I’ve always enjoyed creating stick figure animations, probably because they are so easy and quick to make and despite lack of detail, its still possible to tell an interesting story in a few seconds.
I’ve been drawing stick-figure animations from the time when I was eight years old. The one below I had drawn when I was 14. I was a huge fan of the original 1984 Transformers animated cartoon series.
I have to confess that this flip-book animation is a little violent, as I was depicting military-action, battle sequences from the TV series. This kind of artistic expression was typical of me as a 14 year-old boy, as is common to others of similar age. But it’s pretty tame compared to the summer blockbuster movies that most of you are used to watching 🙂 I have kept this flip-book preserved in my possession for over 30 years and I had made numerous others like it, which I also still have.
Bear in mind that it is difficult to flip the pages of this old pad of paper consistently from beginning to end. Please be patient when the pages do skip and jump a bit here and there.
Stick-Figure Animation – 1984 Transformers-Inspired Flipbook
Next, I’ll share with you a stick-figure animation that I made more recently – five years ago. I created this with ToonBoom Animate Pro. (ToonBoom Harmony, which I have been teaching in Animation Production Group is a more advanced software application)
A business man had apparently heard about my reputation for creating stick-figure animations and hired me to create this one for him. I earned $1000 for my work on this 21-second animation that didn’t even have sound!! So its possibly to earn good money from animation work, even if you don’t work for a studio… and you don’t have to live in Los Angeles or New York.
The idea for this animation was to have three people who are weary, sad, and burdened go into the prayer factory and come out free of their burdens and happy to live life again.
Stick-Figure Animation – The Prayer Factory
A final thought I will leave you with is don’t get stuck or slowed down by overcomplicating things. Especially when you are just starting out and beginning to learn the craft. Keep it simple and have fun telling stories with animation.