The Mother of all Tutorials

It's a bold claim, but hear me out. I wanted to share a philosophy that I've adopted over the years being a motion graphics designer, one that has helped me consistently improve my skills with every job that comes through the door.

Follow this simple 1 step guide and I promise whether you're an animator, modeller, VFX artist, or designer, you'll see immediate improvement on your skill set.

Step 1:

Watch more tutorials.

Now this seems obvious, but the idea behind this philosophy is to make a conscious effort to watch and read tutorials that aren't directly related to what you want to learn. Essentially, don't just watch a tutorial because you want to learn something specific, or because it covers a subject you're interested in, watch it for the complete opposite reason. My 'go to' sites for motion graphics / VFX / 3D tutorials are VideoCopilot and GreyScaleGorilla, but more often than not, I find a quick Google or YouTube search has the tutorial I'm looking for.

With every tutorial you watch, there'll be at least one hidden gem that you'll find useful for another project. So even if a tutorial on 'creating realistic head explosions' isn't your thing, watch it anyway, because I guarantee there'll be a technique or tool in there you didn't know about, that'll prove very useful later on.

Keep doing this with as many vaguely relevant tutorials as you can get through, and all these golden nuggets of knowledge you acquire will all add up, ultimately making you much better at whatever it is that you do.

Garth