to the next level

[nuke505]

at this point i have been animating madness strictly, but i am trying to move on to something like stick figures. how does one go about doing this? as a madness animator im used to everything (feet, body, hands, head) to be completely separated and easy to use frame by frame animation to do. i have tried to animate stick figures in this way, but it never turns out right.

can anyone give me some advice in this field? do i use a tablet or a mouse? do i draw out every single frame or work from a templet character? what software should i be using for this? does anyone have any tutorials or some animations i can download and break apart to see how it is done?

[FullMetol]

You can use pivot stick figure animator, it usually makes it clean and organized.

[nuke505]

heh pivot stick was the first animating tool i ever used. but i want to work my way up to some of the professional stuff you see around newgrounds. thinks from fluid anims

[Emrox]

I don't have much experience in this field, but from what I've seen, I can tell a few things.

Firstly, it's usually all FBF animation, although it isn't always on singles. Secondly, high quality stick animation has a lot of emphasis on choreography. It takes a great sense of motion & weight to be able to make a great stick animation. It's also important to remember to use anticipation/follow through, one of the most important principles of animation. This is a great tutorial for developing this sense of weight and movement: http://phong.com/tutorials/flash/animati on/
I suggest starting with animating simple actions, like running, jumping, punching, and kicking. Once you can make those look fluid individually, you can start combining them and adding others into the equation.

Again, I'm not too experienced with action-heavy work though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

[nuke505]

thanks that looks really helpful!