Why this blog ? What will you find here ?

This page is a sub-section of my blog for online animation students Hand Drawn Animation Notes.

Here you will find sources and suggestions for purchasing or building traditional animation equipment. (see the links in the sidebar for companies which sell animation equipment and supplies online.)

See the next post for a list of topics.

 

UPDATE:  as of 05/12/2022  most of the information posted here is still valid, although some of the posts need to be updated.  If you find a broken link or one of the listed scanners or video cameras that is no longer being made , please feel free to contact me to let me know.   Hardware like scanners is updated frequently, so it's a challenge to keep it current. 

 

 

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Basic equipment for hand-drawn animation

We'll go into more detail in other posts, but what are the basics you need to get started with traditional hand-drawn animation ?

1.) Animation desk with animation disc , or a lightbox with pegbar. (get the disc if you can , it's better.)






2.) Extra ACME peg bar for scanning or video testing your drawings. Get a thin, metal tape-down peg bar if possible because those are the most versatile.  Lightfoot Animation  has them or you can get a less expensive one from Amazon.com at this link:

https://www.amazon.com/MyLifeUNIT-Stainless-Fixing-Animation-Positioning/dp/B01M5BCBNM/

3.) ACME punched animation paper. Lightfoot Animation or Cartoon Supplies have pre-punched animation paper (see links in sidebar) .   Ingram Bond animation paper from Lightfoot or Cartoon Supplies is recommended.   Ingram Bond paper is more expensive , but you'll notice the difference between this and the cheap photocopier-grade paper.   Ingram Bond  erases better, lasts longer, holds up to repeated flipping, the surface is better for drawing, it scans better.

4.) Pencils, various. Col-Erase red and blue.  Various brands of  Graphite pencils , HB, B, 2B .    Recommended graphite pencils include: Tombow Mono  and  Palomino Blackwing 602.

5.) Erasers:  Soft kneaded eraser (grey) , and "Magic Eraser" (white) .

6.) Exposure Sheets (free , printable X-sheet templates from AnimationMeat.com).  Pre-printed Exposure Sheets from Lightfoot Animation.

7.) Animation frame capture software. TVPaint Animation is recommended.  Or Digicel Flipbook or Toon Boom Harmony.  With TVPaint and Digicel Flipbook you can either scan your drawings or use an HD webcam for video capture of your drawings.  With Toon Boom Harmony you may only use a scanner .  Also look at a software like OpenToonz , which is free and can have scanned drawings loaded imported.

8.) a scanner for scanning your animation drawings into TVPaint , Digicel Flipbook,  Toon Boom Harmony, OpenToonz, etc.

The Epson Workforce Pro WF-7840 a good scanner that has both a Flatbed scanner and an Automatic Document Feeder for auto scaning up to 50 sheets at a time.


(NOTE: scanner models from Epson and other scanner manufacturers are constantly being updated , so the exact scanner model above may not be available, but look for a scanner that can handle paper size 11 x 17 , which will allow for scanning 12 Field animation paper or slightly cut-down 16 Field paper )

OR

8 a .) a digital video camera or HD webcam mounted on a down-shooter (tripod or ideally a copy stand) to capture your drawings via video feed into TVPaint or Digicel Flipbook, etc.



 

A couple of resource docs:

 Traditional Animation Materials List

"Animation Student's Guide to Animation Desks"

Purchasing an Animation Disc

Post Updated 08/19/19 -

As I mentioned in my other post , a standard flat, rectangular or square lightbox with an Acme peg bar attached will do as the bare-minimum for animating, but it is best to have a lightbox or drawing table with a hole cut to mount a rotating animation disc. Believe me, it does make a difference. Rotating the disc gives you much more control over your drawings.

In years past when animators were expected to calculate their own camera/pan moves for their scenes , metal or wooden discs with sliding , ruled peg bars were the norm.

These peg bars were ruled in 20'ths of an inch to allow very close pan moves to be calculated by the animators and notated in the Camera column on the Exposure Sheet.



A precision, metal animation disc such as this deluxe model made by Mechanical Concepts is still a worthy tool, but not as necessary as in days past.



Nowadays when most camera moves are done within a digital ink and paint or compositing program (such as TVPaint, Toon Boom Harmony, Digicel Flipbook, After Effects, etc.) it is not as necessary to have the sliding peg bars on the disc to figure out the moves.

Many modern-day animators prefer to use a lightweight, relatively inexpensive white, translucent plexiglass disc. These type of discs originally became popular at the Richard Williams Animation Studio in the 70's and 80's and have since become widely used in the industry.

(Colin Johnson sells this white plexiglass disc with peg bar for $85.00 + $18.00 shipping.
Lightfoot Animation sells a similar disc for $129.00 + shipping. )


Here is Richard Williams animating on a plexi-disc at his studio in London:



Sylvain Chomet animating on his film "The Triplets of Belleville" :




The white plexiglass disc has the advantage of being much less expensive than the traditional metal disc with sliding peg bars , as well as being light-weight enough to carry around and use for animating in casual situations such as using ambient light to shine through the back as the animator rests the disc on his knees or on the edge of a chair or table. Richard Williams mentions in his book "The Animator's Survival Kit" , page 83, how he animated some of the first scenes in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" in a hotel room in Wales with a plexiglass animation disc propped up on his knees.
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For those who want a disc with the ruled , sliding peg bars, Lightfoot has this black plexiglass disc with translucent white glass drawing area,  and sliding peg bars for $699.00 -

http://www.lightfootltd.com/content/10f-12f-16f-universal-pro-disc-wboth-round-acme-pegbars


ChromaColour U.K. has a similar disc for  £274.99 pounds which is about $335.00 U.S. dollars by the current exchange rate (08/19/19) . Check with Chromacolour for current price and shipping cost.
https://www.chromacolour.co.uk/animationsupplies/lightboxes-disks/disks/black-plexiglas-animation-disc-16f.html

Mechanical Concepts' 16F metal animation disc was about $650.00 when last made.
You may find one of these used on eBay , but I don't believe they are making them anymore.

Here is a typical animator's workspace with the popular black Chromacolour animation disc -

Typical animator's workspace with white plexiglass disc -

Either type of disc will work , but the less-expensive white plexiglass disc is sufficient for almost any type of traditional animation job.

Another Do-It-Yourself Animation Desk project

For those of you with the right tools and the do-it-yourself motivation here is another project to inspire you to build your own animation desk . Click on this link to see details: 

How We Built My Animation Desk


This one starts with a base adapted from an old computer desk :



The rest of the desk is built on top of the computer desk with the typical wood railing system which raises and lowers the angle of the desk top as desired. (or you could also use the ratcheted lid stay hardware shown in one of the posts above in place of the wood railing to raise and lower the table top.)



And here are a couple of photos of the finished product . 

Pretty nice ! 

This desk has a useful feature that many desks lack: the hole for the disc is off-set so there is plenty of space to one side to place the X-sheet, models sheets, or any of the other dozens of little Post-It Notes and other scraps of papers that animators accumulate while animating.  (also the optional pencil holder , available from Lightfoot Animation .) 

More details and photos of building this desk at the original link:

http://cartoonmeltingpot.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/how-we-built-my-animation-desk/


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