How do you animate? 👀 Any tips from where you learned animating from or any good recommended source?
Uhhhh so I use two different programs to animate, Flipaclip and Krita, which I can both use on my mobile tablet (which is my primary art workspace). Typically I use Krita for MAP parts because it's significantly more flexible and indepth, and it's an art program first before it's an animation. It's what I use for all my illustrating. Flipaclip can be painfully restrictive, but it's really straightforward and simple for frame-by-frame animation, and you can develop some larger or more complex projects if you're willing to work in a really obtuse way.
If you want one specific source for animation instruction, I think Toniko Pantoja is pretty good, even if I haven't watched too many of his videos.
As for where I learned to animate I sort of just picked up a lot of things over time. I learned about animation concepts from my sibling who's an animator, did a lot of research on my own time, looked up tutorials, and then practiced animating on and off. I don't really have any process or method for learning, I sort of just wanted to make cool stuff and tried to figure out how to do that.
Specifically, and I recommend it for any skill or artform, just spend a lot of time experimenting and playing. Don't just watch other animators works, try to imitate what they do and figure out how they do. Try it out and see what kind of results you get. Research and practice your easing, anticipation, arcs, smears, and learn how to use timing charts, because those few principles can really make a project cohesive.
Learn when to reduce those techniques or cut them out entirely. Don't treat things like frame rate as something inhibiting your true vision, learn to work within it to achieve your vision.
Most of all, learn how to do all this stuff sustainably, without burning yourself out. Animation is hard and it often takes a lot of time and a lot of repetitive drawing. If you're smart about it, you can find ways to cut down the work, but no matter what, the point of drawing is to draw.
Most of the examples I posted here, I made on Flipaclip. Any apparent instance of tweening was actually handled by hand. Any time something exits the canvas in Flipaclip, it's deleted, so you have to be very smart about how you handle it. You also can't manage frames on multiple layers individually. It's a good but limited program that you can do a lot with if you're willing to put in a lot more legwork.
I made MAP parts these on Krita. You can manage frames on individual layers, there is functionality for tweening, and it's a lot easier to handle timing because you can set the spacing for every individual frame. Overall it's just a better program for bigger or more invested projects.
