Most of us can easily recognise a Disney animated film when we see one, as well as a “Looney” toon, a Pixar piece, and for you old school folks – the lovable Hanna Barbera characters. They all have a distinctive look to them that makes them globally iconic. These styles have been adopted and enjoyed by millions world-wide.
There are so many categories and sub-categories. Below is a very broad overview of the most popular to date. (Please click on the links for further viewing!)

3D computer graphics are all the rage nowadays (and hence a bit of a thorn in one’s side as an animator who prefers the classical 2D way of doing things). The life-like three dimensional feel in these animated films bridge us between flat cartoon animation and live action cinema. Below is a film by my dear friend Kim Leow. This is her final film in college and took her about 5-6 months to do from scratch.

Some other links that you maybe interested in:

Oktapodi

Burning Safari

I grew up watching Disney and Don Bluth (The Secret of NIMH, The Land Before Time) films like countless others. These traditionally animated, 2D features are still going strong today.

But how are they made? I though I would include an interesting clip which explains all, taking the classic ‘Beauty and the Beast’ as an example.

Also check out one of Disney’s newer shorts. Its very nice, but rather bittersweet.

Another popular style we see nowadays is the very flat, graphic, cut-out, paper doll style.

One strong example is Nina Paley’s ‘Sita Sings the Blues‘.

The rest of this film is on youtube (in HD!). And if you like it, check the website out to follow the creator’s journey through the making of. Usually this kind of look in an animated film is done with software like Flash. South Park is another example of the cut-out paper look.

Another look that is developed with software like Flash, and has a similar flat graphic appeal, is being used heavily in Saturday morning cartoon shows nowadays. Popular examples  are the Fresh TV produced ’6Teen’ and Warner Brothers ‘Johnny Test’. This look is also popular in video games. The much successful ‘Castle Crashers’ for the Xbox is a prime example. Dan Paladin, the artist and animator behind the game, shows us here how he works his magic:

Rhotoscoping or cell-painting are similar techniques where you take live action footage and you literally trace or paint over it to give it a more illustrative feel. ‘Waking Life’, ‘Waltz with Bashir’ and ‘A Scanner Darkly’ are prime examples of this sort of animation. Did you know that Disney’s ‘Snow White’ or the dance sequence at the end of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ both used this technique? The highly popular iTune commercials are a very simple example:

Stop-motion animation is a very fun form of animation, especially for those who enjoy crafts and toys. Tim Burton uses this form quite a bit. His ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ is a classic, and the recent ‘Coroline’ is a big favourite this year. This technique incorporates the use of a camera, taking snap shots of an object as it moves – where each shot represents a frame of animation. The music video below not only uses stop-motion, but also shows us how its done!

Claymation is a form of stop-motion animation that specifically uses clay or sculpy to create the objects involved. Nick Park’s ‘Creature Comforts‘ is a wonderful example.

Taking the basic squash and stretch principles of animation and literally stretching it out of proportion, you have the aptly named style of Rubber hose animation. Incidentally this style was the first to set the standard of animation in North America.  This is where the likes of Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny, Ren and Stimpy, and Hanna Barbera toons take their cue from. The originals like Felix the Cat were treated more like rubber dolls, with flowy, stretchy limbs. Below take a trip back in time with Flip the Frog in this black and white rubber hose classic.

If you or your children watch Cartoon Network then I am sure that you have heard of Dexter’s Laborotory. The creator of this show, Genndy Tartakovsky went on to make ‘Samurai Jack‘, noted for its highly stylised, outline-free, and super detailed look. It has a very cinematic style, which caught the attention of Star Wars creator George Lucas, who then asked Tartakovsky to make the animated Clone Wars. Personally I think Samurai Jack’s look and colour schemes remind of me Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, though the latter is not as stylised.

However, intense detail is not always the key to a successful animated film. Even simple stick figures can tell a good story. Don Hertzfeldt proves just this in his academy award nominated short ‘Everything Will Be OK‘. Quite possibly my favourite animated short ever, by Cube, also adopts this method of minimalistic animation:

But how could we continue this article without mentioning the Japanese culture of Anime that took the world by storm? The large sparkly eyes…the sharp, pointy, two dimensional noses? From Astro Boy to America’s answer to anime – Avatar: The Last Airbender, this style has become quite a phenomenon. Incidentally both films mentioned, have live action films coming out very soon! I remember renting my first anime cartoon on VHS when I was really small, and I think its still probably my favourite to date – ‘My Neighbour Totoro‘ by Studio Ghibli. Sadly this is just a link to the trailer. Rent it on a rainy day. Its very cute!

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is a giant hub for experimental animation. I would highly recommend taking a trip to their building in Toronto and pouring through their library of animated films. Sand animation is a great example. Using sand to etch out beautiful drawings frame by frame, Caroline Leaf created “The Owl Who Married A Goose“. That must have been such hard work! Flashlight animation is another example. This can be done easily as long as you have a camera and a small source of light like a cell phone or a flashlight. Wait till its completely dark outside, or do this in a dark room at home. Using a slow shutter speed setting, one just draws an image in the air with the flashlight while they have someone take a picture of it. And voila, you will have a drawing completely etched with light! Of course, actually making consecutive drawings to create motion is a little more complicated. But you get the hang of it eventually, and its quite fun. Sprint did a neat commercial using flashlight animation. The third installment in the experimental series is chalk animation. Below is a wonderful clip by Blu.

Apologies if I have missed something crucial. I have tended to pick clips that have impacted me, above others. There are a lot of visual art styles of animation out there, that belong in the categories similar to those that I have mentioned, or fall into grey areas in between. I have tried to pick examples that were more on the obscure side without compromising quality (obscurity usually comes with its reasons after all); in the hopes that my wonderful Zincroe audience would be entertained by something new, and learn new things in the process!