DIY Animation Club

  • About
  • Support Your Local Comic Shop

    Support Your Local Comic Shop

    Interested in animated storytelling? Read more comics and sequential art. At DIY Animation Club, we truly believe that there’s no reason to ever buy comics or graphic novels from megacorporate brick-and-mortar bookplexes, that one digital comics monopoly holder, nor their everything-store corporate overlords. We shop small and buy local. As a resident Glendalian, I’m going […]

  • Puppet Fabrication for Cutout Stop-Motion: Free Tutorials

    Puppet Fabrication for Cutout Stop-Motion: Free Tutorials

    A brand new tut on Tape & Thread Hinge, plus a list of free resources documenting additional approaches for building puppets for flat and multiplane cutout stop-motion animation projects.

  • Making It Up As I Go Along: Phoebe Parsons on the “Terror Fervor” Process

    Making It Up As I Go Along: Phoebe Parsons on the “Terror Fervor” Process

    Phoebe Parsons shares a studio tour, and walks us through the animation process for her wild cel-animated short, “Terror Fervor”.

  • Cel Animation for the Digital Era

    Cel Animation for the Digital Era

    A crash course based on existing internet resources plus additional things I’ve learned in a year of experimenting with hand painting on cels.

  • Modular Background Design

    Modular Background Design

    In which we borrow a classic technique from 2D level design, and put it to work in the context of a DIY animated short.

  • $60 Multiplane Animation Rig IKEA Hack

    $60 Multiplane Animation Rig IKEA Hack

    Build your own multiplane animation rig for $60, from IKEA parts!

  • Animbingo Is Here

    A 3-hour long animation game that’s sure to shake ideas loose.

  • Plog Your Way To Filmic Victory

    Plog Your Way To Filmic Victory

    Plan + log = plog. Set priorities and track progress on your current animation project.

  • Robert Breer’s introduction to Byron Grush’s “The Shoestring Animator”

    Robert Breer on getting started in animation, and working with index cards.

  • Portable 10F lightbox with pegbar for $40

    Portable 10F lightbox with pegbar for $40

    Make a portable (USB powered) 10F animation lightboard for animating on the go.

  • h3ll y3s: A Chat With The Makers of “Stilton’s in Charge”

    h3ll y3s: A Chat With The Makers of “Stilton’s in Charge”

    A rad cutout short from Jonni Phillips and Victoria Vincent, made with sharpies, construction paper, and a 10-year-old webcam.

  • Cut-Out Animation Basics: Persistence of Vision

    Cut-Out Animation Basics: Persistence of Vision

    The first installment of DIYAC’s kid-friendly cut-out stop-motion animation course.

  • Cameraless Direct Animation: A Paper-Based Approach

    Cameraless Direct Animation: A Paper-Based Approach

    A cheap and easy approach to teaching cameraless direct animation for the post-celluloid era.

  • The One-Page Zine As Brainstorming Tool

    The One-Page Zine As Brainstorming Tool

    Make a tiny zine as a project development exercise.

  • A $20 DIY Animation Light Box That Requires No Tools To Make

    A $20 DIY Animation Light Box That Requires No Tools To Make

    8″ x 10″ x 1″ acrylic shadow box + 8″ x 10″ x 1 5/8″ cradled birch panel + battery-powered LED pen light = an animation light box for the masses.

  • “Glitter Blood for all the Wins”: 5 Questions With Kelly Gallagher

    “Glitter Blood for all the Wins”: 5 Questions With Kelly Gallagher

    An interview with DIY animation powerhouse Kelly Gallagher (Pen Up The Pigs, etc.)

  • Pete Burkeet’s “Mannequin” & The Ghost of Rolling Acres Mall

    Pete Burkeet’s “Mannequin” & The Ghost of Rolling Acres Mall

    Watch “Mannequin”, a hand-painted animated short by Pete Burkeet, then read an interview with the artist.

  • Probably A Cult’s “Funny Bones”

    Probably A Cult’s “Funny Bones”

    An indie animation pilot premiere! Plus an interview with “Funny Bones” writer-director Ben Kurzrock and animation artist Chris Kim.

  • Simplified Walk Cycles for the Stick Figure Artist

    A quick formula for the easiest walk cycle in the world.

  • Lip Semi-Sync: A Brief Yet Definitive Guide to Mouth Flapping

    In the workshops I teach to elementary-age animators, we work exclusively on paper, without student workstations. We emphasize self expression and immediacy over skill, and there really isn’t time to teach 9-mouth-shape lip sync of the classical Disney variety. Instead, we use a haphazard, 2-shape method I like to call “mouth flapping”.

  • Kiernan Sjursen-Lien’s “Saxon”

    Kiernan Sjursen-Lien’s “Saxon”

    A chat with the animator and comics creator about their indie miniseries pitch, “Saxon”.

DIY Animation Club