I don’t need help with the artistic side. I can draw my cartoon characters fine using a Paint program.
My questions are:
Hi, good day.
Welcome to synfig world.
There are diferent ways to make your animations using synfig like, cut-out, transformations of waypints and if you want drawing every single frame, the idea is using the bones, and deformation layer effects to reduce the work.
You must remember that one thing is a traditional animation on paper, when you must to draw every single frame, after that scaning and coloring (in the best of the cases), in this times we are using digital software, and vectorial programs.
in my case, I have for example make just one vector draw for one of my characters and with that i make an animation, and remember that you will not make all the movie in just one single file, no program in the world will can handle that, all people work scenes or shots in the animation programs, when all are finish you will join together in one video editing program.
some examples:
This walking cycle have just 8 frames, I just draw 1 upper part of the body and the 8 poses of the legs, this is a little more like traditional animation process.
You can see the process here: https://youtu.be/VSD3aIi8JZ0 (sorry just spanish).
On this PinkiePie have 12 frames, but I just make just 1 vector draw for all the body then I use bones and layer deformation to make the animation.
If you want make something a little more complex… in this other case I just make, 1 vector draw for the dog, 1 vector draw for the cat, and 1 vector draw for the arcade in the BG then I clone it 4 times, I use: layer deformation, move and rotate effects on this animation. this shot have 48 frames running 12fps if you want more smooth in the moves you can put it to running 24fps, but need to set that before to start to work in the animation.
some times I draw the most important key frames of the Scenes or shots from 1 to 4 depending of the complex (For walking cycles I draw the 8 frames), then I start to vectorized over it
you can follow the work of https://morevnaproject.org/ they are making the last episodes using raster draws with krita and using synfig to animated with bones.
Can I ask, what is the longest animated cartoon you’ve ever made?
Yes, I guess I don’t understand computer animated cartoons just yet. 
It would take almost 44,000 frames to make a 30-minute animated cartoon.
Even if I have to just draw a tiny bit to make one frame a little different from the previous, there’s
now way I can do that for 44,000 seperate drawings.
So, I take it that no one has ever made a 30-minute animated cartoon using Synfig. It would take years!
Well I work some years in an animations studio with the staff of 2 animations,
We make this one on like 6 or 8 months, all handdraw but digital colored.
and this other one, same thing:
for the moment the longest animation made it using synfig (that I know) was this one.
Ah ok, there are some facts here that you are no taking in count (sorry my bad english)
1 - For that religious animations, we work on one studio, get pay it for someone just only work on that thing 6 days a week from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, some guys just drawing in pencil, other ones, cleaning the lines with ink and other ones coloring and other ones ensambling in the video editor and putting effects.
2 - For the morevna animation take some years to get finish because, the most part of the people that work on it was working it on his free time, I help to vectorized some shots to, appart of that I have to do my things, like going to work.
3 - you can find some long fanmade animations on youtube make it with flash for example but like the 95% will be really cheap animation, a big porcent of the people only use popular software like flash because all people use it, and only a small porcent of the people use opensource software because never ear of them or because they dont want to learng to use another thing, all softwares have a learning curve, and your brain always will want to do the less work possible, for that reason is so hard start to learn new diferent things sometimes.
so what we have here:
A lot of people using popular software for hours and get pay it for it VS. A small group of people that use opensource software on his free time.
Just one people doing a quality animation will cost a lot of time and if you want to reduce that time you will need a more people working on the same project, and if you want make that people work only on that project it will cost a lot of money, even the classic walt disney 2d animations take from 2 to 3 years to get finish, and they have pay it people working just on it, anime make more cheap animation and cost like $154’000ºº every single episode, and they make a lot of tricks to animate the less possible, how you can compare that with one simple person working on his own project on his free time? that is the reason because is so hard to find a 30 minute cartoon made it with synfig.
Ok lets see: you are only thinking on frames, that make me think that you have never make an animation in your live. (no onfense)
when you make one animation shot,
you make: for example 1 draw for the BackGround, if that shot take 12 seconds, you only draw that background 1 single time beacuse you dont have to draw the same thing every single frame 24 times per second, 288 times to make 12 seconds.
that frame count that you talk is just to know how many times something will be show it on the screen before a second has passed.
When you start to do animation you dont think on how many frames it will took, you will think in how many time and then how many shots it will be need, how many seconds will take every shot, and for the last, how many frames need that shot, not all shots have 24 frame per second, sometimes they have 12fps, 8fps, or 6fsp, that frame rate count is just for know how many smooth will be that move.
Returning to the animation to the last time:
I only make 3 Draws for make this one,
1 draw for the dog
1 draw for the Cat
1 draw for the Arcades in the Background
set the animation project in 4 seconds, showing 12 frames every second.
I move a little things here and there using the tools of the program, and then I exported to PNG sequence.
Now I asking to you: what is the longest animated cartoon you’ve ever made?
