Sunday, August 15, 2010

Learning 2D Animation the Easy Way!

Tej Kohli explains how to learn 2D animation.
Things You'll Need:
* Tracing paper
* Digital camera or scanner
* Pencil
* Eraser
* Computer

2D animation is a time-consuming and painstaking process. A classic form of animation, 2D animation is also capable of producing some truly mind blowing outcomes. Learning and developing your won 2D animation is a simple concept to begin, yet it can take years to excel in this art completely. Each frame must be drawn in hand,and while this may look like too much work, it will add a truly unique flavor to your animation work. Upon learning the basics of the 2D animation, you can start drafting more complex animations.

2D animation reflects the movement of the object or the character. So, to begin with, draw a character in a starting pose, which will serve as as base for your next frames. A simple example of 2D animation would be to create a character who is waving. Draw the head, body, arms and legs of the character. Position the waving arm above the head with the palm open. Be sure to keep a slight bend in the elbow to make the pose look natural.

Now put a tracing paper above the drawing and copy the picture except the waving arm and the eyebrows. Then redraw the waving arm so that it is extending out diagonally. Make sure the elbow remains completely straight. Redraw the eyebrows tilting inwards slightly towards each other. This will add some slight movement in the drawing, so it doesn't appear that the arm's the only section being animated.

Next, trace over the picture again except the waving arm and the eyebrows. This time, redraw the waving arm so that it's now pointing straight up. Make sure to take a slight bend in the elbow, but not as much as you gave in Step 1. Draw the eyebrows tilting almost diagonally down. This will reflect a slight effort in the character's face from waving.

Redo steps 1 to 3 until you think that the character has waved for long enough. Take individual digital photos of all your drawings, and import the pictures in your computer. Through a computer program like iMovie or Movie Magic, you may string a series of pictures together in sequence to create an animation effect.
Tej Kohli Reviews Tej Kohli Law Career Blog Tej Kohli Stumble Upon

No comments: