The animation I created above, was done using FlipBook. The website has a fun interface for creating little cartoons the really old-fashioned way. You will need to draw every frame from scratch. You cannot copy, paste, import, etc. You can use your previous frame, but that is all. The program is very basic, but its these limitations that have spawned a series of beautiful animations from user submissions. The little cartoon I did contains 76 frames.

Here are a few flipbooks that are a cut above the rest.:

• “I Can Fly”
• “Train Ride”
• “Magic!”
• “Water Gun Fight!!!”

And if you’d like to start from scratch, rather than trial and error, Cartoonster provides an excellent set of tutorials on beginning cartoon animation. Right now, the site has four tutorials and takes you through the basics to creating your first animation. It’s a great website for teachers looking to teach animation in their art classes, or for the self-schooled animator.