The Beginner's Guide to Procreate Dreams

2 A Brief History of Animation

Creativity is a continuum of ideas. Although the tools we use today may be different, many of the techniques we use trace their roots deep into the previous 200 years of animation. I believe that knowing the specific creators associated with specific techniques is important—firstly, to put faces to the innovators of our craft and honor their accomplishments and secondly, to give guideposts should you want to dive deeper down a rabbit hole of an artist or their method. As an aspiring 2D animator, you need to understand the genre’s past to inform your future creative choices, in the same way a good film director can cite precedent for every choice in story, lighting, camera angle, editing and pacing, music cue, ...