Old School Field Guide Area & Basic Scanner

Old School 12Field Guide scanned on basic home scanner

As part of my mission to keep old school animation alive, I want to point out inexpensive ways to create it.

One of the biggest expenses in creating animation electronically is buying a Cintiq or some such tablet. The mistake is to think that having the latest equipment will make your art better.

Getting the largest Cintiq to draw on doesn't mean you'll be able to draw better, it just means you'll have the ability to draw more complex designs. But since most modern day animation is being watched on small devices like iPhone, iPads and computer screens, I suggest character designs should be simple in order for facial expressions to be legible.

And if you want to draw those simple characters on paper, you can use 8.5 x 11 inch paper, scan it on a basic home scanner/printer, and import those JPEG files into a basic animation/coloring program.

Let me point out to you that all those classic Warner Brothers, Disney, Max Fleischer, MGM, and Terrytoons theatrical short cartoons were drawn on a maximum 12 field area...and projected onto screens at least 15 feet  high and 45 feet wide.

My 16-year-old Epson scanner

One of my rough poses scanned on my old scanner

The following three Popeye animation poses appear to be drawn on 8.5 x 11 inch paper.

Here's a scan of some Batman and The Joker animation poses I drew on 8.5 x 11 inch paper for that series of Zeller's Batman TV commercials run in Canada back in 1988.

I want to encourage you to think simple...you can get great results with basic tools!