Hey!

I'm looking for a good start in 2D animation. I read some books about that topic, but I don't have a lightbox and I think that way is a bit expensive (lots of paper and pencils) and I don't have tablet to do it on computer in classic approach.

So I thought about 2D Computer animation. But where's a good point to start?

I'm a bit experienced in Blender, will it be a good program to doing so?

Maybe it's not the best program to do so - I'd be happy if you could show me another way but in free software.

I've also thouht about gimp

I'd like to make some not complicated animation sprites for simple game.

Hi. It's not an easy field, I'll tell you that. It'll take a lot of practicing before you can make something of production quality.

With static pixel art you have the challenge of drawing something good; with animation you have the challenge of drawing it good, several times.

1) Pick the right pixeling\animation tool. You need to get the software interface and hotkeys customization done with and out of the way. Once you do that, the software should allow you to work without distractions.

Nobody can choose a program for you, you have to 'feel' which is best for you.

http://opengameart.org/content/chapter-1-the-right-tools

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/5027-software-for-making-pixel-art/

2) An artist is as good as the reference he uses. Study animated sprites from professional games. Record yourself with a camera performing the moves you want to give your sprite, and go frame-by-frame analyzing motion (seeing how you move, how fast things change from frame to frame, how they slow down etc.). You can use Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, as it has frame-step controls.

http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/zeldalinkpast/

http://mpc-hc.org/

3) Study animation theory and how it applies to pixel art:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation

http://pixel.oceansdream.net/?cat=3

http://www.dinofarmgames.com/category/art-barn/

http://www.manningkrull.com/pixel-art/walking.php

http://2dwillneverdie.com/tutorial/give-your-sprites-depth-with-sub-pixel-animation/

http://gasara.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Tutorial-Animation-for-Beginners-357687075

Blender is fine for doing a particular style of 2D animation: particularly, rendering a 3D object down to individual frames of animation. It is not good for pixel art or vector art. I use Blender quite extensively, but I'm rubbish at pixel and vector art so it's easier that way.

Great resources! Thanks!

So animators uses big number of reference material? From martial arts for example?

Is there any tips on crating 2d hand drawn and not-hand drawn animation in photoshop elements?

Or just to make previous frame a bit transparent and draw then like if i had lightbox?

Some software have genuine support for that feature, which I think is most commonly known as "Onion Skin".

Toon Boom, Graphics Gale and I think Anime Studio are example programs that have this feature.

I also tried Photoshop Elements - it came bundled with my Wacom tablet - but after a while I realized how limited it was. Compared to the GIMP it lacks a lot of features.

For actual artistic painting I ended up using MyPaint, which is an open-source program that's really tailored for tablet artists. Apart from a few bugs, it is very very good. If you want to paint backgrounds, concept art etc. you should definitely give it a try.

Let's get back to GIMP. It has rudimentary animation support out-of-the-box, and you can get better support with GAP which I believe is a plugin for it.

http://registry.gimp.org/node/18398

http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/how-to-configure-onion-skin-gap.htm

my paint looks pretty cool :) I'm using 1.0 version but it sometimes blocks up brush strokes and think I'll go to 1.1 version even if they say that's unstable cause 1.0 is unstable for me too :)