2D Animation: Styles, Process and What Drives Cost

2D animation is the art of creating movement with flat artwork, where everything you see lives on a single plane like a drawing on paper. No depth to rotate around, no camera that can fly behind a character. You draw a pose, then the next slightly different pose, you play them in sequence, and the eye fills in the motion. That’s the whole trick, unchanged from hand-drawn cartoons in the 1930s to the explainer video on a startup’s homepage today. What’s changed is the tools. We work digitally now, but the thinking is the same as a flipbook in the corner of a school notebook.

At Denzong Films we make 2D animation for brands, founders and creators who need to explain a product or put motion into something dull as a static image. This page is about the craft itself. For the broader picture of how we shoot and edit, see our explainer videos or video production work. Here we’re staying close to the drawing board.

What 2D animation actually is, and how it differs from 3D

The cleanest way to picture the difference. 2D is a painting. 3D is a sculpture. With a painting, you only ever see the side the artist chose to show you. With a sculpture, you can walk around it and light it from any angle, because the computer has built the whole object. That freedom is why 3D costs more and takes longer. 2D skips it: you draw exactly what the shot needs and nothing else. A character waving from the front never needs a back, so you never draw one. That economy is why it stays the practical choice for explainer videos, app walkthroughs and social content.

There’s a feel difference too. 2D has a hand, a looseness that audiences read as friendly and clear. A bank explaining a savings product usually wants that warmth, not the gloss of 3D. The medium carries a tone before a word is spoken.

The styles of 2D animation, and how to pick one

Behind the scenes at Denzong Films — On set with the Denzong Films crew.

Most people say “2D animation” and mean a few quite different things. Knowing which one you want saves a lot of back-and-forth.

Frame-by-frame. The classic. Every drawing is its own drawing, twelve to twenty-four per second. This is what gives old Disney and anime their life. It’s the slowest and priciest, because someone draws each frame by hand.
Vector and rig-based (often called cut-out). You build a character once out of separate pieces, an arm, a hand, a jaw, then move them like a puppet on strings. Tools like After Effects and Toon Boom Harmony do this well. Far quicker to produce and revise, which is why most brand work lives here.
Motion graphics. Animated shapes, text, icons, charts and numbers rather than characters. The thing on screen when an app shows a graph growing or a number counting up. This overlaps with our motion graphics work.
Kinetic text and whiteboard. Words moving in time with a voiceover, or the hand-drawn-on-screen look. Cheap, quick, and good for social cuts or how-to content.

You rarely need a pure version of any one. A good piece usually mixes a rigged character with motion graphics and some kinetic text. The skill is choosing the mix that fits the budget and the message.

How a 2D animation gets made, start to finish

The pipeline runs like a restaurant kitchen. There’s prep before anyone cooks, the cooking, and the plating at the end. Skip the prep and the whole service falls apart, however good the chef is. Here’s the order we work in.

Script and storyboard. This is the prep. We write what’s being said and sketch the key moments as rough panels, like a comic strip. Boring as it sounds, this is where most of the work is won or lost. Changing a storyboard panel costs minutes while changing a finished shot costs days.

Style frames and design. We design the look. Characters, colours, the world they live in. We’ll usually show a couple of options as still frames before anything moves, so you sign off while it’s still cheap to change.

Voiceover and music. The voice often comes first, because animators time their movement to the words. We compose original music in-house too, sometimes overnight. For our film Kala Loka the entire score was written from scratch, not pulled from a stock library.

Animation. Now the cooking. The artwork moves, scene by scene. This is the longest stage and the one clients are most tempted to rush. But once motion is locked, fixing timing is slow.

Sound design and final mix. The plating. Whooshes, clicks, ambience, the small sounds that make a flat drawing feel alive. A good sound pass can make a modest piece feel twice as expensive, and people underrate it.

Each stage has a sign-off. It’s far cheaper to catch a problem at the storyboard than after a week of animation, the same way it’s easier to fix a dish during prep than after it’s on the table.

What drives the cost and the timeline

People want a single number for “a 2D animation”. There isn’t one. A fifteen-second logo sting and a two-minute character story are both 2D, and they sit a long way apart on price. What moves it up or down:

Length. Obvious, but not linear. A 90-second piece isn’t three times a 30-second one, because the setup work is shared.
Style. Frame-by-frame is the costliest. Motion graphics and rigged characters are far gentler on the budget.
Unique scenes. Twenty backgrounds means twenty things to design. Reusing a few settings is the biggest saving nobody asks about.
Characters and movement. One that walks, gestures and reacts is a lot more work than one that sits and talks.
Revisions. The silent budget-killer. Endless rounds of “can we just try” eat days, so we build review points in.

On timeline, a fair rule of thumb for a polished 60 to 90 second branded piece is a few weeks, most of it in design and the animation itself. We can compress when we have to. We’ve shot, edited and delivered finished films inside 24 hours, including the Groww IPO film for Peak XV and work for Accel. The instinct that makes that possible holds for animation too: lock the idea early and don’t let revisions sprawl.

Where 2D animation earns its keep

It pays off most when you’re explaining something invisible. A software feature, a financial product, a process with no obvious thing to point a camera at. You can’t film “how compound interest works”, but you can animate it in fifteen seconds and have people actually get it. It also survives being chopped up. One good piece becomes a full explainer for your site, a few cut-downs for social, and looping snippets for ads. You’re not buying one video, you’re buying a library.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between 2D and 3D animation?

2D animation works with flat artwork on a single plane, like a moving drawing, so you only ever see the angle the artist drew. 3D builds objects with depth that a virtual camera can move around and light from any side. 2D is usually faster and cheaper to produce and revise, which makes it the common pick for explainers and brand content.

How long does it take to make a 2D animation?

A polished 60 to 90 second branded piece typically takes a few weeks, with most of the time spent on storyboarding, design and the animation itself. Simpler motion-graphics pieces move much faster. Timelines stretch mainly when the script isn’t locked or revision rounds keep reopening decisions.

Is 2D animation cheaper than 3D or live action?

Usually, yes. 2D skips the cost of building 3D models or running a shoot with crew, location and gear. The biggest cost drivers are the style you pick, the number of unique scenes and characters, and how many revision rounds you run.

What software is used for 2D animation?

The common professional tools are Adobe After Effects for motion graphics and rig-based work, Toon Boom Harmony for character animation, and Adobe Animate or Krita for frame-by-frame drawing. The software matters less than the people using it. A clear script and a strong storyboard beat fancy tools every time.

Can 2D animation be used for serious or corporate brands?

Absolutely. Banks, insurers, health platforms and enterprise software all use it because it makes dry or complex topics easy to follow. The style can be tuned from playful to restrained, so a piece can look every bit as considered as a corporate film while explaining things live action can’t show.

If you’ve got something invisible to explain, or a story that lives better as a drawing than a shot, that’s the problem 2D animation is built for. Have a look at our work, or contact us and tell us what you’re trying to say. We’ll tell you straight whether 2D is the way to say it.