Nov
30
2009
Traditional 2D Animation in Flash – Squish
UK-based Alex and Gemma Wilmott have realized what so many fail to understand about Flash – it can be used to create traditional animation. It can be used to create rotten garbage, but there’s nothing stopping an artist from creating frame-by-frame animation. Over six months, the Wilmott’s produced this short below, title Squish.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
That was wonderful! It’s great that traditional animation is making more headway into the realm of Flash and I hope to see more of it move into the television production side.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I like, indeed!
‘rotton garbage’… why you gotta bust balls?
November 30th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
ya, that probably wasn’t the most artful way to phrase that, startstop. i’d probably say it differently given the chance. but it’s one of the core points i’ve been making on this site the last 5 years – Flash is just a tool. it can be used to make horrible animation, or the most advanced, fluid, traditional-style animation imaginable. it all depends on the carpenter, not the tool.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:02 am
awsome =) very well done and put together
December 1st, 2009 at 7:06 am
good to see some imagination being applied to the flash programme
as for ‘busting balls’… there are an absolute tonne of balls that need busting when you look at some of the utter shite that the good name of flash has been besmirched by
December 1st, 2009 at 9:19 am
Wonderfully done! Great timing and poses! I’ve got to brush up on my traditional skills after seeing this one!
December 1st, 2009 at 11:43 am
[...] Cold Hard Flash 01 December 2009 | [...]
December 1st, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Very nice animation.
I like how they used the symbols and masked the fact they were symbols. nice background! haha besmirch…busting balls…hahah, I agree, “balls” do need to be busted.
The tv market is being saturated with poor “flash” animation, I dont think its because flash “can’t” do, its because the “carpenters” can’t. Don’t blame the program, blame the animator! That’s what I say.
Nice animation!
December 1st, 2009 at 12:32 pm
“Rotten garbage”. ppffft, it may come across harsh to some, but its totally true.
December 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Hell man… if we all spent 6 months on personal films you’d have nothing to report on dude!
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:22 am
…or maybe something ‘good’ to report on…
ey Milo?
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:10 am
I agree with Matt. It’s not that you can’t do “traditional” in Flash, it because studios won’t allow the time or hire the talent to produce this kind of work.
TV series require quick turn around with the least of cash. Hence, what’s mostly on the air waves right now.
Not to say there isn’t good Flash out there, by any means.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Or even better: don’t blame the animator, blame the producers, Flash has been used as a traditional frame-by-frame hand drawn animation tool for 12 years… but only by a very small group of people, why? Cause producers have ALWAYS seen Flash as the cheap way out. Therefore people use it to appease the broadcasters and executives, to make it fast and inexpensive and “easy to edit and revise” therefore they went with the ‘symbol’ route, flat puppetry paper cut-out animation.
Very few producers have given Flash animators (that are traditionally trained) the time and money they needs to look and feel like classical animation.
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:32 am
Amen Aaron…Happy post-Thanksgiving.
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:55 am
A wonderful technical exercise but as an actual short film it’s a student project at best.
Animation nerds complain about “typical” terrible Flash animation but Strongbad et al are always going to crush art projects like this because the “quality” of the animation isn’t important.
Flash is just a tool for animation, animation is just a tool for *storytelling*!
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Truer words, KNau! A good story trumps technique every time.