my experience with 2D animation
While pursuing my undergraduate studies, I came across a 2D animation team named Toonbangla who had created some groundbreaking cartoons in Bengali language and bagged several awards outside the country on account for their impressive development in the 2D animation sector. Although it is not uncommon to find talented and skilled people in Bangladesh, the animation sector was something people were not aware of and never thought that it could be taken as a successful profession. The perspective hasn’t been changed since and unfortunately although being a bunch of talented artists, the team could not thrive and sustain for long. Deep down it shattered me to see their downfall as I was fascinated by their work. In the era of the Pixer or any other 3D animation studio, I still love watching “Adam’s family”, “Dexter’s Laboratory”, “Bugs Bunny” or my favorite “Tom and Jerry”; just as I love watching these while growing up.
A lot of ideas were instilled in me due to my passion towards cartoon and I began to wonder how Disney successfully created such flawless 2D animation back in the early ’70s or ’80s with the limited technological resources. I started of experimenting with animation and chose South Park - a 2D animated cartoon as a reference point. I picked South Park for two reasons, firstly it was one of the popular 2D animated series, and secondly, the characters were not drawn meticulously with great perfection; instead the founder of South Park - Trey Parker and Matt Stone focused more on the concepts and contents of the show which is great by the way (check out one or two episodes if you haven't). As the reference point, I looked up everything about the production process of South Park and how do they create their animation and how did they start their journey in the first place. As it turned out, they use high configuration Wacom devices - devices generally used in the graphic design industry or by digital artists that allow a person to draw by hand, capturing an image or graphic in digital form.
Wacom is a device that professional animators or graphics designers use to create animations and being an undergrad with limited fund, there were no way I could afford one. I tried alternatives and started with the very basic. I created my first 2D animation in Adobe Flash which I ended up spending around 12 hours straight with just the mouse and a pc. It was amateurish but I felt good. Somehow it inspired me to move forward and try other options. I bought a graphics pad which was a lot cheaper than Wacom and still inconvenient to produce standard 2D animation. Yet, I created my second animation with the newly bought graphics pad and got more than twenty thousand views. Later, I got contacted by someone who works at a startup, to build a short animation of a gramophone for their website. I was super excited, and it was my first animation that I was paid for. It was my first outsourcing project and my first income from animation; something that made me proud till this day.
Due to limited resources and interference with my semesters and projects, I had to give it up. But it was something that I still have the burning passion and I did not just confined that to my hobby. In the final semester of my graduate program, I undertook a project with a Gan model known as CartoonGan and converted still images or videos into animated version with good precision. If you are someone who is interested in animation just like me, let’s talk.
Here are some of the animations that I had created:
A lot of ideas were instilled in me due to my passion towards cartoon and I began to wonder how Disney successfully created such flawless 2D animation back in the early ’70s or ’80s with the limited technological resources. I started of experimenting with animation and chose South Park - a 2D animated cartoon as a reference point. I picked South Park for two reasons, firstly it was one of the popular 2D animated series, and secondly, the characters were not drawn meticulously with great perfection; instead the founder of South Park - Trey Parker and Matt Stone focused more on the concepts and contents of the show which is great by the way (check out one or two episodes if you haven't). As the reference point, I looked up everything about the production process of South Park and how do they create their animation and how did they start their journey in the first place. As it turned out, they use high configuration Wacom devices - devices generally used in the graphic design industry or by digital artists that allow a person to draw by hand, capturing an image or graphic in digital form.
Wacom is a device that professional animators or graphics designers use to create animations and being an undergrad with limited fund, there were no way I could afford one. I tried alternatives and started with the very basic. I created my first 2D animation in Adobe Flash which I ended up spending around 12 hours straight with just the mouse and a pc. It was amateurish but I felt good. Somehow it inspired me to move forward and try other options. I bought a graphics pad which was a lot cheaper than Wacom and still inconvenient to produce standard 2D animation. Yet, I created my second animation with the newly bought graphics pad and got more than twenty thousand views. Later, I got contacted by someone who works at a startup, to build a short animation of a gramophone for their website. I was super excited, and it was my first animation that I was paid for. It was my first outsourcing project and my first income from animation; something that made me proud till this day.
Due to limited resources and interference with my semesters and projects, I had to give it up. But it was something that I still have the burning passion and I did not just confined that to my hobby. In the final semester of my graduate program, I undertook a project with a Gan model known as CartoonGan and converted still images or videos into animated version with good precision. If you are someone who is interested in animation just like me, let’s talk.
Here are some of the animations that I had created:
My first ever animation done with a mouse for working over 12 hours |
my second animation which i created using graphics pad. it got 21k views!!! |