Cartoons Created Using Adobe Animate

Animation has been evolving ever since its dawn in the late 1800's. There have been many changes both technically and physically to the makings of animation as it has evolved through the last century. As technology advances, so do the platforms, the ideas, the programs, and skillsets to create animation. One platform of animation commonly used is a form of Flash Animation, using the program Adobe Animate. This program is used widely by many companies to create cartoons and animation for every age and genre. It is found on every source of media that we have today and by many companies worldwide to animate the future of our world.

We all know that Disney is the king of animation however, many other companies have risen through the ranks to create quality cartoons for children and adults to enjoy. One of the companies is Cartoon Network. One popular and praised cartoon that was hosted on Cartoon Network and used flash for animation was Fosters Home for Imaginary friends. In an article published by Animation World Network, an interview was held to ask the creators of the show how they animated the cartoon. It was said that they did hand draw the assets and scan them in; they used adobe flash (animate) to create the actual animation for the show . The animation style is referred to as puppeting, where individual parts of the characters body are moved via tweening or step by step animation. All parts are on separate layers contained inside the symbol of the character.

While Fosters’ was a big contender another giant of the industry also used flash to create a show. In the late 2010’s Hasbro started a new iteration for their toy line My Little Pony. Along with this iteration came a new TV series featuring six main character ponies. The cartoon itself is called My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and uses Adobe Flash (flash 8) to animate the entire series, excluding its movie variants . Similar to what Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends did, My Little Pony creates some assets in illustrator and flash itself. The cartoon primarily uses puppeting as well to animate the characters and scenes in the show, however they also used nested symbols for more complex and repeated animation. An example of this would be the mouth or wings moving. Inside the head symbol is the mouth symbol and from that mouth symbol is different poses for lip syncing. They use this method to get animation done quicker and not have to hand draw every element frame by frame.

Every cartoon has a pilot to help present the idea of the show to those who may want to fund it and get the show green lit. Another show from Cartoon Network that used adobe flash in their pilot animation is Venture Bros. The widely known Venture Bros series created their pilot episode titled The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay using adobe flash to animate the majority of the scenes. Thought-out the pilot, you can see use most of the animation is frame by frame using both the transformation tool and puppeting techniques. There are also a lot of bitmap graphics that were converted into vector objects and styled to look cartoony. Most of the transitions are jumpy to fit with the style the show is trying to emulate and this is done by using frame by frame animation and not adding many in-between. Most of the character movements are done using classic tween, having arms, legs, and heads move in a smooth straight simple motion towards the main subject of that shot. After the pilot was green lit, the series moved on from flash due to studio demand for a cleaner looking product and more refined animation.

North American shows use adobe flash to animate their cartoons however; many Korean and Japanese animes use the program as well. One adult oriented anime centers around using adobe flash to cut corners while animating so their frame by frame style of animating wont’ cause them to miss a due date. The cartoon is called “Panty & Stocking” with Garterbelt and it was produced by Gainax. In many of the episodes you can see snippets of animation transition from frame by frame to more mechanical tween that flash produces. One example is in special episode called Bitch Flash in which one of the primary transformation scenes is interrupted by flash “breaking”. The characters are again animated using puppeting techniques and demonstrates the more humorous nature of flash tween animation when the motion editor is tampered with. There are other episodes “Such as If the Angels Wore Swimsuits” that feature simple tween animation where the head and hands are animated using simple motion tween.

While big studios are mainly gazed upon as a great example of cartoon animation at its finest, we can’t forget the starting point of animation: the independent animators. The internet is wonderful place to search and find hidden gems of cartoon animation. The cartoons can be simple to extremely complex and can start as a passion project to eventually be seen and funded to be more finalized. I have a few examples of sites that use flash to animate their cartoons and even some of which were funded based on fan support and recognition.

Let’s start out with the big kahuna of the internet animation sites: Newgrounds. Newgrounds birthed a lot of old famous (or infamous) internet animators and cartoons. The Animator vs Animation series was created by Alan Becker and the process of making the videos was uploaded to YouTube and his portfolio site.

This web series was created using flash for the animation and after effects to compile the sounds and scenes together. The cartoon focused on the animator (Alan) creating stick figures in Adobe Flash and giving them powers of which they used irresponsibly. After the creator tried to delete them, the stick figures retaliated destroying everything in the Flash interface and then moving onto the desktop themselves. The later series goes on to explore more antics with these devious stick figures and the issues they cause to the animator but all roughly end up the same with slight variation. In his YouTube series you can see the behind the scenes making of the animator vs animation series in which Alan himself shows the timelines and goes in detail of how each scene is made. He even allows downloads of the original flash files on his websites for animators who are learning or curious of how he animated the cartoon. When it comes to the actual animation itself he usually starts off with key frames then breaks it down into frame by frame in-betweens. For the scenes involving interactions with the interface of programs or browsers, he uses primarily the classic tween to do simple movements. Speaking of which, he also recreates all the program and browser interfaces by hand so it is to be editable. He primarily uses Flash and/or Animate along with the shape tool.

Another popular cartoon that was created on Newgrounds and made using flash was the controversial and cynical Foamy the Squirrel by illwillpress . This cartoon focused on a squirrel named Foamy who lived with a human called germane and ranted on about his views on society or the living conditions. Eventually, it evolved into a weekly rant video in which the creator voiced his opinion about topics in the world today and uses foamy to voice said opinions. This show was and still is created and animated in flash using shape tween and puppeting. There are many instances of frame by frame animation when it comes to little slight movements that would be used often; such as arms moving or eyes blinking. However, the deliminator style animation is mainly tweening. A lot of classic tweening is used for walking and sudden movements. All the assets in the cartoon were originally created in flash especially during the premiere episode.

The characters and backgrounds were dawn using mainly the brush tool, but in later episodes of the show, the characters were remade with the pencil tool for a cleaner looking product.

Finally, we have a passion project cartoon to feature that was uploaded on Newgrounds. This cartoon was called "There She Is" and featured two animals falling in love but fighting the norms of the society around them to make it happen. The cartoon has two versions made where one is the original created back in 2004 and the HD remake which was made in 2015. The originally used flash for animation and imported hand-drawn assets from Photoshop and other outside resources. A lot of the sky backgrounds were done by hand, scanned, and imported into flash. The characters themselves were done with both flash and Photoshop using the pencil tool (flash) and brush tool (Photoshop). The heart and circle assets in the animation were created using the shape tool, then made into a symbol and applied a glow filter onto them. The animation itself seemed to use a lot of tween and frame by frame animation. You can see classic tween being used for head and hand movements (and the simple heart levitating movements). Frame by frame can be seen best when the female rabbit does a turnaround near the 1:18 mark fantasy sequence.

Although Newgrounds was a huge contributor to help make internet cartoons viable, another platform instated its mark in 2005 to rival and later become the biggest host for videos on the web. YouTube was and still is the master of hosting and uploading web-videos and while its primarily dominated by filmed videos there are many animators that moved from Newgrounds to YouTube to host their content. Now, YouTube itself doesn't support flash interaction formats such as SWF, but that doesn't disqualify cartoons being made with flash for the intention of just viewing pleasure. I will go on to show some famous internet content producers who moved from Newgrounds to YouTube and still used flash to create their animations.

A viral giant that made its way on to YouTube was Mr. Weebl. He was reasonable for among the viral hit cartoon "Badgers".

This cartoon featured an animated loop of badgers dancing, then randomly bringing in a mushroom and snake. It was a funny video that sparked many fans and haters to either join along in re-posting the little cartoon or bringing it attention to how annoying it was. The animation itself was animated in flash and made use of frame by frame animation and a classic tween. The badgers themselves were animated using puppeting techniques classic tween on the legs and hands. The legs themselves used nested symbols of which had three drawn poses; a straight leg, slight bend, and extreme bend to be used in place of frame by frame animation. The frames were then copied and pasted over and over to be in time to the music. The snake itself was animated using the transform tool and frame by frame animation. After his viral hit of "Badgers", Weebl also uploaded two big hits using the same program and techniques from before; called "Narwhals" and "Amazing Horse" respectively. Even to this day Weebl still uses flash to create his animated cartoons to entrain people around the world.

Another web series that went viral on YouTube was "Happy Tree Friends". This was a graphic cartoon styled to look like a children's TV show. Each episode mainly consists of two animals helping one another out and get gruesomely injured in one way or another. The characters are created originally using the pencil tool in flash and creating separate layers for each body part. Now the characters are more refined and made in illustrator and imported into flash. The animation has improved since its debut in the early 2000s but focuses on heavy use of classic tween for simple body movement, motion tween for bees and flying objects, and even puppeting using the bone tool and frame by frame animation has been played with for arms and legs. They also have come accommodated to using nested symbols for the eyes and mouth to have different expressions animated easier.

Finally, another big hit that went viral on YouTube was "Dick Figures". The pilot series was hosted by Mondo media and created by Ed Skudder and Zack Keller and told about two stick figures, called Red and Blue, having adventures with an adult mood and tone.

This series had so much fan support that it went on to do a music video where fans submitted their own animations and had it complied into a complete video.

After the music collaboration video, they got funding to create a full hour-long movie feature the original cast of characters going on a quest of epic proportions. The original pilot, series and movie were animated and created using flash and heavy frame by frame animation. As seen in a making of the movie video uploaded on YouTube, you can see all the animators using flash to animate the characters and compiling all the scenes together using Adobe Premiere and After Effects. “Dick Figures” is a wonderful example of how flash has made its way into the industry to be a nice contender to host animation as well as inspire other people to learn and participate in using the program to make animations of their own.

Takeaway

There are many cartoons created using adobe flash/animate to entertain audiences of any age. The use of Adobe Animate / Flash has been in the industry since the late 1990s and used by professionally cartoon companies to entertain and sell toys to their audience. In addition, since the dawn of the web, sites have been made to help promote and host animated cartoons that work in harmony with flash to allow user input and in general get people interested in animation. In accordance with giving anyone the ability to animate using such a simple and beginner-friendly program such as flash, this has sparked many creations that have gone from a fun experiment to a passion project, to amass fan base supporting the original cartoon to make it professional and funded. It all started with flash, and to this day, is still used to create many cartoons of which anyone can enjoy; beginner or expert, young or old; with flash animation is only the beginning.