up flubbing lines all the time.

  • And so what's needed for that is going back and doing Audio Editing on that.

  • Let's see, so stuff needed to get started... Software cost: Free (if using Audacity)

  • And then hardware cost... if you're doing fanfic readings. At first, for your first

  • 20 hours of just dabbling. Go ahead and just use your laptop microphone. But if you want

  • it to actually sound good, you will someday want to consider buying a microphone.

  • Sorry, some of these hobbies do cost money. That's kind of what happens with certain things.

  • I highly recommend the Blue Yeti microphone. This is the kind of microphone you see right

  • here. You can look at later if you'd like to experiment with it. It's a very good microphone.

  • I recommend doing fanfic readings if you have listened to a lot of audio. Like, if you like

  • listening to Podcasts and you like listening to audiobooks from Audible or anywhere else.

  • And you think it's super cool. Or, if you listen to all these YouTube fanfic

  • reading communities, like Scribbler or Neighrator pony. And you think they're interesting and

  • you want to listen to them. Those are options.

  • And if you like fanfic. Because if you're going to be recording fanfic readings, then

  • you'll be reading fanfic out loud. So it kind of comes with the job.

  • There's this seventeen part tutorial on YouTube. It's really good. This guy does a fantastic

  • job. But it is kind of long. Because going start to finish he explains voice acting principles,

  • as well as editing audio in Audacity and moving the waveforms around.

  • It's a little tough. A thing to keep in mindactually for pretty

  • much this whole pane—a good lifetime good skill to have is using keyboard shortcuts

  • like: Ctrl-C (Copy)

  • Ctrl-V (Paste) Ctrl-X (Cut)

  • Like being able to manipulate the audio, highlight it, then Ctrl-X, and then move this over here...

  • Like, that is very useful. It's good for text editing as well.

  • So... just learn your keyboard shortcuts. They're handy.

  • I did this entire tutorial on how to find and use sound effects for fanfic readings.

  • It is a mess to try to figure out how to add sound effects to fanfic readings sometimes.

  • Because it's a very time consuming process. And then you look at the show and they have,

  • like, ten people working on the sound effects department for 22 minutes. And you're trying

  • to record a three hour audiobook and you're like: "Uh... this may beyond the scope of

  • what I can do." Sound effects are really cool. I have several

  • resources in there. Mostly Freesound.org is the place to go to look for royalty free sound

  • effects. That's stuff I've used for sound effects.

  • So, now I'm going to go into Video Production, which is a giant: "It depends." Because there's

  • a lot of aspects to this. So let my break it down into different aspects.

  • Because it depends on the software you're going to be using. Because this requires a

  • good computer that can handle this kind of stuff. Because the higher quality of computer

  • you have, the more you can move these big files.

  • And there's always this arms race where as soon as computers get good enough to handle

  • the current video... well BAM, let's have 4k.

  • And as soon as we have computers that can handle 4k real well, we'll have 8k. It's always

  • this busy thing that requires a nice, good computer.

  • That is a very high barrier to entry. It is free if you're using Windows Movie Maker,

  • which is really good. Or Apple iMovie. Those are both really good programs to look up tutorials

  • on. They're simple, but they get the job done. And you can do a lot of cool things.

  • Dr. Wolf does his entire everything all in iMovie. He's done that for years. And he makes

  • tons of videos every week using that software and it works great for him. And can work well

  • for you. I recommend video production if you absolutely

  • have to get something on YouTube. You're going to need to know a little about video and how

  • to create things even to put Fanfic readings on YouTube. You can't just upload an .mp3

  • file to YouTube. It has to be a (.mp4) video file to have it on YouTube.

  • You'll wanna watch some tutorials to figure that out.

  • So if you wanna do a simple PMV, where it's just clips of the show set to music. That

  • would be something you use Windows Movie Maker/iMovie for.

  • And it's pretty simple. And Dr. Wolf, like I mentioned, uses iMovie.

  • But keep in mindjust talking about analysis videos hereif you really wanna get into

  • analysis, recognize that you have a lot— a lotof different subskills to work on.

  • One is writing. Because the script of what you are saying

  • is probably the most important part of your video. Because that is what you are talking

  • about and what people are interested in. Another aspect of it is drawing which you

  • can get away with if you commission someone or something else.

  • You end up with these YouTube channels where lots of people are collaborating on them because

  • it's just such a big massive thing to do, to even create a video.

  • But if you're going to do this all by yourself. You'd have to be good at writing, drawing

  • (or having something on the screen), audio editing which I mentioned earlierHave a

  • good microphone for that. And also video editing, which is just moving

  • pieces of video around. And then, okay before I go into this next

  • topic of more advance video, recognize that things get expensive. Like when you're dealing

  • with expensive software like the Adobe Creative Suite.

  • This can cost, like, 20$ a month if you're a student. To up to 50$ a month. Which is

  • super expensive. And I don't really recommend it unless you just have to AND you have a

  • lot of disposable income. But this is REALLY good software though. This

  • is professional software. It looks really good on a resumé.

  • Like I can say: "I know the whole Adobe Creative Suite because I've watched all these tutorials

  • and I've done all this stuff. Here's a portfolio of some of the stuff I've made (that's not

  • ponies since I don't really share pony stuff)" But it looks really good and you get a lot

  • of different software in there. You got Audition for Audio Editing. Premierewhich is whole

  • movies you see at a movie theatre can be edited with this software called Adobe Premiere Pro.

  • Adobe Illustrator. Even the show itself: Adobe Flash. That is

  • a product. It's good, but it's very expensive. Research

  • stuff. What I found really helpful was... for some

  • reason my local library had computers with Adobe Creative cloud on there. And so I got

  • to learn all this software, just at the Library. Libraries are awesome.

  • (You can also get a free trial for 30 days if you're trying to learn a new software or

  • decide if you want to buy it) The free trial is also really good.

  • Other things to keep in mind: "Lynda.com." This is Netflix for online tutorials. They

  • do classes. I've sat down and watched 12 hour Adobe Audition tutorials. And been like: "Woah."

  • It's good, but it's really expensive. It's 20$ a month for these video tutorials. But

  • it is really useful. (And it's cheaper than college)

  • And they have a lot of skills. If you wanna learn business analysis and a bunch of other

  • They just have a ton of stuff therelearning everything from Python programming to the

  • in depth processes of 3D animating in Maya. Check your local library. Because I know a

  • friend of mine, his library in his home town in New Mexico for some reason gave him access

  • to Lynda.com. So just try to figure out what resources you have available to you.

  • And that can really help. They also have a free trial. But I dunno,

  • I think YouTube tutorials can suffice at the beginning.

  • And so now that you know some of those more advanced stuff, you can get into these other

  • aspects like "Advanced PMVs." Like stuff from The Acleps. Where he's doing all these motion

  • graphics and moving things around. The word to Google there is: "Motion Graphics." Like

  • "Motion Graphics Artist." The subskills here are vectoring, Video Editing, Motion Graphics,

  • Graphic Design and Typography (if you're going to do cool text animations).

  • So that's how that's done. It's pretty expensive, and exhausting to learn it all. But it's really

  • fun! I took an After Effects course a while ago and it was really entertaining.

  • It also shows up in some Analysis videos. Like, I know "ILoveKimPossibleALot" she does

  • stuff in After Effects. At least from what I can tell. And yeah... this is a video I

  • made about describing how many words of My Little Pony fan fiction are on FimFiction.

  • It was pretty fun. And I'm running out of time really quickly.

  • So Animation... so this is... you have to get really good at drawing.

  • Spend hundreds of hours on drawing and, like, work on it for a while. And then kind of work

  • on Animation after that because those skills are very next to each other.

  • But for producing full on animations, keep in mind the various subskills of writing,

  • audio production, video production, it kind of is a team effort when dealing with animation.

  • As well as sound effects! Don't forget those! And keep in mind that Flash, for some reason

  • the name has changed to Adobe Animate CC... because "Adobe."

  • But yeah. And then there's also animation traditionalish. Where you have ToonBoom, which

  • is expensive. Butthis is so cool guysOpen Toons, the software that Futurama has

  • used and several of the Ghibli movies, they used this software to make these animations

  • and make these movies. And it is now open source and free for anyone

  • to use. So if you wanted to, go on YouTube and watch a whole bunch of Open Toons tutorials.

  • Because it's free! There's actual good software open and available which hasn't happened ever

  • before. So be excited. And so that's an option. At that point you're

  • going to want to buy a pen tablet. So you can figure that out. Those are just subsections.

  • In closing, go to Equestria Daily's resource for all these tutorials and a bunch of access

  • to different places. Like, they have a very good codex.

  • Remember, today I pointed you to a lot of different resources. It's up to you to kind

  • of: "Ok! That was an overview of things I could learn, now what do I want to learn?"

  • And actually go through and say: "I'm going to do 20 hours on this thing, and focus on

  • this." And select that skill. And then set aside that time and do it. And you can really

  • learn new things and it can be really enjoyable and you can have a lot of fun with it.

  • And that's the panel. Thank you. Thank you for coming.

Alright, this is Learning How to Learn. This is when you find the Brony fandom makes really

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