For those of you who don’t know what a Flip Book is, it is important to firstly understand the context in which it was created. In the 19^th century there were little means of recording real life motion or even creating motion through artificial means. They didn’t have the same technology, and so someone pioneered a revolutionary technique for creating animation.

This simple idea involved creating a series of hand drawn images, with each image being the next stage of a sequential story. By piecing a high number of consecutive images together (which when swept through tells a particular story or gives motion to each individual image) this collection of images could create the closest thing to real life movement at this time.

By skipping through the images you could create animation of your very own, a very entertaining way of bringing your pictures to life in a way which is similar to cartoons. In modern times, this incredible technique for creating animation has been relatively neglected in favour of computerized animation.

Here this article suggests a merge of the two techniques, where you can use computers to create your very own flipbook. This can be easily achieved through either recording video of a given scenario with real people, or creating your own computerized design for a series of consecutive images.

Using either of these methods is less time consuming than hand drawing pictures, though here is an impressive example to show you how impressive hand drawn flipbooks really can be:

Nevertheless below is an example of a situation you could create which uses computerized design to create a storyboard for your flipbook.

Psy Gangnam Style Flipbook

Superhero flipbooks are recommended for this style of animation, especially since comic books very much originated from this region of design. By designing your very own superhero you can have them go through various different scenarios using your graphical skills, thus generating various photographs of your hero as he undertakes his regular activities.

It is important to use your imagination and creativity here, where this article should give you a template by which you can create your visually stunning flipbook. Once you have collected your storyboard of images together, these can be printed out as appropriate to assemble your very own superhero flipbook, bearing in mind a level of creativity which will see your ideas animated right in front of you!

Inspiration for your Flipbooks

If you’re still stuck for creative ideas of your own, then here are some more great creative flipbook designs to help inspire you and get your creative juices flowing. Flipbooks can be used in many different ways, to tell a story, to ‘play a scene’, to animate a comic, the possibilities are endless. Here are a few of my favourite flip book designs and uses:

Into the Man

This flipbook is an animated drawing style book, which shows a man sitting down at some distance, then as you flip through the pages he gets closer and closer…

Breakdancing Flip Book

The title says it all for this one!

Happy Valentine’s Day Flip Book

There is not as much to this one as some of the others, but still a very impressive piece of work and I’m sure the receiver was very happy to receive it!

Awesome Flip Book

This one looks a little funny because of the way it’s recorded, but the animates in the flip book are amazing! They are so detailed and in perfect sync. This is the best example of an animated flip book I have seen other than the Gangnam style one earlier in this post.

I hope this has given you some ideas of your own, they are pretty easy to create if you know how to draw. You could always use a computer if you’re better at graphics on a computer than you are drawing, then print out your flipbook and put it together – the effect is just as impressive as the hand-drawn versions.

Author Bio: The author of this article has been working in design and marketing for the past 10 years, he recommends using FotoMaster for all of your flip book creator needs and requirements.

Featured Image Source: scott_bl8ke