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DS8 is getting animation software for Christmas. It is called Anima, and uses anmie style(think pokemon)as it's basic style. It was highly recommended to us by a friend. It runs about 49.00

We got ds11 the bamboo tablet too, (drawing pad + stylus) it seems excellent and he created some great animations before his computer died
finally we have another pc set up for him, but I am still looking for something to fit the bill for animation, because Pencil really is not set up yet to output files on pc, mac only (you can output individual frames and sew them all together , but who is going to do that??)

I will look at Anima, thanks! I also saw this for about $80 ('pro' version, with no restrictions) http://www.amazon.com/Anime-Studio-..._6?ie=UTF8&qid=1323268337&sr=8-6

Maybe it is the same on your are referring to, Shari? I like the idea of him being able to scan in his own drawings.

Thanks for all the advice.

I think we are going to get a Bamboo tablet + sylus and maybe the Anime software as well for DS11.

Hi Verona, let me know how it goes!...we got the software for xmas but still need to load it on the new computer.

Pencil is VERY cool, my ds loves it, and it is free. However it is not as useful on windows as it would be on Mac -- they are still working on some of the exporting of movie files on windows.
The Bamboo pen+tablet is what we finally ended up with for him and it is pretty intuitive and he took to it quite quickly. Just a small tablet, maybe 6"x8" is adequate.

But we are moving onto another animation software intended for windows and for 3d work, but that has not gone as smoothly for various reasons. Can't say much yet, but will post back.

I am not sure about pencil on oher os's...

as for anime software, one very cool thing is you can make a drawing in one frame, copy it to a future frame, tweak it a bit, and the software calculates all the frames in between to take a ton of work out of the animation part.
Also, there is the option to scan in your own drawings.
And the other thing we've seen so far is that the software allows you to create a skeleton for any creatures you draw so you can control the animation this way...ds hasn't gotten into that part yet.

There's a section on animation on this wiki. I haven't tried the sources yet.
http://web20guru.wikispaces.com/Web+2.0+Resources

I also came across http://www.animationlibrary.com/ but if you google free animation you'll come up with a list too.