Saltyicecream is a self-taught 2D animator who built a massive following on Tumblr by sharing honest, practical animation tutorials. Their content covers smearing, tracing, and keyframing, and it works for complete beginners. No formal training required. This page covers every technique in detail, adds a 2026 tools comparison, and gives you a clear place to start.
- ✓Saltyicecream is a self-taught indie animator with tens of thousands of reblogs across their Tumblr tutorials.
- ✓Their three core techniques are smearing, tracing as a learning tool, and keyframe-first character animation.
- ✓Strong poses beat smooth in-betweens. That single insight is the most useful thing a beginner can take away.
- ✓No professional software or formal training needed to start applying these methods today.
Saltyicecream is a self-taught 2D animator best known for viral Tumblr tutorials on smearing, tracing, and keyframe animation. Their content is practical, honest, and built for beginners. Posts routinely earned 10,000+ likes and thousands of reblogs, making them one of the most referenced indie animation educators online.
What makes saltyicecream’s approach different?
Most animation tutorials either assume you already know the theory or drown you in jargon. Saltyicecream does neither. Their starting point is refreshingly direct: art is not a science, there is no correct methodology, there are no definitive facts. That disclaimer removes the pressure beginners feel and replaces it with curiosity.
Three principles run through all of their work. Start with the big moves, fill in the details later. Study other animators actively, not passively. And most importantly: movement beats smoothness. A choppy animation with strong poses beats a fluid one with weak poses every time.
Smearing: the technique behind every great action scene
What is smearing?
Smearing is a set of techniques that bridge two or more frames by distorting, blurring, or multiplying an object to create the illusion of fast motion. In live-action film, a fast-moving object blurs naturally on camera. In 2D animation, you have to fake that blur by hand. Without smearing, a sword swing or a punch looks stiff. With it, those same two frames feel physical and fast.
Saltyicecream demonstrated this with a sword animation. They tried every major smear type on the same sequence and documented what worked, what did not, and why.
The four main smear types
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Warping
Stretch or distort the object between start and end position. Best for weapons, limbs, and falling objects.
Beginner |
Speedlining
Rough, jagged lines along the edges suggest motion. Common in anime action. Adds character pure warping misses.
Beginner |
Doubling
Show two offset versions at once. The brain reads them as a single object moving through space.
Intermediate |
Motion Blur
The object becomes soft and fuzzy along its path. Emphasizes impact weight. Film uses this constantly.
Intermediate |
The mix-and-match method
Here is what most tutorials skip: the best smears combine techniques. Saltyicecream tried each method separately and found none worked alone. Warping explained the motion but lacked energy. Speedlines added character but still felt incomplete. The solution was layering both.
This is the actual workflow of experienced animators. You are not choosing between smear types. You are asking which combination fits this specific motion in this specific scene. The famous Imaishi example makes this clear: a character whose hand briefly becomes a geometric shape during a fast movement. It makes no anatomical sense. It looks completely correct because the viewer is reading momentum, not anatomy.
Tracing as a learning tool: the case saltyicecream makes
Tracing carries a bad reputation in art communities. The assumption is that anything traced is not really yours. Saltyicecream addresses this directly: that concern only applies when you try to pass traced work off as original. As a private learning exercise, tracing is one of the fastest ways to build genuine skill.
They traced animations by Yoh Yoshinari, a highly regarded animator known for fluid, exaggerated character movement, specifically to decode the underlying movement logic. The result was not a copy. It was a transfer of reasoning applied to original work.
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✔ Valid uses of tracing
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✘ Not acceptable
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After tracing, try to recreate the same movement from memory. That sequence — trace to understand, then recreate from your own mind — is where the real skill transfer happens.
Keyframes: how professional animation is actually built
What a keyframe is
A keyframe is a critical pose in your animation. It represents a moment of maximum importance: the peak of a jump, the point of impact, the position at the start and end of a movement. In professional studios, keyframe animators are senior staff. They define the critical poses. Junior animators fill the frames between them. Get the poses right and the animation works. Get them wrong, and no amount of smooth in-betweening saves it.
The keyframe-first workflow
Why strong poses matter more than smooth transitions
Saltyicecream makes a direct statement here that goes against common beginner assumptions: smooth in-betweens are not as important as strong keyframes. Part of what makes Japanese animation distinctive is its willingness to hold on strong poses and use fewer frames between them. The poses do the work. The transitions support them.
Face consistency: the guideline method
One of the most practical problems in character animation is keeping a face recognizable across many frames. When a face drifts, it reads as a different character and the illusion breaks.
Saltyicecream’s solution is face guidelines: geometric scaffolding drawn over the face before any features are added. Typically this means a circle for the skull, a horizontal line for the eye level, a vertical center line for the nose, and reference points for the mouth. These shapes shift as the head rotates, but their proportional relationships stay constant.
Draw the head with guidelines, place all features relative to those guides, copy the same structure to the next frame adjusted for the new angle, add features using the same proportions, then remove the guides. The face looks like the same person from every angle and emotion.
Best tools for 2D animation in 2026
Saltyicecream’s tutorials do not focus on specific software, which makes sense because the principles apply across tools. But knowing what to use matters when you are starting out.
| Software | Price | Best For | Skill Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Krita Free | Free | Beginners, traditional feel | Low |
| Clip Studio Paint EX Recommended | ~$60/year | Frame-by-frame, anime style | Low to Medium |
| Adobe Animate | ~$35/month | Web and broadcast animation | Medium |
| Procreate Dreams | ~$5 one-time | iPad animators, short clips | Low |
| Toon Boom Harmony | ~$25/month | Professional studio productions | High |
| OpenToonz Free | Free | Advanced users, studio-grade tools | High |
For beginners, start with Krita or Clip Studio Paint EX. Both support frame-by-frame animation and onion skinning — essential for checking your smears and keyframe spacing.
2D vs. 3D: what saltyicecream gets right
Most professional 2D productions in 2026 use at least some 3D, particularly for backgrounds and camera movement. Redrawing a background for every frame as a camera pans is time-consuming. Generating it in 3D and rendering it flat is more efficient, and most viewers cannot tell the difference.
Where 3D breaks down for character animation is exaggeration. The animations saltyicecream admires most rely on distorted, exaggerated movements: mouths that grow, eyes that widen impossibly, limbs that stretch past physical limits. A face modeled in 3D has proportions baked into the mesh. A face drawn by hand can do anything.
How to start animating today
You do not need to master everything above before you start. Here is the practical sequence saltyicecream’s tutorials implicitly recommend.
Pick one software and install it. Krita is free and fully capable. Do not agonize over this choice. You can always switch later.
Draw a bouncing ball. This classic exercise combines a keyframe at the top of the arc, a keyframe at impact, and a smear on landing. All three techniques at once.
Try a face consistency exercise. Draw the same character face from the front, at 45 degrees, and in profile. Use the guideline method. Keep proportions constant.
Trace one animation you admire. Keep it private. Study where the keyframes are and what the smear frames look like. Then recreate it from memory.
Animate one complete action. A punch, a walk cycle, a reaction. Keyframe-first: start pose, end pose, then fill the middle.
Review your work critically. Do the keyframes read clearly on their own? If something feels off, that is your next lesson.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is saltyicecream?
Saltyicecream is a self-taught 2D animator who published animation tutorials on Tumblr starting around 2015. Their posts on smearing, tracing, and keyframing earned tens of thousands of reblogs and remain widely referenced in independent animation communities today.
What is smearing in animation, and why does it matter?
Smearing replaces realistic in-between frames with distorted, blurred, or multiplied versions of an object to create the illusion of fast motion. Without it, quick actions look stiff or choppy. Types include warping, speedlining, doubling, and motion blur. The best smears combine multiple types based on what the specific motion needs.
Is tracing other people’s art acceptable when learning?
Yes, as a private learning exercise. Tracing a professional animator’s work to understand their pose choices and movement logic is a legitimate study method. The ethical line is publishing traced work as your own or using it commercially without permission.
What software should I use for 2D animation?
For beginners, Krita (free) or Clip Studio Paint EX (~$60/year) are the best starting points in 2026. Both support frame-by-frame animation and onion skinning. Toon Boom Harmony is the professional studio standard but has a steep learning curve. Procreate Dreams is a strong option for iPad users.
What is the difference between keyframes and in-between frames?
Keyframes are the critical poses in an animation: the start of a movement, the peak of a jump, the point of impact. In-between frames connect those poses. Strong keyframes are more important than smooth in-betweens. Get the poses right and the animation works.