Animation and Video Life

Balacafa GoAnimator  Balacafa is the July winner of my GoAnimate,  Get Featured in TET's Blog contest . Balacafa has had his account with GoAnimate since October of 2012 and in that time has amassed 627 followers and published 20 animations. Balacafa chose to feature his animation, Super Kent - THE ROBOT, saying... I chose this animation because I actually spent time getting the effects in exactly the right places instead of just putting them at the start of the scene, I made sure they were at exactly the right times. Super Kent is actually one of my own characters from my early days on GoAnimate. You can view my own three episodes at Super Kent , Super Kent Returns and Super Kent - Man of Steel . Watch Balacafa's animation below and then read about his inspiration and challenges in creating the video. Super Kent - THE ROBOT by balacafa on GoAnimate Inspiration... Well, when I was in the forums I stumbled across a forum by Gipsy and I was curious abo

Synfig Studio There is the Rolls Royce of digital animation tools that any professional animator would probably aspire to but if you're just starting out, animating for a hobby, or just not in any position to get the top level gear then I've put together a few options below to get you started. Many of the tools I've written about before so I'll provide links to those articles if you want more information. You'll also notice that your software studio can potentially consist of entirely free software. Hardware. I'm going to assume you already have a computer. One with real processing power is ideal but even most low budget laptops have enough power to get some pretty decent results. Beyond that you'll need either a graphics tablet or scanner to get your drawings into the digital realm. Bosto Tablet Graphics Tablet A graphics tablet is not absolutely essential but it will make your life a whole lot easier. You'll get more out of many anima

TET Bitstrips Avatar. I recently discovered Bitstrips , a social comic creation, Facebook application that enables you to create gag cartoons and comic strips staring yourself and your Facebook friends - even if you can't draw. Whilst Bitstrips doesn't have much to do with video or animation the parallels with GoAnimate's animation studio - that everyone can use, even without drawing ability - is obvious. Bitstrips actually has more flexibility than GoAnimate when it comes to creating poses for characters. Almost any pose, expression and emotion is possible even though the characters are all 2D. It would be a dream come true if Bitstrips partnered with GoAnimate to turn their content into 'Bitanimations' as well as 'Bitstrips'. They pretty much have all the artwork. They just need the underlying animation application to support it. The Bitstrips Facebook application seems to only allow single panel, gag cartoons and provides a number of ready mad