Toontastic
Toontastic is a fantastic cartoon creation tool on your iPad. This is a very accessible tool that can be used by children as young as five and be enjoyed just as much by big kids such as myself. Toontastic’s interface is separated into 5 easy steps to create your own cartoon.
Step 1: Story Arc
In the Story Arc you develop your story structure. This is a great aspect of toontastic and really introduces the concept of how a good narrative story should be structured. You start with the ‘setup’ where you introduce your characters and the story setting. Then the ‘conflict’ where you create a problem for your main character. The next aspect is the ‘challenge’, where you can if you choose to make the problem even more difficult. Then comes the ‘Climax’ and ‘Resolution’. All of these scenes are interchangeable and you can add more scenes if you wish.
Step 2: Setting
Once you have chosen a scene to edit from the ‘Story Arc’, it is time to choose a setting for that scene. There are a few standard settings to choose from or you can draw your own scenes. You can also purchase more play sets that includes scenes and characters.
Step 3: Characters
After you have chosen your setting you then need to pick your characters. Again you can choose from the characters that come with the app or draw your own. You can also purchase more by getting a play set via an in app purchase.
Step 4: Animation
This is the most exciting bit, animating your characters and giving them a voice. First you can place your characters where you would like them to start within your scene. You then press the ‘Start Animation’ button and go about moving your characters around narrating your story or speaking for your characters to tell the story. When you’ve finished click ‘Stop Animation’. Then move onto your next scene.
Step 5: Music
After animating your scene you a brought to the ‘Music’ section. Here you choose an appropriate emotion that coveys the essence of your scene. You then need to decide on the degree of that emotion to convey. This will determine the strength of music that will appear in each scene.
Once you have finished with your cartoon you can sit back and enjoy what you have created. Cartoons can be shared on ‘Toontube’ once you have created an account. An email will be sent to the parent’s account for approval of a cartoon before it can be viewed online.
I can see ‘Toontastic’ being used successfully in a classroom to assist students with developing their narrative story telling skills. This app could greatly assist reluctant writers or those students needing to build their vocabulary in describing a story.
Below is a promotional video from Launchpad toys the creators of Toontastic.
Toontastic from Thushan Amarasiriwardena on Vimeo.
iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toontastic/id404693282
