Cartoons & Animation
Cartoons
When you think of Cartoons you may think of animation, you may think of Disney's Mickey Mouse or more modern Minions films. But Cartoons started out as static funny pictures. My parents didn't believe that cartoons were a 'proper job', so I went into Digital Media, but here are two real world cartoonists whom I know.
When I did Art Foundation at West Cheshire Art College, UK, I was friends with Mike Stokoe, who is now a professional Cartoonist whose work is published in England
When I first came to New Zealand, I taught Maddie Dai at St Catherine's College, Wellington. She has gone on to fame and success in London and New York.
Simple How to Draw a Minion
Not sure you can draw?
This mini tutorial shows how to make a drawn Minion with a 2 frame flip book animation.
TASK:
Analogue Art: On paper draw a 2 frame animation of a Minion
Digitise Scan / Photograph your art - send it to your email / Google Drive
Download / open your images in Photoshop.
Use the Photoshop Tutorials to combine them onto two layers. Then add line and colour ink. We will export it as a GIF animation.
Stop Motion Animation Examples
You don't need to be able to draw to do animation. You just need to have a camera (like a smart phone / BYOD web cam), animation software (like Stop Motion Animator, Pivot or Monkey Jam) and objects to move / change.
This is a famous 'Sledgehammer' Music Video by Peter Gabriel that pioneered lip sync and animation.
Make Your Own: Stop-Motion & Hand-Coloured Art
Use the your Smart phone's time lapse option or download a stop motion or Chromebook's Stop Motion Animator to record / captures frames of you colouring-in a black/white line art. Remember you need 12 FPS (frames per second).
Tip 1: Try to keep the web cam & paper in the same spot, to stop them moving use a tripod and try taping down the paper.
Tip 2: Try to keep your hand out of the frame.
Click capture every 30 secs / 1 minute. Remember to save your web video. It will save as a .webm file.
Try to make your own colouring Stop motion
Getting Started with Video Stop Motion
Tell a short story (such as your Pepeha) with toys / figures to animate with Stop Motion. You can edit your video on an Android smartphone using Kinemaster
Tips, Tricks and Techniques
Remember K.I.S.S. (Keep It Super Simple)
12 Principles of Animation: Disney's - The Illusion of Life tricks
Use 2D animation software (like Flip a Clip app / Photoshop or PixelArt.com) and show how you have practiced the the Illusions of Life
TASK - Create a bouncing ball using
Squash & Stretch.
Arcs
Get Inspiration from the professionals
Publishing Your Animation online
Save & Convert it
Put the animation file in an animation folder. Upload it into zamzar.com to convert it from .webm format to .mp4 format. You can publish the mp4 on a Google Slides presentation or your own website.
How to Add .mp4 to a website
You can then upload the .mp4 file to your website folder. Use the code to the below.
If this doesn't work, then upload the .mp4 to your school gmail account on Youtube, then share it privately to your own website. Use the <iframe> code to embed it.
To add your video to your website with the following code:
<video width="320" height="240" controls>
<source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>
Web Animations
Today the internet is full of animated advertising, such as GIFs and Videos. These are often made with Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, Adobe Animate or Adobe After Effects.
TASK - Advert
On a Mac / PC, copy this video tutorial and make an advert for a local business, such as jade carving, with Adobe Photoshop. (If you are using a Chromebook you can use PixelArt.com instead to make your simple GIF animation online.)