Draw, Animate, Repeat! - Traditional Animation Techniques Multi-Day Workshop

This workshop is for strong beginners and intermediate-level learners, and requires some previous animation experience.  Students develop cartoon characters, storyboards, and contribute animated sequences from a "shot-list" created by the group.  

Students learn the fundamentals of traditional cartoon animation by hand-animating their own repeating sequences.  The teacher demonstrates techniques such as; keyframing, squash-and-stretch, anticipation, and full-motion "cycles". 


Weekly Class Activities


1. Week One:  

- Design your cartoon character for animation

Relying on simple cartooning techniques demonstrated by the teacher, each student will design a cartoon character which can be easily animated.


2. Week Two:  

- Storyboard your scene for animation 

Students learn to plan their specific animation using storyboarding techniques to communicate establishing shots, medium shots, and close-ups 


3. Week Three:  

-Traditional light-table animation techniques

With their improvised light table, students draw pencil sketches and use page-flipping techniques to pre-visualize their character's movements.  Combining new skills, each student begins drawing an animated sequence featuring a repeating "motion-cycle".


4. Week Four:  

-Finalize an animated "cycle"

Each student inks, colors, and completes their page-flip animation of between 3 to 9 hand drawn and properly oriented pages.to present to the class for admiration!


5. Optional post-workshop homework:

-Photograph and edit a final digital cartoon animation

- Using a smartphone camera, each student can photograph and edit a final animated sequence using the free “Flip-a-Clip” app.