TRADITIONAL TOOLS FOR ANIMATION

Non-Photo Blue Pencils

Non-photo blue pencils are useful for doing initial sketches because
they're a shade of pale blue that doesn't to show up on copies when
you transfer your work from paper to clear cels.

Drawing Pencil Sets

A set of drawing pencils is essential. Usually, a regular wooden

pencil works best. Eberhard Faber and Sanford and Tombow make
high-quality collections of drawing pencils with various lead
hardnesses.

When you're retracing animation, 2B pencils are good choices. They

are soft enough to give for a varied line but hard enough to make
dark clean lines.
3-Hole Punched Paper

You need something to draw on with your pencil sets. Your best bet
is to buy copy paper with three holes punched down the side by the
ream or by the case. One second of animation takes anywhere from
30 to 100 sheets of paper, allowing for duplicates for retracing and
for mistakes, so you need a lot of paper. And 20 lb. copy paper is
heavy enough to make a good copy and light enough that you can
see through several layers of it when it is on a light table.

Three-hole-punched paper attaches to a small peg bar taped on your

light table to hold the paper in place. Buying the paper already
punched saves you the trouble of punching it manually or taping it on
the table, and makes it easier to align pages.
Light Table/Light Desk

A light table or light desk is a critically important addition to your

animation supplies list. The light table has two primary purposes. Use
it to retrace your sketched frames and to sketch new frames as in-
betweens. A light table illuminates your artwork from beneath to
make it transparent enough to see through for reference.

Some light tables are expensive; professional glass-top rotating

tables can cost thousands, or you can find a large desktop box for
just under $100. A small light tracer box with a 10-inch-by-12-inch
slanted drawing surface works for the budget-minded animator .

Peg Bar
A peg bar is a small plastic strip the length of an 8.5-inch-by-11-inch
piece of paper with three small pegs on it spaced at the same
intervals as the holes in the paper. You can tape or glue the peg bar
to the top of the light table and lay the copy paper over it to hold it
securely in place. When you're working on character animation,
sometimes it's hard to get your paper to line up again after you
remove it from the light table, so having a peg bar returns everything
to its proper place. Check your local arts and crafts store to find one.

ArtGum Eraser

You're going to make mistakes while drawing animation, and for

those times, you need an eraser. ArtGum erasers are far superior to
standard erasers because they rub out lead cleanly without eroding
the paper surface or leaving behind smudges from either past lead
rub-offs or the eraser itself.
Cels/Transparencies

After your drawings are complete, you transfer your artwork from

plain paper onto cells, so they can be painted and then placed
against a separately drawn background. It's difficult to find anything
packaged as "cels." What you need are copy-safe transparency films.

This type of transparency film used on overhead projectors, but you

have to make sure to buy the kind that is heat safe and copy safe.
The easiest way to transfer from paper to transparency is using a
copier, but you have to use the right kind of transparency, or it'll melt
in the copier and ruin it.

Paints
When the cels are done, you need paints. Painting on slick cels is
difficult and requires a thick paint. Most people use acrylics. The trick
is to paint on the backside of the transparency, the opposite side
from the side that the copier toner is on. That way, there's no chance
that the wet paint will smudge the copied lines.

Brushes

You need a set of paintbrushes that range from midsize to a fine

hairline. When you work on letter-size transparencies, you won't have
much need for a large brush to fill in enormous areas, but you do
need fine brushes for getting smaller details just right.

Colored Pencils, Watercolors, Markers, and Pastels

Colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, and markers are used on
backgrounds, which are drawn on the same size paper as the
animation. Static backgrounds for a single motion sequence only
have to be drawn once.

Although you can use watercolors and pastels, most traditional

animators use colored Prismacolor markers with a clear blender to
run the shades together to deliver a watercolor look with control.
Occasionally, Prismacolor colored pencils do the job for
backgrounds.