Cel Animation

Ah this is just the grandaddy of all animation ain't it. Old uncle Walt gave us some right pleasures using this method. 

This is probably the most basic forms of animation where each individual frame is drawn by hand (usually at around 12fps compared to the usual 25-30fps of modern day to reduce the sheer amount of work involved in creating so many individual images) 

The method isn't dissimilar to any other form of animation, draw one image, draw another in a slightly different position etc. until an entire animation is built up, standard. 

Due to the sheer amount of drawings that have to be produced in order to create a good animation using this method instructions were often created to build individual characters such as 'Mickey Mouse' or 'Bugs Bunny' so many artists and designers could create the images at one time using the same character.

Often the artist in control of the production would only draw the key frames and leave the rest of the 'tween' frames to be drawn by the production team.

Thought I'd just quickly chuck this in as a self confessed marvel geek. It shows the painted acetate spiderman which would then be placed over a separate background. This meant that the background did not have to be drawn and painted in every single frame and allowed individual characters animations to be built up at the same time.