'Dina' comes to life - Showing my kids what hand drawn animation is about

We live in a day where content, especially animated content is everywhere, from cellphones, to tablets, to TVs and everything in-between. Most animation films and shorts we watch these days are 3D animations. It is very rare to come across any hand drawn animation today.

I studied animation at college, and my passion was actually to become a traditional 2d animator on big feature films. I remember literally becoming emotional watching how Glen Keane would draw Tarzan, or how Milt Kahl described his thinking or drew a character. I remember being so inpsired, I felt 'on fire' watching the 'making of' videos of the 2D animation films from the 80's to the 2000s. Unfortunately, the time period when I developed this passion, was the time period when 3D animation started becoming the new way forward and 2D hand-drawn animation was being phased out. This was a very difficult thing to grapple with. Thankfully I landed some work as a 2D Cut-Out style animator, using Toonboom Harmony, but that style of animation wasn't ultimately suited for me, I wanted to draw more. To do more frame-by-frame animation.

Fast forward many years, about 20 years or so, and I sit here today, craving to see and experience high quality 2D animation again, to relive the time or be part of something big that involves 2D. I am well aware, that this craving and desire for hand-drawn animation in this day an age could very well be wishful thinking, in fact, as I type this, I feel 95% of me thinks it is more than wishful thinking, with the rise in AI generated content and the uncertainty that brings to the world, to the push for quick turnaround animation. The media world is moving so fast, and honestly, I think it has lost touch of itself. What was once a beautiful means to communicate lofty ideas, life-changing stories and awe inspiring entertainment, has now turned into a 'device' and means to propagate agenda and status amongst other non-healing / 'soul-destroying' things. Nevertheless I do still have hope that it may return.

I think the world is going too fast, people are eating too fast, sleeping too fast, watching films too fast, slowing-down too fast! So while I ride this wave, this new chapter of of being open to new opportunities in my career, I just felt a strong urge to try some hand drawn animation again.

As some might know already, but to those who don't, even though I'm currently unemployed, I have much treasure! I have a beautiful, supportive and very helpful wife, Tasneem Kulp, and our three daughters, our riches. The sweetest little girls I know. Hannah, the eldest under 10, Naomi the second born or as some may call, the 'middle child', and lastly Liana, our tiny one.

I always wondered what it would be like to have a child grow up around a dad who literally works in the animation industry. Like when do they finally know that it is my efforts that help to create the visuals which they enjoy on screen. I don't think it quite clicks, until it does. So, instead of trying to explain what I do, I decided I was going to show them what it means to design and animate a character. To ground the motive more, I decided to use Naomis favorite plush toy, Dina, a very cute, chubby green dragon / dinosaur. Although Naomis, baby, Hannah and Liana also love Dina lots. Apparently Dina loves eggs a lot. I've been asked to animate her eating a boiled egg (maybe in due time my love). Meet Dina

And so, I went ahead and started the process of creating a simple walk cycle to show the girls how this all works. At first they laughed, not understanding how the basic shapes I was roughing out, would eventually turn into an animated Dina. Naomi was thoroughly entertained though, to even see this happening at all, her Dina potentially starting to walk.

Dinas rough keys of the walk cycle, just focusing on the main contact frames

It wasn't until the second phase of fleshing out those simple keyframes where I heard Hannah say "Wow, I never knew you could do this kind of thing with Dina" , I could see it starting to have a visible impact on the way they were experiencing it, they seemed a bit disbelieving that it was happening, but they were properly engaged and invested.

Dinas keyframes, now in 'break-down' phase, adding drawings in between the main keyframes to smooth out and describe the motion more clearly and make things less choppy. The different colours help me stay organized and focused.

It was starting to become very exciting for all of us at home to see this happening, we all had so much laughter at it, the way the girls were entertained and in awe of it. Now came the time for me to tie down these rough drawings into something neater and more finished, this is where I knew it was time to put my head down and get in there, drawing one frame after the other, carefully refining the rough lines to describe, in a simple way, Dinas main forms. I remember one morning around 3am, having disturbed sleep, and then deciding I was going to work on this in those wee hours of the morning. I remember completing most of it and me sitting like some crazy person on the tip of Africa and 5am, smiling from ear to ear at how satisfying it was to see this little idea come to life. I couldn't wait to show them the cleaned up breakdowns.

With the break downs in place and the walk basically functional, I decided to clean up these frames to prepare for the final 'in-betweening' phase, which is where another 16 drawings would be drawn in between each one of these to create the smoothest motion possible. It does work on 2's as is, but I want to see / experience what this might be like on 1's.

For now, that's where I am, that is 16 drawings, to create this loop. I would like to in-between it on ones, to create the smoothest motion possible, but that will take quite a bit more time. For now, I just need to shift gears onto another development which is a bit more pressing in order to gain a potential job.

It was a long read, and nobody has time for this kind of stuff, so if you made it this far, thanks so much for sharing your time and please share this with any loved ones or children who might find it useful. Leave a comment too if you wish as its always an encouragement to hear from you

Stay tuned for more updates soon...