2D Animation equipment.

Animation Paper

When animating, you often find that you are working with four or more layers of paper. A level of translucency is necessary to see all the drawings. Professional animation paper is made with this in mind.

It also comes in different sizes. These are referred to as field sizes. 12 field and 15 field are the most popular. 15 field is 15 inches wide, 12 field being 12 inches wide. (I'll explain in more detail later in the chapter when I refer to field guides, the grid that measures field sizes.)

Most professional animation paper comes with 3 punched holes. It is possible to buy this paper with no holes. (This is cheaper but you will need a specialist animation punch, which is very expensive). Used with a peg bar, the holes allow accurate placing of each piece of paper with the next. This is important, as the slightest movement in a drawing will show when the sequence is shot.

It is possible to use A4 paper with standard ring binder punched holes and a peg bar with two pins that fit the holes. This will work out far cheaper than professional animation paper.

Peg Bar.

Professional peg bars are a strip of steel or plastic with three pins. These are industry standard and are used with professional animation paper. These are used to register each piece of animation paper against the next.

It is possible to buy two pin peg bars - these are often called junior peg bars.

It is equally possible to make your own, using a strip of wood with two pieces of dowel that correspond to the holes in your paper, or even to tape two 5mm counter sunk bolts onto your light box. These can then be used with ring binder punched A4 paper.

As with the paper, bear in mind that if you want to use your animation professionally, it is advisable to buy a three-pin peg bar.

Light box.

In its most basic form, a light box is a flat sheet of opal Perspex over a light. Professional light boxes use a rotating disk. They should also have the ability to change the angle of the drawing surface. This makes drawing easier both on the wrist and on the back. Simple light boxes are relatively straightforward to make. You could use a wooden storage box with the top part cut off at an angle and mount a neon bulb inside. Then fasten a piece of 6mm opal Perspex to the top with screws.

Look at the "How to build a lightbox" page.

Drawing disk.

A drawing disk is placed on a lightbox and used to work out camera moves and panning walk cycles. It has two sliding peg bars at the top and bottom. They can be made of metal, plastic or wood.

X-Sheets.

X-sheets are also referred to as dope sheets or exposure sheets. They are used by the animator to record all the necessary information relating to how the animation should be shot. A standard x-sheet consists of several columns that run from top to bottom and 100 rows that run from left to right. Each row represents one frame of animation. If the animation is to be played back at 25 frames per second, 100 frames will equal 4 seconds of animation.

Line tester.

A line tester is a device that captures your drawings and plays them back. It is a quick and easy way to see if the roughly drawn sequence works. There are a number of ways to set up a line tester. You could use a film camera, a video recorder that can record single frames or a line testing software program and a computer. The movie examples on the CD ROM were produced using a program called "Digicel Flipbook". (There is a demonstration copy on the CD ROM with instructions) Other alternatives are available. I would suggest looking for a program that contains an x-sheet, as this is best for working out timing. The simplest and cheapest way of setting up a line tester is to use a web-cam together with a computer and the line testing software. Set the camera to point down onto the table. The camera could be mounted on a tripod or even stuck to a steel rule that is then attached to the top of your computer. Stick your peg bar to the table, put a piece of your animation paper onto it and align it under the camera. The peg bar is important for the accurate placing of drawings. It is also possible to scan drawings into the computer using a flatbed scanner, but it takes an awful lot longer than using a camera.

Look at the "How to build a linetester" page.

A pencil.

When doing drawn animation it's always best to work in rough with a col-erase blue pencil and then "clean up" your drawings afterwards with a graphite pencil. This means you can define the correct lines of the character and add details in graphite pencil on top of the rough col-erase lines. (Also when you line test your animation the graphite line will show up more distinctly than the blue lies underneath.

An HB or B pencil is needed for the 'clean' drawing whilst a coloured pencil is used for roughing out the animation. Sold under the trade name of 'col-erase', these are coloured pencils that can be easily erased and are great for drawing with. You can work rough with a graphite pencil but it can look get very confusing when it comes to "cleaning up" the drawings.

 

Electric pencil sharpener (wow, new technology).

Great for helping speed up your work.

 

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