I was very interested today when I stumbled across an increasingly popular amateur medium for creating simple-movies on your computer. This is an update of the age-old stick man flip book that many of us once doodled in our notebooks in school. Using free software designed specifically for the purpose of making animated stick man movies, it is possible to make a 2 or 3 minute movie in an hour or two with a little practice. Then, of course, using the distribution power of the Internet, these movies can easily be uploaded for everyone to watch (or, at least, some of your friends).

This type of free, specialized tool is appearing in a million niches and are enabling people of all walks of life to make interesting and sometimes beautiful things. Granted, stick figure fist fights aren’t quite high art:

Rivalry (Pivot Stick Figure Animation)

… but there isn’t anything stopping someone with a tragic and emotionally complex story to tell from picking up Stykez or Pivot Stickfigure Animator and using it. In fact, I’m sure it’s been done, and I’ll keep my eye out for just that. I’ve downloaded both of these tools and they look pretty simple to use. I’ll experiment with them and upload my rudimentary results in the future. If you’re curious, here is a basic demo for Pivot Stickfigure Animator. Try it out and maybe post a link to the video you make in the comments.

How To Create Cool Looking Stick Figure Animations On GIF

(via Smashingapps)