Animation mini-tutorial pt. 1

Disclaimer: I’ve had no formal education on animation. I’ve learned everything I know from careful observation & trial and error

Here’s Easytoon. It’s free and you can make simple black-and-white gif animations with it. It is actually piss easy to use so I’ll just assume you can figure out most of it by yourself :-D (if you can’t, send me a note and I’ll explain)

I think a good first step into really “getting” animation is to acknowledge that animation is not movement, but an illusion of movement. Here’s Amber’s spinning kick:

And two consequent frames from it:

Her left foot moves like four meters in a single frame. Note how she never even appears in the marked spot. She doesn’t need to, because she’s faster than your eyes, and your brain will just fill the gaps and believe this bullshit! That’s how you animate fast movement; the less frames you draw, the more speed you’ve got.

(Speedlines can be used to guide the eye if the frames don’t seem connected enough otherwise.)

When Amber lands, however…

… she takes her time getting back up again. This needs a lot more frames than the kick:

Learn to tell the difference between fast and slow movement! Knowing how to handle different speeds is the key to making animation with a natural looking rhythm.