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Hello everyone! I’m a 2D animator. Here’s some of my work on YouTube!
Do you like Minecraft? Check out my short film about “The Warden.”
Do you like Magic Girls? Check out this little short I did based on “Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want To Be a Magical Girl.”
Fan of Technoblade?
Please enjoy my short animations!
I love animation history and one of the things that always baffled me was how did animators draw the cars in 101 Dalmatians before the advent of computer graphics?
Any rigid solid object is extremely challenging for 2D artists to animate because if one stray line isn’t kept perfectly in check, the object will seem to wobble and shift unnaturally.
Even as early as the mid 80’s Disney was using a technique where they would animate a 3D object and then apply a 2D filter to it. This practice could be applied to any solid object a character interacts with: from lanterns a character is holding, to a book (like in Atlantis), or in the most extreme cases Cybernetic parts (like in Treasure Planet).
But 101 Dalmatians was made WAY before the advent of this technology. So how did they do the Cruella car chase sequence at the end of the film?
The answer is so simple I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner:
They just BUILT the models and painted them white with black outlines 🤣
That was the trick. They’re not actually 2D animated, they’re stop motion. They were physical models painted white and filmed on a white background. The black outlines become the lineart lines and they just xeroxed the frame onto an animation cel and painted it like any other 2D animated frame.
That’s how they did it! Isn’t that amazing? It’s such a simple low tech solution but it looks so cool in the final product.
Wow, I can never tell what’s gonna take off! Glad people are enjoying this post! If you like it though, please check out some of the other stuff I’ve done. I’m a 2D animator and I love animation history. I don’t have a Patreon but I do have a YouTube channel!
If you’re interested in animation history check out the faux retro Zelda commercials I made where I tried to emulate 80’s anime animation. Or if you’re a fan of merging 2D with 3D check out the Minecraft short film I made where I animated a 2D character in a 3D environment.
Either way, thank you so much for taking an interest in 2D animation history in general. Especially right now with Ai everywhere, it’s great to see people appreciate the hard work people put into making animation come alive!
I love animation history and one of the things that always baffled me was how did animators draw the cars in 101 Dalmatians before the advent of computer graphics?
Any rigid solid object is extremely challenging for 2D artists to animate because if one stray line isn’t kept perfectly in check, the object will seem to wobble and shift unnaturally.
Even as early as the mid 80’s Disney was using a technique where they would animate a 3D object and then apply a 2D filter to it. This practice could be applied to any solid object a character interacts with: from lanterns a character is holding, to a book (like in Atlantis), or in the most extreme cases Cybernetic parts (like in Treasure Planet).
But 101 Dalmatians was made WAY before the advent of this technology. So how did they do the Cruella car chase sequence at the end of the film?
The answer is so simple I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner:
They just BUILT the models and painted them white with black outlines 🤣
That was the trick. They’re not actually 2D animated, they’re stop motion. They were physical models painted white and filmed on a white background. The black outlines become the lineart lines and they just xeroxed the frame onto an animation cel and painted it like any other 2D animated frame.
That’s how they did it! Isn’t that amazing? It’s such a simple low tech solution but it looks so cool in the final product.
@transparent-plastic-robotgirl check it out
omg that's cool as heck!!! 🌸
I never knew this! I thought it was rotoscoping like how Don Bluth did it, i mean could this be considered a type of rotoscoping?
man the Xerox era of disney really earned its name huh, they utilized the hell outta that thang
I don’t know if I would call this rotoscoping. It’s more of a post processing thing. The rotoscoping described above was done more as a way to give a guideline for the animators to insert the 2D characters in the 3D models. The bulk of the detail of the cars were still done through the xerox process, so I would akin this more to being a post processing effect if anything else.
It really does blur the lines though doesn’t it?
got into hand drawn animation this week and i love it !!! i spent around 15 hours making silly, two-second long, not-looking-so-good stop motion when i'm unable to put myself on my desk to draw anything that requires concentration ? why i'm not even vaguely appealed by roses
That actually is really awesome and cool!
I love animation history and one of the things that always baffled me was how did animators draw the cars in 101 Dalmatians before the advent of computer graphics?
Any rigid solid object is extremely challenging for 2D artists to animate because if one stray line isn’t kept perfectly in check, the object will seem to wobble and shift unnaturally.
Even as early as the mid 80’s Disney was using a technique where they would animate a 3D object and then apply a 2D filter to it. This practice could be applied to any solid object a character interacts with: from lanterns a character is holding, to a book (like in Atlantis), or in the most extreme cases Cybernetic parts (like in Treasure Planet).
But 101 Dalmatians was made WAY before the advent of this technology. So how did they do the Cruella car chase sequence at the end of the film?
The answer is so simple I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner:
They just BUILT the models and painted them white with black outlines 🤣
That was the trick. They’re not actually 2D animated, they’re stop motion. They were physical models painted white and filmed on a white background. The black outlines become the lineart lines and they just xeroxed the frame onto an animation cel and painted it like any other 2D animated frame.
That’s how they did it! Isn’t that amazing? It’s such a simple low tech solution but it looks so cool in the final product.
I put together all of the animations I made in 2025 into a single video! Since so many of them are short I thought it would be neat to structure it like changing the channels on an old TV.
I included chapter stops and credits and a secret hidden message at the end! 😉
I literally couldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it weren’t for people liking and sharing my content so much. So thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who’s helped me get this far! I hope to continue to make more fun little animations in the upcoming years!
You've said before that it takes about a year to make a short episode of an animated show. How long do multi-episode seasons take to make, then? Do different teams work on different episodes simultaneously?
Yes it's a rolling schedule. When you have a big crew and lots of people in different departments, you can get a full season done in around 1.5-3 years depending on hiatuses, schedule hiccups and other factors. To my knowledge, the first episode of season 4 of Big City Greens was written around the end of 2021, myself and the board artists started rolling onto production around May 2022 and we FULLY wrapped and did the final delivery of season 4 around June 2025 (this was for a season of 30 half hour episodes jsyk)
So still a substantial amount of time hahaha. Indie productions often don't have the luxury of large teams which is why you'll only see an episode or two from them every year. And that doesn't even account for the fact that most people doing indie are usually working full time elsewhere to support themselves.
Animation takes long and I wish more people would give productions (especially indie productions) more grace when it comes to releasing episodes!
Happy New Year everyone! <3 I'm currently working on an animated sequence (it's about 700 frames) with my characters to try my hand at it. Usually my animations are commissions of characters that appear in single scene. This is the second scene, a dynamic one, which can make it seem a bit chaotic. But I need to learn again how to post regularly, so meow!
That’s looking fantastic already!
Mickey has some good news! Sadly no one is around to hear it…
Audio taken from The Owl House. Link to my YouTube channel here:
Just something fun I made while working on bigger projects.
Golly gee what could my next animatic possibly beeeee?
(This one could take a while, tho. Procreate dreams updated, new format and everything. The learning curve to adapt to it will be annoying but worth it.)
shout out to @pikavani for the amazing character designs (I CAN’T STOP STARING AT ZOOBIE)
It takes some getting used to, but I think making animatics in Dreams is so much easier now. Look forward to what you cook up, your interpretations of their dnd designs are fantastic!
Dear Amazing Digital Circus fandom. I am making a short animated cartoon that highlights some of the fandom’s most… unique… takes on the Digital Circus cast. And I uh…
You know how the fandom often likes to depict characters like Kinger as super buff and swol? That’s the sort of thing I’m looking for. Not AU’s or DnD campaigns, just fandom interpretations that we’ve all sort of collectively agreed upon in an endearing way.
So far I already have my ideas for what Jax and Kinger will look like, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to draw Ragatha, Zooble, and Gangle.
Does anyone have any visual suggestions or ideas?
in 2026 DO NOT ask yourself whether your art is GOOD
instead ask:
and don't forget to stay silly
This is extreemly good advice for any creative out there, especially now in this ai-slop filled age. I genuinely believe that people can detect those qualities in your work when they are done in earnest. I’ve seen more sincerity, cathartic expression, and joy in YouTube animated storyboards for songs a fan likes than I’ve seen in dozens of billion dollar blockbusters.
As an animator, the “was it fun to make” question is the most important question I am constantly asking myself. Because when I have fun making something, you are going to have fun watching it.
Let’s all try to take this advice into the new year!
