How I Animate

two animations, one of a woman baring her teeth and brushing her hair back (animation A), and the other of an elven woman turning into an anthropomorphic fox (animation B). "How I Animate" is superimposed on top.

The Technique:

I draw the frames and then I use the liquify tool to push the lines into the next frame and redraw them where I need to. This allows me to keep the lines consistent, but gives me the control of frame by frame animation bc I am still making each frame manually! I also use 3d models as reference to help me with the angles! Super important to use reference while you animate (and with art in general), if youre no good handling 3d models then act it out and record yourself!

progressive gif showing animation A starting from a rough 3d reference to a completed 2d animated piece

The Theory:

i think most people are at least loosely familiar with the 12 principles of animation (if youre not, heres a 2.5 minute video showcasing them!), but may not necessarily know how to employ them. the main 3 i tend to focus on when I animate is rhythm, telegraphing, and inertia so ill cover those there 👍

1. Timing & Rhythm

Timing is how you space out your frames both in how long an individual frame is held for, and also when you drawn an inbetween of two frames you can favour one frame slightly more than the other instead of drawing the exact average of the cels, giving the favoured cel more timing weight.

two animated lines showcasing the difference timing makes.

Left line has the cels evenly spaced out on the timeline, right holds the first cel for longer and the second cel slightly favours the last frame. It creates a more interesting rhythm to the animation! Rhythm is how I think of animation timing. Theres a beat like a song to every animation I make, and creating an interesting beat is what makes an animation fun to watch (for me, anyway):

Animation A with a small pink dot pulsing to the animation's beat.

Animation B with a small pink dot pulsing to the animation's beat.

2. Anticipation / Telegraphing

Two animated lines. The first is the same from the previous line gif, but the second now has anticipation applied on top of the different timing.

Before I animate a big change in movement, I like to telegraph that its coming. Usually this is doing a little counter movement in the opposite direction, but thats not the only way to telegraph a motion, e.g. eye movement can telegraph a head turn!

Animation A. A pink arrow flashes above her head as her eyes move to look at the viewer, then her head turns.

Animation A. A small arrow points down for a split second then points upwards as her head tilts in the same directions.

Animation B. An arrow points up and back, then forwards, then sideways and then finally forwards again. She glares and then tilts her head while baring her teeth before transforming into a fox along to these arrows.

3. Follow-through / Overshoot / Inertia

two lines again. The second line now bounces exaggeratedly as it reaches the end of the animation, as if a wooden stick hit something.

The same lines again, the second line stops with a tiny bit of very subtle inertia.

Unless the movement is mechanical, it wont come to a hard stop and will have some level of bounce or easing out to it. How much "bounce" you add will have a big impact on how the animation feels, but a very subtle bounce will add a natural feeling to the end of a motion.

The hair brushing back and head tilt part of animation A.

Secondary animations will use a lot of this, note that the head and the hand have a small amount of continuous motion (primary animation), and then the hair has a lot of bounce and inertia (secondary animation which reacts to the primary animation). Note the different amounts applied to the braid vs the sideburn vs the bangs

anyway! I hope this was insightful ❤️ if you like my art you can commission me by the by :)