Here’s an interesting Windows download that can help you pass the time while exercising you creativity. It’s Pivot Stickfigure Animator by a guy named Peter Bones. It’s free. It’s quick. It’s easy.

So here’s a quick rundown of great features of this amazing little software.

• Small It’s a mere 837KB installer (almost halved when zipped) so it’s a quick download. It consumes very little space after installation.
• Easy The interface is quite intuitive. All you have to do is to click on your stickfigure and tweak it’s pose. The bones (vertices) are rigged automatically which allows for a great ragdoll effect. Just keep on adding frames on the timeline and make subtle changes in the figure’s pose. It also has an “onion skin effect” so that you could track the differences you’ve made between the current and previous frames.
• Basic No need for artistic skills that would put Da Vinci to shame. Stickfigures are stickfigures. You’re also dealing with 2D animation so there’s no need to worry about depth and perspectives. You can also add more figures or edit them to create other objects. You can even import an external image file to use as background.
• Quick After creating a series of images, you’re ready to go. Just click on “Play” to preview your animation. The result can be saved in either the editable PIV file, animated GIF, and BMP formats.
• Fun I’ve been dealing with Flash and I’ve experienced the tedious work of frrame-by-frame animation. PSA’s simplicity puts the fun back into learning animation because you don’t have to learn all sorts of fancy commands and tools.
• Free

I used to use this to teach animation basics to grade school students and they love it. There’s no need for advanced design skills and artistic talent to make something really interesting.

It’s a simple piece of software that wouldn’t rival what you can do with high-end vector animation software like Flash but it’s great enough to start learning the intricate process of frame-by-frame 2D animation.

Here’s what I was able to do in a couple or so minutes:

Download Pivot Stickfigure Animator here.