In the great tradition of Toon Boom Studio, when a sale on the previous version is announced it seems that a release of a new version will not be far behind. So when the great sale of Toon Boom Studio 4.5 was announced for only $299, I began to expect that version 5 would not be long in coming.

May has brought those expectations to life, with the announcement of Toon Boom Studio 5.

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One of the problems with getting started in animation is the cost of getting setup. Free cartoon software can be found out there, but it’s often not as good as if you had spent just a couple of dollars. Even after you find and buy the perfect animation software, it’s pretty imperative that you purchase a drawing tablet, especially for 2D animation.

» Buy Flip Boom with Drawing Tablet - $49.99

I spent a good amount of time looking for a drawing tablet to advertise that was affordable, which is how I ended up advertising the $69 Bamboo version on the right. To get started then, would cost about $100: $39 for Flip Boom and $69 for a drawing tablet.

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In this oh-so-festive time of year what kind of blogger would I be without doing something for Thanksgiving? This article will show you how to create your own cartoon turkey with Toon Boom. If you don’t feel like making your own turkey drawing, you should feel free to download the free Toon Boom template here.

Note that this template will be drawn with Toon Boom 4.0, so if you’ve recently upgraded to 4.5 some of these screenshots may not look identical to your version of Toon Boom.

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Toon Boom uses a palette system to maintain its colors. The benefit of this system is that once you create the colors for a character you can easily import that palette into any new cartoons you create, making it easy for you to maintain a consistent design for your cartoon characters. This tutorial will walk you through the basics of creating a new palette for your cartoon characters, and will show you how to save that palette for future cartoons.

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The automated lip syncing capabilities of Toon Boom Studio are both useful and impressive. However, no matter how well it translates your sound files there’s always some part of the lip sync that will need to be adjusted manually. The automated lip sync is simply not sophisticated enough to capture every nuance of speech. This lip sync tutorial will lay the foundation for you to do manage this process manually.

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For some time now Toon Boom animators have been crying out for a proper blur effect to add to their arsenal. If similar vector-based applications like Flash can manage to create bitmapped blur effects certainly Toon Boom can emulate that success?

Toon Boom Studio 4 sought to bridge this missing feature with a feathering tool. Unfortunately, the limitations of this new tool were quickly uncovered.

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All new users of Toon Boom invariably run across the well-maintained forums at ToonBoom.com. Likewise, all visitors to the forum will have a conversation with JK. He is the wise Yoda-esque voice of reason and knowledge on the forums, and is the true definition of a power user of Toon Boom.

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In honor of Episode 3 being released on cable this week (as if I needed a reason), let’s spend some time using Toon Boom Studio to recreate some of the most interesting special effects from the Star Wars saga. Of course, you can’t talk about Star Wars special effects without starting with the lightsaber.

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Flash has become a popular animation tool in its own right, as anybody that follows Aaron Simpson’s blog Cold Hard Flash can tell you. Even with this surge in popularity the question remains — how does Flash compare with a more formal animation program such as Toon Boom?

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I know what you’re thinking. Why would I want to know how to make an animated gif? Didn’t that stop being cool in 1998? Absolutely. However, when used properly an animated gif can be a useful and entertaining tool in your Toon Boom arsenal. In addition, animated gifs are actually recognized by Google and Yahoo. Links inside SWF files continue to elude the search engines.

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