Veteran animator, author & educator Tony White is seeking to keep traditional 2D animation relevant in this increasingly technological world — especially as the industry faces the rising tide of AI. To counter a complete wipeout, White is pouring all his knowledge, teaching and classroom material — as well as those of his contemporaries — into a single phone app that will equip artists with what they need to create classic animated movement, regardless of the styles or technologies used to create it: DRAWtastic!
White began his 50-plus year, award-winning career working under great animation luminaries: He was Richard Williams’ personal apprentice on the Oscar-winning A Christmas Carol TV special. Then, during his five-and-a-half-year stint at Williams’ London studio, he was specifically assigned to apprentice with Ken Harris, the legendary Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner animator from the golden age, to discover the secrets of Warner Bros. animation and share them with the other animators in the studio. At the same time, White studied extensively with Disney Legend animator Art Babbitt (Pinocchio, Fantasia).
“As I witness my teachers and contemporaries rapidly dropping away from this world, with their vast reservoirs of knowledge and experience going with them,” says White, “I suddenly realized that I somehow needed to capture this genie into a bottle. So, I decided to try to put everything I knew, and could still access elsewhere, into a single phone app while I’m still able to. In this way, the DRAWtastic! educational app will become a digital ‘university,’ ‘museum’ and ‘screening platform’ for the animators of today and tomorrow — 2D or otherwise. Technology, tastes and styles may change with time, but the underlying principles of movement, weight, timing and aesthetic staging will never change. These can then be applied to every form of animation — raising the bar of its expression to the very next level.”
White has created a beta version of his educational app, which is currently available for free in the Apple App Store, coming soon to the Google Play Store for Android. The DRAWtastic! beta contains several free items that can be instantly accessed, including the “2023 DRAWtastic Animation Festival award-winning show,” a potted “History of Animation” that White created for one of his short courses, his monthly “Animation Sketchclub” drawing/animation challenges, as well as a comprehensive list of “2D Animation Equipment.” There are two affordable courses on the app, too — a beginner’s course in animation for youngsters, “Learning Animation with Flipbooks” and a short course on social media animation, “Short Shorts,” that White once taught online.
With over 100 hours of recorded classroom teaching — plus many other courses, interviews and mentoring options (of his own and other people’s) waiting in the wings — White is seeking funding to further build up the app and add this material. The 2D evangelist has launched an Indiegogo campaign and is inviting industry partners (individuals or companies) to sponsor a specific course — or the entire collection of app courses, giving them a significant presence throughout in the process.
“I already have at least 10 more amazing courses and featured items that need to be added to the app, to make it the most comprehensive, yet affordable, source of 2D animation knowledge there has ever been. But I can’t do it alone,” White concludes. “At the same time, I feel I owe it to the great elders of the industry in the past who taught me so well at the beginning of my career. Now I want to give the elders of the present a voice — before it’s too late — so that all our knowledge, experience and expertise will not be lost forever.”
The DRAWtastic! educational app’s Indiegogo campaign can be found at indiegogo.com/projects/drawtastic. There, supporters will be able to see the supporter perks on offer as well as further details on how course sponsorship can work for industry backers.
Follow White’s Pencils to Pixels YouTube channel for updates about DRAWtastic! and other animation projects. Additional details about the app and the DRAWtastic Animation Festival available at drawtastic.org.
