How does 2D animation work?

Every cartoon is a pile of drawings. A cartoon is thousands of still drawings, each a little different, shown one after another. Cinema shows 24 frames a second; most hand-drawn animation holds each drawing for two frames, “on twos”, so one character needs 12 drawings a second, 720 a minute.

Read how it works: How does 2D animation work? · The history of 2D animation · More boxes on Glassbox

Chapters in this interactive model

1. A pile of drawings that moves: Thumb through a flip-book, then learn why animators draw “on twos”.
2. Key poses and the drawings in between: The key animator draws the big moments. The in-betweener fills the gaps.
3. Twelve principles that make drawings feel alive: Switch principles on and off on the animator’s oldest exercise: a bouncing ball.
4. Cels, backgrounds and the multiplane camera: Stack clear cels over a painting, then spread the layers out to get real depth.
5. Rigs, tweens and curves: 2D on a computer: Key a cut-out puppet, let the computer draw the in-betweens, and shape them with an easing curve.
6. Lip sync: drawing the sounds of speech: Break a line into sounds on an X-sheet, pick a mouth for each frame, and add acting.