HOW 2D ANIMATION IS DONE.

As the 2D animation art-form is rapidly fading from our technological world - at least in the USA, once the world's leader - I thought it would be good to record how traditional 2D animation is done. This comprehensive archive demo covers just about everything you will ever need to know - to create traditional, hand-drawn animation for yourself, on paper and with pencils - fully through to the "pencil test" video stage.

[@JoubignaxEvolved]

17:09 + 1 like, +1 subscriber Thanks for your amazing work !

[@paul329869]

0:55 Actually, it’s still being done by most all indie artists, cartoonists, and animators, see?

[@brianmorrison3074]

Very thorough explanation. Thanks for this, Tony. ❤

[@andrewdodd1918]

I learnt animation through multimedia and indirectly discovered many things, a long drawn out process. I wanted to put the pages together and draw on paper, so I got a plastic ruler and glued wooden doweling to it. I then scanned them one by one on to the computer and numbered them in sequence into AfterEffects. I now have a lightbox from Chromacolour, with a peg bar that I can punch holes with an everyday hole puncher rather than the one you have here. My printer is A3 and has ADF (automatic document feeder). I went from 12 hours of prep to 5 minutes. Talk about going the long way around to find the same set up you have here. Major facepalm. :) Wonderful video once again Tony and glad you still have the facebook page.

[@TonyWhiteArchive]

Thanks Andrew. Glad you liked the video - and interesting to hear of your setup. I just felt someone had to explain the traditional process, as my generation who did it as a norm are rapidly dying out these days. I know 2D traditional is not the norm anymore - at least in the West - so I'm probably going to teach all my classes in Rough Animator in future. (With those wanting to work traditional as an OK option as well.) But there had to be a video archive like this knowledge, for the animation generations in the future. By the way, I did forget to mention in the video that you can also use blank sheets of letter-sized office paper in the USA - i.e. with the standard round office filing holes punched in it. Then, you can get a similar "3 roundhole" peg bar from Lightfoot for just a few dollars. That approach makes it so much affordable for those on a tight budget, but who love to draw their animation. The round pegged paper can be bought in any office supplier of course. Thanks for your comments! :)

[@andrewdodd1918]

@@TonyWhiteArchive All these processes are still valid for any generation. I mention traditional methods like this to many of the younger generation and show them how to apply to their favourite software. At the moment I am using clip studio paint but the way you trace over your page in this video was invaluable the first time I saw it for work on my rough pencils, which scan and clean up later. So the pencil and paper method is still a very valid technique. This also goes for using a blue pencil for my roughs, which in the context of comics creation makes it easier to remove after inking for the final print ready artwork.

[@counterstrike89]

@@TonyWhiteArchive There's still talented animators in Japan that have worked on paper for decades, but the drawings like you're saying are scanned in, but I'm not sure how they're scanning it in to the computer, I think their snapping a pic of it, and its captured in like a second, much faster than using a scanner, there's book scanners too that snap a pic fast.

[@TonyWhiteArchive]

Agreed. As I have said before, I use a regular scanner, with peg bar attached, to import into my computer. If other capture/scan methods are used however - such as with a camera - its imperative that the capture device/camera is locked down and steady for each shot. Otherwise, the animation will jiggle around on the screen, which will make it very distracting. :) @@counterstrike89

[@counterstrike89]

@@TonyWhiteArchive I'm trying to find out what professional studios used that still did handdrawn, not sure, but I think it was a camera, which was fed directly into the computer for coloring.