What is frame by frame animation?
Frame-by-frame animation is when you animate by one frame at a time. For example, if you draw a ball bouncing up and down, you can draw a ball in one point, and then a another frame with the ball in another.
How was the animation process different compared to flipbooks and Adobe Animate?
While drawing on paper, it was slightly harder to keep the shapes consistent with the previous frame, and lining up the cards to draw was a chore. However, drawing was much easier with pen and paper compared to dragging your trackpad to make crude shapes. Although the process was easier in terms of transitioning to different frames, onion skinning, and having a guide layer and a background, drawing the actual pictures were harder.
What did I learn about animation?
There is a lot of labor and work that goes into each and every frame. Animation is a lot harder that it looks, and you need to have a very steady hand to make quality animations. Knowledge of how things would work in the animation, (weight of objects, drag, gravity), are needed to make a realistic animation. I also learned how to use Adobe Animate and making a proper flipbook. I learned about the 12 rules of animation:
Squash and stretch
Anticipation
Staging
Straight ahead or pose to pose
Follow through + overlapping action (drag)
Slow in and slow out
Arcs
Secondary action
Timing
Exaggerating
Solid Drawing
Appeal
Overall I felt like a had a very rewarding experience and I had fun doing it.