These are the uncolored frames of a walking Animation I made in Adobe Flash Creative Suite 4. I am using a thirty day free trial, and once that runs out, I am planning on purchasing the full program. It has taken some time to make so far, but the program is definitely the best program I have ever used.
I made all of this animation using only a mouse, so I didn't need a tablet or anything like that to make it. I started with the basic drawing of Chelsey and slowly adjusted the animation frame-by-frame to get to the final point. Adobe Flash has a tool called "Onion Skin" which allows the user to view a translucent copy of previous frames on a new frame. This allows the user to trace and align everything in the images, and also be able to see what changes need to be made to create the desired result. This animation was 45 frames long, at a framerate of 24 frames per second (the standard for general animation).
Through this, I learned that it is much easier to make a few "Guide frames" before animating. Essentially, these frames are where you want the animation to end up. For example, If I were to remake this animation, I would make the original drawing, then make a drawing of Chelsey in mid-step, then make one more drawing of Chelsey with the finished step. This way, all that I would have to do is fill in frames between the guide frames and adjust the images to lead from the first guide frame to the middle guide frame, then from the middle guide frame to the final guide frame.
Flash is an Amazing program, and I would highly recommend downloading the free trial. You may find in yourself a love for animation like I did. Currently, I'm working on making a colored version of this with a background layer. The layering works similar in method to GIMP, but it is MUCH more intuitive and allows for much more image manipulation than GIMP does.
--Martin
Hmmm, very interesting! Thanks for providing your comments about the Adobe Flash. I liked the way you analyzed the learning process for this animated figure, specifically what you would do differently with your next drawing. That'll really help others who want to try this product. I'm predicting that you're going to become an expert at this in a very short time!
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