S T A T S

A B O U T

Traditional animation, aka Classical Animation AKA Cell Animation or hand-drawn animation, is one of the oldest and historically the most popular form of animation. In a traditionally-animated cartoon, each frame is drawn by hand.

J. Stuart Blackton was possibly the first American filmmaker to use the techniques of stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. Introduced to filmmaking by Edison, he pioneered these concepts at the turn of the 20th century, with his first copyrighted work dated 1900. Several of his films, among them The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) were film versions of Blackton's "lightning artist" routine, and utilized modified versions of Méliès' early stop-motion techniques to make a series of blackboard drawings appear to move and reshape themselves. 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces' is regularly cited as the first true animated film, and Blackton is considered the first true animator.

Another French artist, Émile Cohl, began drawing cartoon strips and created a film in 1908 called Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. This makes Fantasmagorie the first animated film created using what came to be known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation.

Following the successes of Blackton and Cohl, many other artists began experimenting with animation. One such artist was Winsor McCay, a successful newspaper cartoonist, who created detailed animations that required a team of artists and painstaking attention for detail. Each frame was drawn on paper; which invariably required backgrounds and characters to be redrawn and animated. Among McCay's most noted films are Little Nemo (1911), Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918).

The production of animated short films, typically referred to as "cartoons", became an industry of its own during the 1910s, and cartoon shorts were produced to be shown in movie theaters. The most successful early animation producer was John Randolph Bray, who, along with animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process which dominated the animation industry for the rest of the decade.

Traditional animation proceeds from the storyboarding process to voice recording to Animatics, Design and Timing, Layout, Character and Special Effect Animation, Backgrounds, Ink and Paint. Then they are photographed by special camera. The entire process is detailed in this wikipedia entry.

Disney is the only major studio to animate entirely by hand nowadays (The Frog Prince, set to be released in 2009, is scheduled to be animated entirely by hand). Some shows, such as "Venture Brothers" and "Drawn Together" are animated by hand overseas in Korea.

R U L E S

We don't have that much in the way of rules to follow here; just follow these simple notions and you should be fine.

C O D E S

All made by Me unless otherwise noted. To donate, attach to an email and send Here!

50x50

100x35

75x50

100x50

J O I N

To Join this listing, Click Here!
To edit your information, Click Here!

F A N S

To view members of this listing, Click Here!

L I N K S

TFL.org

A F F I L I A T E S

If you'd like to affiliate, send a 50x50 to this address. I accept listings related to traditional animation only!