How to animate a long-form webtoon?

S

scifnutt

New member
I'm want to make a webtoon.

There, I said it.

I've got a script written and everything, but I haven't got a clue how to animate it/put voices in it.

It's going to be 30 minutes per episode and relatively detailed as far as artwork. I'm going to need to be drawing backgrounds/props and 3 to 4 characters per scene. I don't want it to look cheap or old-fashioned, like cardboardy Superfriends stuff. I also need it to have recorded dialogue, and special effects like a transformation sequence, fire, etc.

The problem? The extent of my epquiptment is MS Paint. No mic, nothing else. I'd be willing to shell out some cash, within reason.

The other problem? School starts in two weeks, and I'm going to be busier then, so I need a way to animate and draw that isn't too time consuming.

Please, oh great animation demigods of rabroad, help me!

EDIT: And what kind of mic do I need to buy to record audio and upload it to an animated video?

Tomato
 
First off, you should buy Flash. It's a tad pricey, but it's pretty much one of the only ways to create some decent animation on the computer. While I would recommend a pen tablet for artwork (Wacom Bamboo is pretty nice and affordable), drawing with the mouse works too.
 
Thanks for the help. I'll check it out. Is it easy to use?



How much does Flash cost? Is it easy to use?

Also, do any of you have ideas for what mics to use?

Thanks,
Tomato
 
A solo project of that length is a heavy undertaking for an individual. Write your script with multiple "outs", such that it can be broken up into shorter sub-episodes of 3 to 5 minutes. If you manage to get on a roll and bypass one of your outs, that's fine; you'll just have a longer chapter. The point I'm making is to divide the work into chunks so you can concentrate on making the small portions as well as you can while not getting anxious over finishing the whole movie.

This also allows an incremental release schedule, if that's what you want to do, but you don't have to.
 
Oh. I'm not in this alone. I've got three other people working with me. I realize it's an undertaking, but I'm prepared.

Tomato
 
That and people's attention spans on the web are short.

Here's my advice to the OPer. I've done a few web-series and I have found that the shorter the episode is, the better. I always try to make each episode under 10 minutes because, let's face it, most people's attention spans on the internet are short and unless they REALLY like it, they aren't going to watch a web-series that's 30 minutes an episode.

It's quite easy to learn the tools, yes. But learning how to use the software and learning how to do good animation are two very different things.

It took me maybe a month to totally figure out the basics of the program.

It's in the high hundreds and no, it's not easy to use imo. I find it terribly clunky and hard to do good animation in it.

Flash is a web-design program that people are basically forcing to do character animation. A lot of it looks great but you have to take leaps and bounds to make it work right. It's not something created purely for animation like Anime Studio is.

Anime Studio, in my opinion, from an animation perspective, does everything Flash can do and it does it better. It's also cheaper (the pro version is only $200 and the basic version is $50... compare that to Flash which is what... $700 now?) and more animator-friendly.
 
If you're a glutton for punishment and have a good tablet you can animate surprisingly well in Gimp. It's basically traditional animation with digital assistance. X)

For example: http://spartydragon.deviantart.com/art/Chicken-Doom-126746505

I did most of the drawing on this in Photoshop Elements because I didn't realize Gimp's animation playback was so good (And Element's playback so crappy/fussy) but it wouldn't be that different.

The only downfall is that neither of those programs export to flash. :/ WHICH is why I downloaded Pencil: http://www.pencil-animation.org/ It's a free, open source, no frills animation program that exports to flash. I only messed with it for a little bit before I had to return the tablet I borrowed but it was pretty good. :)
 
I'm currently working on a web series as well. Here's the first episode.

I don't even always use full animation, but it takes a really long time to do just a single ten-minute cartoon. I'm doing the third episode right now, and hoping to get the bulk of the animation done before school starts.

It's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work (by that, I don't mean that it's not always fun, just that it's very time-consuming).

And I'd agree with HiyaAnimation about the length. Even ten minutes seems like a little too long for the average web viewer. The most popular cartoon shorts on the internet seem to be very simple, short, single-idea cartoons rather than those with actual plots or character development. Nevertheless, it is possible to get popular with longer stuff, just more difficult.

One alternative you might consider is to split the 30-minute stories into shorter episodes. That seemed to work okay for me with an earlier series. The good part about that is, people who are only mildly interested won't be turned off by length, and people who are interested can easily look up the previous episodes. Having a recap at the beginning of each one helps too.

Anyway, good luck!
 
Before jumping headfirst into Flash, first learn how to animate. Get the books on film animation by Preston Blair, published by Walter Foster, and a pad of paper. Read them all the way through. Copy everything in the books by hand. Then, when you get tired of watching that flip-book style, you can film your drawings, or more likely, enter them into your computer with a scanner or camera and assemble the pictures into a movie. Many programs have the ability to take sequentially numbered images and compile them into various movie player formats.

This is not to assume you haven't already done that or something similar, but questions like what microphone to use coming ahead of even having any software better than MS Paint makes it seem like you're jumping the gun a bit. Microphones do vary greatly in quality and price, from simple units that cost less than $10 to equally simple units at over $1000. You're likely to find better advice on those in a music recording or radio forum.
 
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