Over the past few weeks I’ve been devoting a little time here, a little time there to these exercises from Joey Mildenberger’s course, Getting Started With 2D Effects Animation, which you’ll find on Creature Art Teacher—the excellent arts education website put together by Aaron Blaise and his creative team. You’ll find courses on drawing basics, animation, painting, screenwriting, and much more.
Both Aaron and Joey are former Disney animators—Aaron specializing in character animation, and Joey in effects animation, which is a full-fledged, specialty discipline of its own.
Special effects animators in the traditional, 2D, hand-drawn style take care of things like character shadows, fire, smoke, water, electricity, and props (any non-character item that moves, such as a sword, for instance).
I personally enjoyed analyzing the physics of fire, water, smoke, light, and so on. It gave me new appreciation for the beauty that can be found in commonplace phenomena. And, it’s a great challenge to replicate these things successfully in hand-drawn animation.
If the video inspires you, I encourage you to check out the course, which is affordably priced, full of useful information, and entertaining to watch.
By the way, I used Procreate Dreams animation software on an iPad and an Apple Pencil to do this animation, but any animation software and tablet will work.
EDIT: The video has been updated on the web version to have more brilliant color (originally all but Apple devices were displaying a dull video image).
Traditional, Hand-Drawn, 2D Animated Effects