There are plenty of ways to create simple animations. Creating GIFs were an easy way to start learning about the animation process, and there are plenty of software applications that allow you to create GIFs, especially within the adobe suite. I took advantage of Adobe Photoshop, and Animate to create these GIFs.
The first GIF I made was of a cat’s eye blinking. I used Adobe Photoshop to create this and I found the process to be somewhat simple. I took the image of the cat (which had its eyes shut), and took another picture of the cat with its eyes open. I selected out the eyes and placed them in front of the picture with the eyes shut to make it look like the cat had its eyes open. I then created a sequence in Photoshop and turn the eyes on and off at certain points in the sequence to make it seem like the cat was blinking.
The second GIF I made was in Adobe Animate. I learned all about the software and figured out how to tween my character. I drew a track athlete sprinting off of blocks, and redrew the athlete every frame in order to simulate the athlete moving.
My last GIF was also in Adobe Animate, where I created my name using a series of draw shapes. I tweened the shapes in order to get them to move to a desired spot over time. I had the shapes enter and exit the frame so when the GIF repeated, it would look seamless.
Gabe Walerysiak 