Animation kit/supplies for budding cartoonist?

June 19, 2007 5:03 PM

Animation kit/supplies for budding cartoonist?

I am mentoring an extremely talented 14-year-old for WriteGirl and would like to get her a somewhat professional "animation kit" for her junior high graduation. I'd like us both to create a film out of her drawings as a project this summer, so I want her to have things like blank cells, good pens, etc. (The goal would be to scan them into my computer and edit them together in Final Cut Pro.)

Her computer skills are limited and she draws everything by hand. Could anyone out there recommend a good animation kit for me to give her? An (almost preferable) alternative would be an à la carte deal where I just give her a bunch of art supplies that would get the job done. I'm looking for a total price of $150 or under. All suggestions welcome. Thanks!

posted by Lillitatiana to media & arts (8 comments total)

Not what you wanted, but as a ramp-up project to the full animation, you can make pretty cool animation with nothing more than a whiteboard, a camera rig, and markers. (Like this.)
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 5:10 PM on June 19, 2007

CartoonColor has pinbars, prepunched cells, paints, books and the like.
posted by Fins at 5:35 PM on June 19, 2007

The Preston Blair book because an animator should know how to speak the language.
posted by hexatron at 6:03 PM on June 19, 2007

Correction, cels not cells and peg bars not pinbars.

Also, "Toysmith Professional Cartoonist Kit" on Amazon.
posted by Fins at 6:46 PM on June 19, 2007

Some good resources:
Scott McCloud's book Making Comics (review)
Several major blogs with lots of specifics about how to do animation well, samples of great past animations, talk about pro-level material etc (check them to see if there's any content not great for a kid - esp John K's I think sometimes has some sexy stuff):
-Drawn!
-The Animation Archive
-Cartoon Brew
-John Kricfalusi's blog

A few specific posts:
- classic solutions to common layout problems in comic strips
-22 panels that always work on a comic strip page
-composition fundamentals
-online tutorials for human figure drawing
-free PDF about gesture drawing for animation
-a dozen lessons from classical animators
-How to do cheap animation using a whiteboard and camera

What materials to use depends on her style, but I always loved drawing with a really soft fat pencil, or even a china marker/crayon. You'll want a couple of good erasers, and varying firmnesses of pencil for layout. (Talk to the art store about which erasers will work best for the pencils or whatever you're getting.) Some people like ink pens or markers. It's probably a good idea to have tracing paper in addition to regular sketchpad paper. Will it be color or b/w? Prismacolor markers with one fat end and one skinny end are delicious, awesome, expensive.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:15 PM on June 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also, assemble some examples of very short animations - under 2 minutes, for example - to give her (both of you?) a sense of what pacing works in a short, short film.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:24 PM on June 19, 2007

cartoonist = newspaper strips
animator = cartoons

confusing.
posted by clunkyrobot at 7:03 AM on June 20, 2007

If you would like to learn how to be an animator, you really really need to own The Animators Survival Kit. I bought it at the start of Uni and never regretted it for a second - covers pretty much every important principle and technique you need to know. You keep it for life and always end up refering back to it when you realise that the basic shit is hard.
posted by 6am at 6:36 AM on June 22, 2007