--- title: 2D Animation description: 2D animation brings drawings to life frame by frame. You will learn the twelve principles, timing and spacing, character animation, and tools from Toon Boom to Krita and After Effects. category: arts-design subcategory: 3d-and-animation difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/two-d-animation --- # 2D Animation 2D animation brings drawings to life frame by frame. You will learn the twelve principles, timing and spacing, character animation, and tools from Toon Boom to Krita and After Effects. ## Available Resources 3 Books • 1 Courses • 1 Websites ## Podcasts ### 1. The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast **Author:** Tom Bancroft, Tony Bancroft Podcast in which twin animators Tom and Tony Bancroft, both former Disney feature animators, discuss their studio experience, the state of the animation business and artistic craft, and interview animators and character designers about their careers and working methods. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.patreon.com/bancroftbrothers **Tags:** animation-career, character-design, disney-animation, interviews, animation-industry ## Courses ### 1. Animation Concepts with Harmony Essentials A free Toon Boom Learn Portal course. It moves from animation history and persistence of vision through the animation principles to a production pipeline, taught hands-on in Harmony Essentials, the entry tier of the industry-standard 2D software. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://learn.toonboom.com/courses/animation-concepts **Tags:** 2d-animation, animation-principles, toon-boom-harmony, production-pipeline, animation-software ## Websites ### 1. Animation with Krita (Krita Manual) Krita is the free, open-source tool. Official Krita documentation for frame-by-frame animation. Covers the timeline, onion skin and animation curves dockers, and walks through a walk cycle from keyframes to inbetweens to rendering, with notes on memory and transform masks. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/animation.html **Tags:** 2d-animation, krita, frame-by-frame, onion-skinning, walk-cycle ## Youtubes ### 1. Howard Wimshurst Animation **Author:** Howard Wimshurst A professional hand-drawn animator's channel with over 200 free tutorials. Topics include timing, spacing and tempo, arcs, inbetweening, character acting and effects, often shown as frame-by-frame breakdowns and critiques of real shots. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/@HowardWimshurst **Tags:** 2d-animation, hand-drawn-animation, timing-and-spacing, inbetweening, character-acting ### 2. 12 Principles of Animation (Alan Becker) **Author:** Alan Becker This is the best free, visual way into the twelve principles before tackling the books. A 13-video series that animates each of the twelve classic principles, including squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, arcs, timing and appeal. Each short episode shows the principle working and failing, in stick-figure animation. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bOh8btec4CXd2ya1NmSKpi92U_l6ZJd **Tags:** 2d-animation, 12-principles-of-animation, squash-and-stretch, timing, animation-fundamentals ## Books ### 1. Timing for Animation, 40th Anniversary Edition **Author:** Harold Whitaker, John Halas, Tom Sito A concise treatment of how the number and spacing of frames produce weight, force, speed and emotion in animation. The most focused book on timing. Whitaker and Halas's 1981 text, updated by Tom Sito with new images and advice from working animators, 184 pages. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0367527758?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** 2d-animation, timing, spacing, frame-rate, animation-fundamentals ### 2. The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation **Author:** Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston's history and method of Disney character animation, where the twelve principles of animation were first written down. Covers acting, personality, story sketches and production process, with hundreds of drawings over 576 pages. It deals more with acting and philosophy than with drill-style mechanics. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786860707?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** 2d-animation, 12-principles-of-animation, disney, character-animation, animation-history ### 3. The Animator's Survival Kit (Expanded Edition) **Author:** Richard Williams The most widely recommended single book for learning hand-drawn animation mechanics. Richard Williams' drawn manual of animation mechanics: timing charts, spacing, keys and breakdowns, walks, runs, weight, anticipation, overlapping action, dialogue and acting. The expanded edition adds animal locomotion and more advanced examples across 392 pages. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0571238343?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** 2d-animation, hand-drawn-animation, timing-and-spacing, walk-cycles, character-animation --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/two-d-animation