Sanjeevani Pandit

Hello,

My 6 year old son Sid is interested in making animation from cartoon
characters that he has drawn himself on paper.

He uses both a windows laptop as well as an ipad.

Do you have any suggestions on good if possible freeware animation
applications that would be easy to use for a 6 year old?

Thanks
Sanju


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Kristin Elkoshairi

My kids enjoy an iPad app called Dink. It is $0.99.

Kristin Elkoshairi





On Aug 23, 2012, at 6:41 AM August/23/12, Sanjeevani Pandit wrote:

> Hello,
>
> My 6 year old son Sid is interested in making animation from cartoon
> characters that he has drawn himself on paper.
>
> He uses both a windows laptop as well as an ipad.
>
> Do you have any suggestions on good if possible freeware animation
> applications that would be easy to use for a 6 year old?
>
> Thanks
> Sanju
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

I'm sorry I don't know the answer to your real question, but there is a very cool game called Scribblenauts, where adults who still remember what it was like to be a kid have created a program where entering the name of something is likely to produce something that moves, and then things might fight, or not. You can order up a winged silver dragon, and say "friendly" in there. I was playing it with Adam Daniel on his iPad. We tried various words and LOTS of things are programmed in there, and if not they'll give you a fair guess. You can say "small" or "little" but we put in "wee flying dragon" and it went.

It's silly and wonderful.

For a child who can't write, the mom could make a chart with sketches and words so he could enter them.

There are puzzle levels, and also just screens where you can call things up and mess around with them. You might want to have a sword and some armor before you summon some of those things.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scribblenauts-remix/id444844790?mt=8

http://blog.mad4flash.com/2011/10/scribblenauts-remix-walkthrough-guide-review-and-discussion/

Kerryn LH

Depending on your particular child, the Scratch program might be ok. My
child dabbled in it when he was around 6/7 and my younger child liked to
watch what was happening. It's free and available from
http://scratch.mit.edu/

You could also try the Stop Motion app if your child is interested in
exploring that style of animation. It's available on the iPod, so I would
assume it might be available on the iPad as well.

Kerryn


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jo Isaac

We use Stop Motion Studio HD - an app for the ipod and ipad, it's $0.99 i think. Not sure how it'd work for drawings, as we use it mostly to make stop motion video with Kai's superhero figures! But I don't see why it wouldn't work.
Jo









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

Brie Jontry had a problem posting. This is from her:




Pencil might be a good place to start. It's free, and there are a lot of good tutorials on the website and on YouTube. It might work best for you to watch them either alone, and show Sid the important bits about frames and onion skins, etc; or watch them together, depending on how he best soaks up that kind of information.

http://www.pencil-animation.org

Animation-Ish, which is made by Toon Boom, is another inexpensive program geared for kids.

http://www.toonboom.com/products/animationish/

Brie

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

mrsmakeen

We picked up a book a few months back called the Klutz Book of Animation 
It led us to a website where you can download software called "SAM Animation" for free with the purchase of the book: klutz.com/ani 
Also with that link you can watch some very funny sample videos that others made with the software.  

My then 8 & 5-yr olds had a lot of fun with it and made some nice videos, nothing as sophisticated as the samples but a lot of fun for them.  (I had fun too, having never used animation software before!)  We even posted one on youtube and they got such a kick out of seeing how many views the video got.  

(as I'm typing this, the kids just got re-interested, seeing the book sitting on my lap -- they're now watching funny stop-animation videos on the iPad, laughing out loud! -- thanks for a little inspiration with strewing today :)) 
Sue

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

zurro

we play a fun animation app called Toontastic

Laura Zurro

--- In [email protected], Kristin Elkoshairi <kelkoshairi@...> wrote:
>
> My kids enjoy an iPad app called Dink. It is $0.99.
>
> Kristin Elkoshairi
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 23, 2012, at 6:41 AM August/23/12, Sanjeevani Pandit wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > My 6 year old son Sid is interested in making animation from cartoon
> > characters that he has drawn himself on paper.
> >
> > He uses both a windows laptop as well as an ipad.
> >
> > Do you have any suggestions on good if possible freeware animation
> > applications that would be easy to use for a 6 year old?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Sanju
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Meredith

I've been unable to post for a few days (Yahoo glitch) and see that others have mentioned Mo's favorites: Pencil and Scratch.

One other thought for someone who likes to draw and wants to put drawings on the computer is to get a drawing tablet with pen

http://tinyurl.com/9cwzw7r

- it connects to any computer like a mouse, and can even be used in place of a mouse for other applications. The pen is pressure sensitive, unlike a mouse, so you can make harder and softer lines the way you do drawing by hand, and the more sophisticated (and expensive) varieties have a variety of tips, including brush tips.

It takes a little practice, and if you like drawing with a mouse it might not seem worth the effort, but if you Don't like drawing with the mouse (or have a kid who doesn't) it's a very useful tool.

---Meredith

Sanjeevani Pandit

Thank you all very much for your valuable suggestions. It set me out in the
right direction. After a few misses, we have finally found 2 softwares that
were very close to what ds wanted.

First is animation-ish. I downloaded the trial version and we looked at the
simplicity of animation it provides. The only issue with it for ds was the
drawing with the mouse part. Right now I do not have the digital pad with
me.

The second one is an ipad app called flipboom lite which allowed him to
draw the image on the ipad using his fingers and then animate it. This was
a much more satisfying experience for him.

Once again I am really grateful to you all for the immediate response for
my query because of which I was able to facilitate my son's interest before
he moved onto something else.

Best
Sanju


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]