Artoonix

It occured to me that young or new users who are just starting to think about trying some animation, might find this link useful. It takes you to a page which quickly describes the four main styles of animation. Artoonix isn't suitable for all of them, but the information might be of interest.

http://www.filmeducation.org/primary/an ... nique.html

For a longer but more detailed (and complex) set of explanations, try this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation

For a viewable or downloadable pdf (Acrobat) document featuring cutout, sand and clay animation, try this:

http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricula ... tRules.pdf

And for a sequence of pages about animation techniques and styles, look here:

http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/ ... niques.php

This next link is VERY useful for anyone who wants to see illustrations and notes about how to create cartoon characters. The notes are presented as 34 pages of images - with each page consisting of an upper and lower part. Thus there are 68 gifs if you want to download them. (Comes to less than 4mb). Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the page links. This is an excellent resource.

http://www.karmatoons.com/drawing/drawing.htm

There are many, MANY excellent animations that can be viewed on YouTube. Here are 2 parts of a documentary about one of Britain's strangest and most inventive animators. It was made a few years ago and features him talking about his ideas and methods:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=h1iNllsFj_c
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLliWZAq ... re=related

Here are two examples of his work for TV:

http ://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bGbZm-h1zac&feature=related
http ://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw4wnys1IMk&feature=related