Object show tutorial for 8yo

March 23, 2021 9:48 AM

My 8yo loves watching object shows and wants to animate one. Is this possible at his skill level? What resources can I tap into to help him? Do you have advice on private tutoring or a class to develop animation skills?

He really enjoys Scratch, and is pretty good at it. He is a little frustrated with the tedium of animating through that platform. He asked to try out the animation software, Moho, which is probably great but too steep of a learning curve for him on his own. He tried the free version and got stuck/frustrated pretty quick. Unfortunately, my skill set in this area is totally nothing, so I can't help him out. I think he would do well with someone showing him what to do and leading him down a path towards creating a short animation. But I'm looking for input from those who know this area to tell me whether that is unrealistic. Can an 8yo with moderate skills create a short animation (preferably something like an object show)? For reference, he has been able to create decent work in Blender, which I honestly didn't think he'd be able to do.

Other animation software to recommend? Classes? Ways to find private tutors who might do a series of one-on-one virtual sessions with him?

posted by LKWorking to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

I'm not sure what your budget for this is, but if you've got the budget for the Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Character Animator (which is part of that suite) might be an option. The downside is that you have to use one of their premade characters (unless you have the skill/knowledge to create your own, which is much more difficult than the actual animation part) but they do have a library of several included characters that you can use. You can record an audio track of yourself and the program will use it to create lipsynch automatically. Then you can change expressions and move the arms/hands around. I haven't tried it with kids but I have tried it with non-animator adults and have got them from zero animation experience to animating simple scenes within an afternoon.

You can get an idea of the kind of animation that can be created with Character Animator here: https://graphicmama.com/blog/adobe-character-animator-video-examples/. It has some pretty big limitations but it's also fairly powerful once you have the knowledge to use it to its full capabilities.

You could also try out the ($5? I think) animation software Rough Animator for the iPad if you have one, it involves creating animation frame-by-frame so something like an object show would be pretty impossible (those were created using time-saving programs like Character Animator/After Effects/Animate) but if he's interested in frame-by-frame animation it's one of the best and cheapest ways to get into it, and robust enough that it's used by a lot of professionals for personal work.
posted by matcha action at 11:18 AM on March 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Would a drawing tablet, with simple ones available for $60 or so, make his Scratch creation faster? It can also be used for other art projects. This one is almost a full-page. They have cheaper and smaller versions, of course. I would think that trying to "draw" with the mouse may be what's slowing him down.

A drawing tablet obviously would also be very useful if he wants to do art later.
posted by kschang at 12:30 PM on March 23, 2021

Our local independent movie theater has Animation Summer Camps for kids as young as 7. This year there are also offered virtually. Some of the stuff the kids created is kind of cool.
posted by Dotty at 6:39 PM on March 23, 2021 [1 favorite]