Tutorial for 2D Animation
Animation is the art of placing slightly different pictures in a sequence then playing them at a high speed to create the illusion of movement. It is how all cartoons are made. Two dimensional animation is simply animation that you can only see one side of at a time. As opposed to 3D animation, 2D seems more flat, and it is usually cheaper and easier to produce 2D. Animation in itself is an art that can take years to perfect because of the drawing skills involved, but it isn't impossible to learn animate 2D cartoons. It just takes time and practice.
Instructions
1. Use Adobe Flash which is an expensive, yet popular, program for 2D animation, offering a lot of advanced tools for your 2D animation. One of these advanced tools is a bone rigging system, which allows you to place virtual "bones" on your animated characters. You can then move these bones to simulate the movement of your characters in your animation.
2. Download and try Pencil. Pencil is an open source program that allows users to create 2D animations. Since it is free software, it won't have as many features like Flash has, but it still offers effective tools to help you create 2D animations. One thing it has that Flash doesn't is different types of layers. Depending on what you are using a layer for, there are different kinds to use. Layers are like the name implies: different layers that you can draw on. Pencil classifies its layers for both vector and bitmap images. Vector images are those that you draw while bitmap images are more like photos that have already been taken. Having separate layers for each allows for better organization within your 2D animation.
3. Give Toon Boom a whirl. Toon Boom is not freeware, but it isn't as expensive as Adobe Flash. Made by a Canadian company, it has won plenty of awards for its software capabilities. The camera feature allows you to place a virtual "camera" inside your animation so you can look at it from different angles depending on where you place the camera. It's almost like looking at your 2D animation in 3D to help determine any flaws that you think your animation might have.
