Kitted oot

I've been pontificating for months about how I was going to actually create this animation if I ever got round to it.
3D?
Nope, tried it at college and i just didn't have the patience for it... especially when your armatures are made from gaffa tape and old coathangers... put it this way.. if i had been animating a fight between Muhammad Ali and Micheal J Fox it would have been the most gutwrenchingly realistic showdown in celluloid history... but i wasn't.
Flash?
It seems like every animation produced these days uses flash and they're all starting to look the same. Most people use Flash as a substitute for cut out animation...chopping up their vectors so they can swing an arm or a leg... BUT WHY NOT USE REAL CUT OUTS YOU LAZY BASTARDS? I want my animation to look different because even if it turns out shit... at least it'll be different shit.
Cut outs?
haha...naa... I'm too lazy.
Computer?
Tried it, hated it. I've spent years in college and games companies trying to get to grips with symbollox, 3d studio max and softimage to no avail. It's like trying to animate with a microwave as someone much funnier than me once said to someone who wasn't me either.
Seriously, once they design the software to be used by a dumb artist like me and not a technician i'll give it another pop... but until then... NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.
2D?
Hmmmn... I've got fond memories of huddling up over my light box at art school, killing my eyes and encouraging early arthritis. I remember the thrill of carrying an armfull of line tests over to the rostrum and I remember the fear that I had just wasted 6 hours animating a walk cycle that would make joey deacon wince. I ended up doing 2D for all of my final year films and i enjoyed every frustrating 24 frames per second of it.

Sooo, a traditional 2D ghost pirate monkey animation it's going to be.

I've got a half decent digital video camera and a really good tripod as well so all i needed was, well, absolutely everything else. I didn't even have a blue pencil to my name. So I needed to get kitted out. I found a company online called chromacolour who supply animation materials to the industry 'offering a complete selection of quality products for traditional 2D animation'. Sounded perfect.

So this is what I got:

Advanced Animation Kit with Wooden Lightbox - Kit 7000A
12 Field wooden adjustable animation portable lightbox
12 Field black plexiglas animation disc
12 Field ACME punched field guide
1 Dope sheet pad (50 sheets)
1 Bar Chart Pad
1000 sheets 12 Field (267mm x 330mm) ACME punched professional
grade 60 gsm paper
8 Faber Castell pencils (B and 2B)
4 Berol Pencils ( HB and 2H )
12 Col-erase pencils (3 x blue, 3 x Scarlet red, 3 x Terracotta, 3 x
Canary Yellow )
1 Mars plastic eraser
2 boxes white card slotted reinforcements
1 box white card round reinforcements

Ya wee beauty. It turned up last week. What can i say? The light box is absolutely gorgeous... I just want to rub myself against it... beautiful. Blue pencils? why do drawings come out better when you draw them with a blue pencil? seriously. Is it just me? I even got excited when i saw my dopesheet pad... haha... sad but true. I'll take some pictures of it all this weekend and stick em up here on monday... ooh, and i've also started on my storyboards which i need to scan and put up as well. See, told you i was serious about doing this.