Akira Toriyama-dragon ball

Hayao Miyazaki

Walt disney

From the classic animated films of our childhood to the cutting edge
CGI(computer generated imagery) we see in blockbusters today, animation
has been turning dreams into reality since the 1600s. Since the dawn of
modern animation software like Flash and Creatoon, animation has only
become more prevalent in our society, evolving from basic flipbooks and
cartoons to web applications and marketing tools. Animations can teach,
entertain and display data in a way that is intuitive to the viewer, and has
revolutionized, or even inspired entire industries, such as Data Visualization.

The animation industry relies on a skilled and highly specialized workforce to

undertake some of the massive 2D animation projects we see today. Through
recent advances in animation software and online classes like Michael
Bernsteins Learn to be an Animator class, right here on Udemy, it has
become many times easier for a beginner to learn the fundamentals of 2D
animation right from your own PC.

What is 2D Animation?

Before you launch headfirst into the world of animation, you should get to
know exactly what 2D animation is. As children watching our favorite
Saturday morning cartoons, it was clear that animation is more than just
pictures played in a sequence, but how much more exactly?

Animation is, at a very basic level, nothing more than a series of pictures,
called frames, quickly played along a timeline or reel. So why does animation
work? Why dont we just s ee a bunch of still pictures? The phenomenon that
enables humans to perceive animation is called Persistence of Vision, a
theory that supposes that an afterimage exists on the retina for one twenty-
fifth of a second before escaping the present consciousness, allowing for
frames to bleed into one another and create the perception of motion.

2D animation is a type of animation created in a two dimensional context

instead of a three dimensional context. Many modern animation studios
(such as DreamWorks and Pixar) use 3D animation tools to create the
characters and environments for their movies, sculpting them out of
thousands of tiny digital polygons and animating them with computer code
like puppets on strings. 2D animation doesnt employ any fancy digital
models or virtual spaces, opting for a more straightforward approach: simply
drawing the frames of each scene and letting our brain fill in the rest.

Of course, modern 2D animators dont just use paper and pencils to create
the animated features we see on TV and in the movies. 2D animation has
gone fully digital, and uses cutting edge technology to create the breathtaking
detail and artistic fidelity weve come to expect from modern films. Some of
the digital tools developed for 2D animators are highly specialized to perform
one function, while others offer almost everything you need for creating a
full-length animation right from your home PC.

Check out some of the animation tools you can learn to use on
Udemy.

Tools of the Trade

Every animator relies on a specialized set of tools to do their job. Fifty or

sixty years ago, these tools would have been nothing more than paper, a pen
and a pencil, but today there are entire applications and software suites
dedicated to animation.

While modern animation software might be less straightforward than the

classic approach, they give the animator a significantly more robust set of
tools to work with, allowing animators to explore more complex and detailed
styles without an entire team of artists backing them up. Where entire teams
of artists used to toil for hours to bring a single scene to life on the screen, a
lone animator can now simply turn to the many 2D animation tools at his
disposal. Here is a list of few of the best animation apps for the 2D animation
beginner, most of which can be learned on Udemy.

Synfig

Synfig is a free, open source program for 2D animators that offers a powerful
suite of tools that can be used to make anything from quick motion graphics
to cinema quality animation. Available for Windows, Linux and OSX, Synfig
is an extremely low overhead way to start producing awesome 2D
animations. Since its open source, Synfig is constantly updated with new
features that are often more refined than the ones offered in its costly
alternatives, not to mention the extensive and easy to use documentation in
the form of the Synfig wiki.

You can learn the basics of Synfig right here on Udemy. Check out Creating
Cutout Animation in Synfig Studio by Konstantin Dmitriev, Nikolai
Mamashev and Julia Velkova ber to learn everything you need to know
about getting started with Synfig.

Toon Boom Studio

Toon Boom Studio is an all in one animation application for beginners that is
actually designed to teach you the fundamentals of 2D animation as you
work. Its full of powerful features that make the hardest parts of animation
easy enough for an absolute novice to understand and execute. Special
effects, lip syncing tools, and tween generation are all pre-packaged in Toon
Boom Studio, which is a fair bit of utility for the price, not to mention the
advanced features like a Chroma key suite and stop motion tools. Start
animating your first cartoon in minutes withInfinite Skills Toon Boom
Studio Tutorials on Udemy.

Flash

Adobe Flash is the most widely used piece of software for animations and
motion graphics on the web and has been around for over 15 years. In terms
of short 2D animations, games and interactive multimedia, Adobe Flash is
the industry standard. Its pervasive presence in the animation world coupled
with Adobes lust for perfection in their creative products has made Flash the
go-to tool for animators of any skill level. Though it may be a little pricey,
Adobe Flash is well worth the investment for any amateur animator looking
to step up the quality of their work. Get a closer look at Adobe Flash CS6
with this class by Peachpit Press, where youll learn everything from
how to operate the user interface to advanced animation techniques.

Storyboard

Storyboarding is an important step in the animation process that simply

cant be overlooked. On larger productions like movies, storyboard artists
will layout the storyboard for animators, but for smaller 2D animation
projects, software like Storyboard allows smaller teams to translate their
ideas into visual stories quickly and easily. Created by Toon Boom, one of the
most respected names in 2D animation, Storyboard is a must have tool for
committing your stories to visuals.

Creatoon

Primarily used by animators looking to employ the cut out style of

animation, Creatoon is a free and powerful piece of animation software that
is praised for its ease of use. Learning Creatoon is intuitive and is extremely
forgiving for such an in depth application. Creatoon wont cost you a dime,
but its only available on for Windows, and with development permanently
discontinued, it doesnt look like it will be getting support for Mac or Linux
any time soon.

Pencil

Pencil is a more barebones studio application designed to resemble the

traditional flipbook style animation. While its not a great program to create
feature length animations, it is the perfect toolbox to use to practice the
fundamentals of 2d animation. Its simple user interface offers only the tools
a beginning animator needs to start creating basic animations on their own,
and the Pencil Wiki is full of simple tutorials to help new animators find their
footing and solidify their style.

Animate

Another great app by Toon Boom, Animate is a digital tool for fans of classic
frame-by-frame animation. While frame-by-frame animation is possible in
other 2D animation apps, the comprehensive tools offered in Animate make
it a whole lot more intuitive for beginners.

Animate encourages artists to draw in an environment that feels natural with

most digital drawing tablets, and simulates an entire animation studio within
animate

a small, easy to use application. This animation suite provides advanced

features like interactive camera tools that drastically cut down on the time
and effort needed to achieve that perfect studio quality aesthetic. Toon Boom
Animate is one of the most widely used and acclaimed programs for high end
2d animation.

The 12 Laws of Animation

Much like the laws of physics in the real world, the 12 Laws or 12 basic
principles of animation are a set of rules to adhere by for consistent and
beautiful animation. First outlined by Ollie Johnston, the directing animator
of Pinocchio, and Frank Thomas of Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves fame, animation studios the world over look back to these tenants
from the golden age of cartoons. In their bookDisney Animation: The
Illusion of Life these animation greats lay out the 12 basic principles that
ensured the Disney movies from the 1930s onward would be remembered as
classics for years to come.

Though the 12 basic principles were originally intended for the hand-drawn
animation style of the time, they still apply to the computer animation
standards of today, and are important for any animator to learn, in and out.
Mastery of the 12 basic principles of animation is the first step to getting
hired at big name animation studios, and animations that exhibit tight
control over these elements are widely regarded as some of the best pieces of
animation ever created.
1. Squash and Stretch

The first and most important of the 12 laws is used to give drawn objects a
feeling of flexibility and weight. Squashing and stretching are the two most
basic animated reactions a drawn object can exhibit, and they apply to
everything from a simple bouncing ball to the intricate and photorealistic
animations of the human body. Squash and Stretch are often manipulated to
create a cartoonish comedic effect but are utilized in all types of
animation. In more realistic animations, squash and stretch are linked,
meaning that if an object is stretched vertically, its squashed horizontally.

2. Anticipation

In 2D animation, the anticipation of a movement is just as important as the

movement itself. The moment of anticipation informs the audience that an
object or character is about to take action and directs their attention
appropriately. Much like squash and stretch apply to object, anticipation
applies to movements, giving them a sense of authenticity. A boy kicking a
ball must first wind up his kick, creating a moment of anticipation for the
kick and implying a cause for the next action. Some gags omit anticipation
altogether for an anticlimactic comedic effect, but there are few other reasons
not to express anticipation.

3. Staging

Just like in theater, staging is the layout of objects and characters in a scene
that draw the audiences attention to the subject of the scene. A proper use of
staging will make the audience absolutely certain what is going on in a given
scene. Wide, medium and close up shots, camera angles, colors, and the
amount of movement should all be taken into consideration when
contemplating the staging of a scene. Too much motion makes a scene look
cluttered, but a wider camera shot can alleviate that issue without much
hassle.

Hayao Miyazaki, one of the most prolific and influential animators of our
time, is said to be a master of staging, his films often incorporating vast and
expansive settings that give his movies the grand sense of adventure that
makes them so notorious.

4. Straight Ahead and Pose-to-Pose

Straight Ahead and Pose-to-Pose are two different approaches to animation

that yield two different results. Straight Ahead or frame-by-frame
animation is a continuous process in which the animator draws each scene a
single frame at a time. Straight Ahead animation gets its name from the fact
that the animation is moving straight ahead from the first drawing in the
scene. Employed mostly by cartoonists, the Straight Ahead style yields a wild
and engaging animation with a fresh and spontaneous feel, but is less
precise, which often leads to the warping of a character volume or
proportions.

Pose to pose animation is a far more controlled method of animation in

which the animator plans out the key poses in the scene. Typically referred to
as keyframes these poses are drawn by the animator and then, with the
help of an assistant or animation software, fills in the frames between each
keyframe.

The resulting animation is usually much more consistent than Straight

Ahead animation and proportions tend to stay uniform instead of jumping
around.
Many animators are known to combine both styles of animation in certain
scenes, using Pose-to-Pose style techniques to give the movements texture,
while still incorporating all the fun spontaneity of Straight Ahead animation.

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action

The next principle pertains to drawn objects that are in motion. Follow
through is the time it takes for the extraneous parts of a character (such as
arms, hair, coat, tail, etc.) to stop after the main mass of the character. As in
real life, in animation nothing should stop all at once, so when the leading
mass of an object comes to a halt, any connected or trailing parts of it should
offer a sufficient wind down time.

Overlapping action comes in to play when the main mass of an object in

motion changes directions while the extraneous parts of the object take time
to adjust to the new direction. A character with long hair should have his hair
billow when he turns around, instead of just turning with the head entirely.
Overlapping action is used heavily in Disneys television cartoons to set up
comedic gags and express exaggerated motion.

6. Slow-Out and Slow-In

The smoothness of an animation is governed mostly by how many frames the

animation contains. More frames means smoother, slower animation, fewer
frames will speed up the animation. Slow-Ins and Slow-Outs make use of this
relationship by adding more frames at the beginning or end of an action
respectively.

An object that is beginning motion will have a Slow-In to show the finer
movements of the object as it accelerates, and a Slow-Out to wind the action
down smoothly. Omitting a Slow-In or Slow-Out will typically make the
scene feel more snappy and less flowing, but can be used to great effect in
some comedic gags.

7. Arcs

Natural movement tends to follow the basic trajectory of an arc, as such, it is

important for animators to consider implied arcs for each movement. The
faster an object is moving, the more subtle its arc, making the proper use of
arcs absolutely imperative for expressing speed. Thrown objects, limbs, and
even free moving characters follow what is called a natural arc for the
scene, which is determined by the staging and perspective of the scene. If an
object breaks its natural arc the movement will seem out of place or erratic,
which can be used to set up a comedic element.

8. Secondary Action

The addition of secondary action can make a scene more interesting to the
viewer and further help enforce the illusion of reality. Instead of simply
walking, a character can bend its knees, swing its arms or nod its head.
Typically used to convey strong emotions, secondary action is an integral
part of creating engaging animations that are more than just one moving
part.

9. Timing

Timing, or the number of frames in a given scene or action, dictates the

overall speed of the animation. Having the right amount of frames in an
action is integral to creating a scene that looks like everything is happening
at the same time. The timing of on screen movements also affects how real
the movements seem, whether or not they obey the laws of physics, and how
detailed each movement actually is.

10. Exaggeration

Arguably the most common way of making a scene interesting is

exaggerating one aspect of it over another. Cartoons use exaggeration as a
way of suspending the reality of the animation. Whether or not exaggeration
should be used as well as how heavily it is used depends on the style the
animator is looking to achieve. Judicious use of exaggeration can help
animators achieve any number of different themes and styles, from dramatic
tension to just plain funny gags.

11. Solid Drawing

Solid drawing is a principle that applies to objects drawn in three a three

dimensional space. Animation that takes place on a 2D plane is often
insufficient to realize the full motion of an action. An animator that is also
skilled in drafting will be able to use solid drawing techniques to give their
drawn objects three dimensional aspects like weight, balance, anatomy,
lighting and more.

12. Appeal

Appeal is to an animated character as charisma is to a real life actor.

Audiences will have a hard time sympathizing with an unappealing character.
There are a few tricks to designing appealing characters, for example the
Chibi style of drawing capitalizes on big heads with expressive faces and cute
small bodies.
The most appealing characters tend to become favorites of the audience and
make them care about what happens to the character, however, just because
a character is an antagonist or seen as evil doesnt necessarily mean that
the character is unappealing. Animators strive to make the leading characters
in any project as appealing as possible to captivate the audience.

The 2D Animation Process

Every animation studio has a slightly different animation process, but the
steps for going from a simple idea to a fully animated film are pretty much
the same anywhere you go. The animation process differs slightly depending
on the scale of the project, the type of animation used and the size of the
team creating it. Most animators have adopted Walt Disneys animation
process as the standard approach to creating an animated film. It is by no
means the only way to do it, but as a new animator it will be useful to learn
the steps that are still in use by major animation studios today.

Step 1: Storyboards

The first step for the inspired animator is creating a storyboard. Be it an

adaptation of a script or an original idea, drawing out a storyboard is an
important first step to creating your final product. Originally developed by
Walt Disney in the 1930s, storyboards as graphic organizers to pre-visualize
their work and pitch their idea to movie directors and other animators who
want to work on the project, think of them sort of like a visual script or stage
directions for animated characters.

Creating an animated feature is an expensive and time consuming process

and can take anywhere from a few weeks to entire years to create, and a
storyboard is the best way of editing the story before its been animated. An
animated film will of course be edited throughout the creation process, but
scraping an entire animated sequence is costly in terms of both time and
money, so editing at the storyboard stage is doubly important for studios on
a budget.

Step 2: Audio Production

After the story has been laid out with a storyboard and pitched to a team of
animators, directors, and producers, its time to start recording the dialog. At
this point, if they havent already, the writers and director will adapt their
storyboard into a written script, complete with an outline of what each
character is doing during each scene. This process is meant to further expand
on the ideas presented in step 1, as storyboards are generally only rough,
fragmented outlines of what the final product will look like.

After the script has been finalized, it is provided to the voice talent for the
film, who works closely with the director to nail down each characters
individual personality. Though it may not be apparent to the audience, voice
actors play a huge role in fleshing out their characters on-screen personality.
Often times, scripts are used mostly as loose guidelines for the actors, who ad
lib the character to life, giving them an even more appealing personality than
originally intended and even affecting the artistic style or final cut of the film.

Robin Williams performance as Genie in the Disney classic Aladdin is a

perfect example of how a voice actor can influence the personality of a
character and the direction of the film as a whole. The directors
of Aladdin allowed Williams to ad-lib most of his lines, only sticking to the
script when it was absolutely necessary. They even let him add his own jokes
and gags to the script. Animators used the personality that Williams created
to come up with the final look for Genie, including how he moves and how he
interacts with the other characters. The result was one of the most
memorable and lovable characters in the history of animated film.

Step 3: Visual Development

The process of visual development has evolved considerably since the 1930s.
Originally, artists and animators would draw thousands of sketches of
characters, scenes and objects to perfect the aesthetic of the film. These
sketches would only be slightly more detailed than the original storyboard
and serve as sort of a halfway point between the extremely rough storyboard
and the actual animation of the film.

During this phase artists strive to perfect the appeal of each character, taking
into account any personality quirks or changes incorporated by the voice
actor. Some characters receive massive makeovers over countless iterations,
while others are sketched, inked and ready to be animated.

Today, visual development requires much less manual labor, but is no less an
important step in the creation of an animated film. Artists use specialized
tools to digitally draw and refine the characters and scenes, saving them
hundreds of hours of sketching, inking and painting. After the designs of
each character and scene have been finalized, the production process can
begin.

Step 4: Production

During the golden age of animation, the production process was an

extremely labor affair. Every shot in an animated film will have anywhere
between ten to twenty drawings, which all must be inked and painted by
artists before the filming process could begin. The top animators at each
studio would only have time to draw the most important frames in the
animation, called keyframes. The frames between the keyframes, known as
tweens, would be filled in by junior animators, then all the frames are put
together and photographed to create an animation sequence. This process
would be repeated for every shot in the film, often making for hundreds of
thousands of final drawings, each one requiring a sketch, coloring, inking
and photography.

The modern production process is a whole lot easier and requires much less
manpower than the classic method. Thanks to advances in 2D animation
technology artists can draw, ink, paint and animate a scene all by themselves
without ever having to leave their desk.

Massive digital drawing tablets enable animators to draw their keyframes

digitally and create the tweens automatically using 2D animation software.
Characters and backgrounds are drawn separately using this method, then
transposed on each other and saved as a video file, saving the studio both
time and money over traditional methods and allowing for more flexibility
during the last step of the animation process.

Step 5: Post Production

The characters have been colored, animated, and set on their backgrounds.
Each scene has been painstakingly composed and optimized. Every key is
colored, every tween in place, and the animation is essentially complete! All
that remains is to edit and polish the final product with special effects, sound
effects and visuals to perfect the animators artistic vision. Post-production is
usually when the entire team sits down to review their work and make
whatever tweaks are necessary to call the film complete.
So there you have it, everything a fledgling animator needs to begin their
foray into the world of 2D animation. Will you become the next animation
legend like Walt Disney and Hayao Miyazaki? Or will you bring something
new to the table and revolutionize animation once again? Check out Academy
Award winning animator Tony Whites 2D Animation Masterclass to
further hone your animation skills and learn how to create the next classic
animated film!