Creating animated marketing videos for the web

Rich Kelly

Company
WebToons.com

Occupation
Graphic Designer/animator

Location
Saint Louis, MO


Biography

Rich Kelly used to write and perform for the stage, but now does graphic design with an emphasis on animation at his home studio called WebToons. WebToons are used as effective marketing and sales tools. He designs characters that relate to his customers' specific needs and concerns. Because WebToon characters are based on customer profiles of their target audience, they elicit empathy and trust.

Drawing and tracing in Animate Pro saves all the time of scanning paper or importing Illustrator files. Also, the sophisticated character rigs save a huge amount of time as compared to Flash, and allows for much easier editing. Finally, the workflow is faster, so I can focus more on creativity than process. And the camera view allows me to create work I couldn’t do at all with Flash.

What is your main job?

I create animated marketing videos for the web.

How long have you been in this profession?

2 years in animation, 8 years in graphic design

What are your most important accomplishments?

Becoming self-employed and working from my home studio

History with Toon Boom Animate Pro:

Do you create your animations using Toon Boom Animate Pro only?

No, but I’m moving towards it.

If not, what other applications are you using?

Illustrator, SoundForge

Why did you choose to combine these products?

I’m trying to transition to Toon Boom Animate Pro only, but still learning.

What kind of animation do you create?

Mostly character-based marketing videos for web.

What animation technique are you mostly using (i. e. cut-out, paperless, traditional)?

Mostly paperless.

What are your top five favorite features in Toon Boom Animate Pro:

What Toon Boom Animate Pro’s features allow you to distinguish your animation productions?

I can now economically produce frame-by-frame drawings, rather than “tweened” movements, which allows for “squash and stretch” character effects, and complex 3-D rotations.

Did you experience any productivity gains in using Toon Boom Animate Pro?

Drawing and tracing in Toon Boom saves all the time of scanning paper or importing Illustrator files. Also, the sophisticated character rigs save a huge amount of time as compared to Flash, and allows for much easier editing.

Are you more efficient today compared to your production toolset used previously?

The workflow is faster, so I can focus more on creativity than process. And the camera view allows me to create work I couldn’t do at all with Flash.

Is it possible to get the same results with other digital animation software?

I don’t think so.

How do you feel about Toon Boom Animate Pro?

Love it.

How was your leaning curve? Have you used the video tutorials?

The learning curve was fairly easy, but did take some time and practice. I have used some video tuts.

Equipment used:

1. In a nutshell, I love Toon Boom Animate Pro for all the ways it overcomes the obstacles in Flash
2. The ease of drawing freehand with a stylus, then tracing my work… all within one software.
3. The ability to manually adjust strokes and not be limited to mono-weight lines
4. The character puppets are much more sophisticated than Flash.
5. The “camera” view
   1. • PC
      • Windows 7
      • Bamboo stylus
      • I would also need a few stills to illustrate the text.