6 SIGNS YOU SHOULD BE WORKING IN ANIMATION Animation, at its core, is the process of creating motion. If we are being technical about it, it involves an illusion of motion that is created by producing a series of images (or 'frames') that show a sequence of poses with slight changes from one image to the next in order to make a complete action. As a form of art, it has existed for thousands of years. The earliest evidence of animation is found in cave paintings, which depict people and animals with several legs superimposed on one body to imply motion. Since then, the concept of sequential drawing has taken on different shapes and forms: the phenakistoscope (a rotating disc with a sequence of images along the edges), the kineograph (better known as the flip book), the cinematograph (or film camera), hand-drawn and cel animation (also known as traditional or classical animation), and modern-day digital animation through computer software in a virtual environment (both two- and three-dimensional).
The phenakistoscope, showing an animation of two people dancing.
Tom and Jerry