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Top 8 apps for 2D animation

Hello amazing people!

After the success of our Top 12 alternatives to Photoshop for digital painters and illustrators article, a few questions regarding animation programs appeared in our inbox. There are many, many apps to animate today: in this list we included 2D animation programs only, but these are the best of the best.

Formerly known as Flash, Adobe Animate helps you create interactive web-based content for games and ads using powerful illustration and animation tools.

Pros: user-friendly interface; many, many features; customisable layout

Cons: there are so many features that a few may remain hidden; it may get sluggish with big files (performance depends on the running machine); limited audio tools

Paid

Animation Pro is an app for iPad and it works like any powerful animation app!

Pros: drawing features; layers; lip-synching feature; affordable

Cons: the interface can look confusing to a beginner

Paid

Illustration or animation, CLIP STUDIO PAINT may be the answer to your needs. This program is powerful and full of amazing features and tools for the professional artist - and it made the top ten in our Top 12 alternatives to Photoshop for digital painters and illustrators list.

Pros: several illustration tools exclusive of the program; powerful

Cons: limited audio tools; limited script tools; limited technical support

Paid

Certainly one of the most used programs in the industry, Toon Boom Harmony is a powerful animation program for professional artists. It’s been used for well-known series and films, such as Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons and The Princess and the Frog.

Pros: powerful tools; smart colour palettes; features for character artists; many tutorials

Cons: not easy to use; pricey

Paid

Moho Pro (Anime Studio) is a 2D animation software for professional artists distributed by Smith Micro Software.

Pros: advanced animation tools; user-friendly interface; compatibility with vector programs (ex. Illustrator) for import/export of files

Cons: N/A

Paid

We’ve already talked about OpenToonz, an open-source animation program (see this article).

While this version is the program customised by Studio Ghibli, Toonz was created by Italian Digital Video S.p.A., which distributes other important programs: Toonz Premium, Story Planner and Toonz LineTest. 

Toonz is used by important studios, such as, of course, Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) and Rough Draft Studios (Futurama, The Simpsons).

Pros: open-source; powerful tools

Cons: not easy to learn; hidden features; “old” interface

Free  

Pencil2D Animation is another open-source program for beginner and professional artists.

Pros: simple, user-friendly interface; 

Cons: minimal features

Free

Another well-known animation program is TVPaint Animation. Perfect for frame-by-frame animation, this is a powerful program and may even be considered Harmony’s rival. Notable productions are Song of the Sea, Zima Blue and Kitbull.

There are two versions of the program, TVPaint Animation Professional and TVPaint Animation Standard.

Pros: powerful; many tutorials

Cons: pricey;

Paid

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As always, let us know what you think of these apps and what we missed. We still hope you’ll find this list useful!

Thank you and peace out,

G&M

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Other articles:

10 inspiring and helpful YouTube channels for digital artists

6 inspiring Art Podcasts for digital artists

Top 12 alternatives to Photoshop for digital painters and illustrators

Camille Fourcade on Instagram

So yesterday my friend and I watched Loving Vincent (an incredible movie, by the way, and the reason I’m on this van Gogh obsession lately). After it ended, we turned to each other like

a) hi im crying at how beautiful that was, how about you? yup? same

and b)

we should make a van Gogh painting right now

So we impulsively grabbed all the paint in the house, rolled out a big sheet of paper, and just dove in. This was our reference:

She mixed colors for the sky, and I made a palette for the grass.

At first, we tried to match van Gogh’s style as closely as possible. This corner was decidedly a success.

She was a bit nervous to undertake the bold swirly tree in the middle, but I’d say it turned out great 👌👌

At some point, though, we realized other influences might have been creeping in. These flowers? Solidly Monet.

These? I don’t even know what style they are but they are my children and I love them

In total, this took us about 4 hours, give or take. We had to stop when it turned midnight, bc…… sleep.

It didn’t end up looking exactly like van Gogh’s original (or even very much like it, for that matter), but as he himself said, “what is done in love is well done,” and we certainly made this with love and enjoyed the process immensely.

And, if I may say so myself, it’s not bad for a first time.

Grew some ugly but apparently delicious tomatoes this year. Gonna draw some ugly but apparently delicious tomatoes.

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

i don’t know why i love this so much but i do

*collects all the infinity stones and turns our world into the Pokémon world and the avengers don’t turn it back because hey this isn’t so bad actually*

anoosha syed (foxville_art) on Twitter made a really interesting tutorial on how to colour non-white skin in illustrations that I thought people who follow this blog might find useful (:

(resposted with permission)

Ohhh