Think outside the animation
Character animator Tom Baker walks you through creating a traditional cel animation-style movie, from concept to post-production
With budgets tightening and marketing managers less eager to spend money, there’s an opportunity for the freelance all-round filmmaker to clean up. Why pay an agency to create a movie when an individual with the right kit can do the same for less?
In my transition from working as a character animator within a team to creating entire movies myself, I’ve often become unstuck on the bits ‘around’ the animation.
This tutorial gives an overview of how to create a traditional-looking cel animation using Adobe CS3. The example is a short animation I created for the charity Green Thing. The brief was to create a video introducing seven things a person can do to lead a greener life, and the finished piece can be found on this month’s disc or viewed at www.dothegreenthing.com. The tutorial dips in at various stages along the creative process and puts forward my recommendations with the original files as a reference.
Computer Arts November 2009 
3D World September 2009 
Computer Arts Projects December 2009
MacFormat July 2009