Dan Root is a 2D animator and illustrator from England who runs a YouTube channel that focuses on breaking down the animation, art and history of video games. One series in particular is focused on Metroid titled: The Atmosphere of Metroid. He also created a video for Metroid’s 30th anniversary where he looks back at the history of the series and its accomplishments.
Dan Root
My name is Dan, and I’m a 2D animator from the East of England. I’ve been animating professionally for roughly 4 years, but animating generally for around 15, starting with drawings in flick books, moving onto COREL Paint, and then using Toon Boom at University, and then settling on three of the modern software pillars; Photoshop, After Effects and Animate.
I’ve always been in love with cartoons, starting with Tom & Jerry and Ducktales, eventually moving onto things like Powerpuff Girls and Johnny Bravo, and thoroughly enjoying the modern greats like Rick & Morty, Adventure Time and One Punch Man (never been much of an anime fan).
I’ve also been in love with video games since I can remember, growing up during the arguable “golden age” of video games, with consoles such as the NES, SNES and Mega Drive. Mega Man, Sonic and Metroid are my particular comfort franchises. I’m fascinated with video game art, often recreating pieces in high quality as illustrations and looping animated gifs.
I run a YouTube channel which primarily studies video game animation, occasionally covering other aspects of gaming such as studying the art and aesthetics of a game, sometimes giving a general review of a game, and also spending time on a sub-series of videos looking at the atmosphere of Metroid games, a keen interest of mine.
Originally I started my channel as a retro games review show, as at the time I was heavily into collecting retro games before it became an expensive hobby, and had the equipment to capture footage, so I decided to create some videos reviewing old games.
Once I saw Sequelitis by Egoraptor, I realised I should begin using my animation skills to enhance my presentation, after which I stumbled across Game Maker’s Tool Kit. I then began thinking about creating videos that were a bit more educational in tone, and these ideas have slowly merged over the last year and a half, where I also began dropping in bits about video game animation.
Upon realising that it was only Extra Credits (that I know of) that studied video game animation, I saw a gap in the YouTube community that I could begin filling, something which I suddenly realised was something I really wanted to cover and study, and so my main channel focus now is to studying various types of animation in games and the video game industry.
A goal of mine would be to create my own platform video game.
Our Thoughts
Darren
I really enjoy the content that Dan produces, you can tell that a lot of time and research goes into each video. He explains himself clearly and highlights some great design points that made me look again at the atmosphere and dread that Metroid has created. At the time of writing, Dan has created three videos in the series The Atmosphere of Metroid for Metroid, Metroid II, and Super Metroid, but I am excited to hear his thoughts on how Metroid Fusion creates dread, and for this reason I hope you will consider supporting him on Patreon and by subscribing to his YouTube channel!
Videos
For more of Dan Root’s works, please visit one of the links below:
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