EDIT:
Not in 2D. how to do it in 3d. how to orchestrate the flexibility and expressivity of 2d free handdrawing into 3d. my understanding is that the freestyle rendered and new EEVEE renderer and cycles toon shading can do the shading part. Can 3d animation be as fluid and freestyle as in 2d? I read that new shows like The attack on titan and The dragon price and Dienchantment do their environments in 3d and character animation in 2d. The reason I picked The mask as an example is, it has large variety of animation styles, Tex Avery style, most canadian animation show’s style like The martin mystery and so on. Can those be done in 3d?
Thanks for pointing out freestyle rendered. my understanding is that the freestyle rendered and new EEVEE renderer and cycles toon shading can do the shading part. Can 3d animation be as fluid and freestyle as in 2d?
There are plenty of attempts at this if you just do a google search - honestly, there are like a hundred of them:
There aren’t a ton that are great, but their ideas are right.
Just model the abstract shape (with specific features that line up with the original character, like colours and objects central in the spin) that you want and animate it (spin). Then either composit it spinning into your shot, or key your objects in and out (visibility) without compositing.
If you look at your 2d version, the original from the movie (that should be where you start, instead of the 2d animated show, if you dont want it to be “cartoony”), or even the examples above, they all just use character anticipation and an object/asset swap or hard cut. The abstract tornado and the original character dont have to be the same object, in fact, if you want to achieve the exact same effect, they cant.