1. Pre-production:
- Storyboarding: The story and sequence of events are planned out in a series of drawings or panels called storyboards. This helps visualize the overall flow and structure of the cartoon.
2. Character Design:
- Characters are designed, including their physical appearance, personality traits, and any distinct features. Character sheets are created to provide a consistent reference throughout the animation process.
3. Layout:
- Layout artists create detailed drawings that define the positions, angles, and backgrounds of each scene. These drawings serve as blueprints for the animators.
4. Animation:
- Animators bring the characters to life by creating individual drawings, called "frames", for each movement or action. Each frame is drawn on transparent paper or digitally, and slight variations between frames create the illusion of fluid motion when played in sequence.
5. In-betweening:
- In-betweeners fill in the gaps between the keyframes drawn by animators. They create additional frames to smooth out the transitions and make the movement more fluid.
6. Backgrounds:
- Background artists create the environments, sets, and scenery for each scene. Backgrounds can be hand-drawn or digitally rendered.
7. Cleanup:
- The rough animations are cleaned up and refined by removing any unnecessary lines, erasing guidelines, and ensuring consistent character designs.
8. Coloring:
- Colorists add colors to the drawings, either by hand-painting cels (traditional method) or digitally coloring the frames using computer software.
9. Post-production:
- Editing: The individual frames are assembled in chronological order to create the final animated sequence.
- Sound effects, music, and dialogue are added to enhance the experience.
10. Final Output:
- The completed cartoon is exported into various formats, such as video files, digital streaming platforms, or traditional film reels, for distribution and viewing.
This process can be labor-intensive and time-consuming, especially for traditional hand-drawn animation. However, many modern cartoons utilize digital tools and software to streamline and enhance the animation process, allowing artists to create complex and visually stunning animations.