Abstract. In this paper we argue for our NPAR system as an effective 2D alternative to most of NPR research which is focused on frame coherent stylised rendering of 3D models. Our approach gives a highly stylised look to images without the support of 3D models, and yet they still behave as though animated by drawing, which they are. First, a stylised brush tool is used to freely draw extreme poses of characters. Each character is built up of 2D drawn brush strokes which are manually grouped into layers. Each layer is assigned its place in a drawing hierarchy called a Hierarchical Display Model (HDM). Next, multiple HDMs are created for the same character, each corresponding to a specific view. A collection of HDMs essentially reintroduces some correspondence information to the 2D drawings needed for in-betweening and, in effect, eliminates the need for a true 3D model. Once the models are composed the animator starts by defining keyframes from extreme poses in time. Next, brush stroke ...