Practicing with Digital Animation

Continuing on my journey to learn more about animation I decided to focus more of my efforts onto the digital side of things due to my lack of resources and knowledge of classic animation. My first attempts at this led me to decide between two of the more prominent animation software currently used in professional settings Toon Boom Harmony and Adobe Animate (the by-product of the original Adobe Flash program first used to animate digitally). After deciding that I already have some experience with Adobe software and wanting to try something new I went with the Toon Boom Harmony program used majorly with studios like Cartoon Network, Adult Swim and Nickelodeon. 

The initial download was pretty simple and I have started off with the 21 day free trial. Searching YouTube for some basic tutorials is found several good basics tutorials and I was able to practice the basics or the program. 




Utilizing the tutorial and my own basic drawing skills I was able to make a simple ball bouncing animation honestly it was pretty easy and a lot of fun to do. I was able to use my iPad and Duet Display Pro to create a drawing tablet allowing me to animate by hand for my first animation going frame by frame at first I definitely need some more practice at using the software but once you figure out the basics it becomes pretty intuitive due to the fact that I have worked with all kinds of creative software before this like Photoshop and Maya.


Working through the process of creating a pretty basic bouncing ball animation I think I just need to enhance my drawing skills a bit and work on some more styles of digital animation so I don't have to draw every single frame is my next goal and I think my overall goal is to be able to create some nice looking environmental animations like a cityscape or a field.




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