Hi guys. In this tutorial I will be sharing how I added these cute and hilarious expressions to my little lemon friend.

A little disclaimer, no lemons were harm during the making of this tutorial, lol 😃

Though my sister did suddenly crave some lemonade after I recorded the video.

 

I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Lite tablet and the EX version of Clip Studio Paint.

I rotate my tablet so that it is Portrait oriented. I find that the icons look much bigger this way as will give nice screenshot images especially if you are viewing this tutorial from a phone.

StoryBoard

I sketched up a story board where I did rough sketches of the facial expressions that the lemon will make along with some other visual effects.

As seen from the sketches, the lemon will:

 

   + Besleeping,withZsfloatingbesidehishead.

   + Wakeupbyopeninghiseyesandyawning.

             + Hewilllookatuswithaconfusedlookonhisface.Questionsignfloatsnearhishead.

   + Hisexpressionturnstoannoyancethentoanger.

    + Hewillthenbeblushingandblinkinghiseyes

             + Withhiseyesclosedandstillsmiling,hewillproudlylookupwhileheartsappearnearhishead.

    + Hisexpressionthenquicklychangestooneofconcern.

               + Heisshocked,somuchthathiseyespopoutofhishead.Littletriangularshapesappearnearhishead.

           + Withhiseyeswidenedandsweating,hewilllookfromlefttorightlookingquitescared.

   + Hewillthenstarttocryandpanic.

Importing the Video

This is the video that I took with my camera. I later imported it onto my tablet which has CSP EX on it.

 

But before I imported it, I sped it up a bit and trimmed it in a video editing app on my tablet.

From my tablet, these are the details I know about the video.

 

It is 15 seconds long.

Dimension of 1280 by 720.

Frame rate of 30 fps.

Resolution 720p.

With all of that in mind, its time to open up Clip Studio Paint (which will be referred to as CSP).

 

I created a new CSP file by going to the File menu> New.

Then I set the Project Type to Animation prompting some additional settings to appear.

 

I set the Canvas size to 1280 by 720 which is the same as the video's dimensions.

I keep the Resolution to 72.

I then set the Frame Rate to 12 fps. Thus, for every second, 12 frames will be played.

Because I know that the videois 15 seconds long, and the Frame Rate is 12 fps, the total number of frames I will need will be 180 ( 15 * 12)

Hence, I set the Playback Time to 180.

The CSP file is created with A blank Paper layer and an Animation Folder containing only one cel.

I need to further set up my file to accommodate the animation.

I go to the Window menu> Timeline. This makes the Timeline palette appear below.

In the Layer palette, I click on the Paper layer so whatever I import will be placed above it in the Layer Palette.

Ultimately, the Video layer will be below the Animation folder, which is what I want.

Before I import, I also need to make sure the first frame in the Timeline palette is selected beforehand, as this is where the video will begin to play in the Timeline.

To import my video, I go to the File menu>  Movie. Then I locate my video and select it. It is imported as a File Object.

I look in the Timeline palette and notice that the video goes beyond the 180 frames I had calculated. This is probably because the 15 seconds that I got from the Video's details was not precise. It's actually 15.83 seconds.

According to the Timeline, the video actually stops at frame 191. So the parts of the video that fall beyond the 180 frames will not be played.

 

No worries, I just adjust it by going to the Animation menu> Timeline> Change settings.

I set the End Frame from 181 to 191.

I also adjust the Animation folder too in the timeline by dragging its end to frame 191.

Rename this animation folder that was created along with the file to Sketch.

 

I also love to assign colors to my layers as it allows for easy identification in the Layer palette and in the Timeline palette.

In this Sketch animation folder I create cels on every second frame.

 

To aid me in this, I set the division line in the Timeline from 6 to 2. I achieve this by going to the Animation menu> Timeline> Change Settings.

I then changed the Division Line from 6 to 2.

While still on the Sketch animation folder, I click the frames in the Timeline that I want to add cels to, then click the New Animation Cel button.

When done, I duplicate this animation folder two times and rename them Line Art and Color. 

 

The Line Art animation folder should be above the Color animation folder.

 

And of course I assign a color to each of them as well.

The Line Art animation folder is Black.

The Color animation folder is Pink.

 

I then hide these folders for now.

I create a new Raster layer in the Layer palette and on it I draw an outline of the lemon.

I rename the layer to Outline and give it the color Green.

I then lower the opacity of this layer a bit and lock the layer by clicking the Lock Layer icon in the Layer palette.

In the Sketch animation folder I sketch the main expressions of the lemon onto its Cels where they should appear in the Timeline. I also make notes and sketch the effects.

The facial expressions should fit into the outline of lemon on the Outline layer.

Yes, even when the lemon shrinks when zooming out in the video, I keep the sketches of the expressions the same size where it fits into the outline of the lemon. I will shrink them later.

 

 

I use the G-Pen with Brush Size 5px, weak Anti-Aliasing. No pressure sensitivity.

If I want to move a drawing from one Cel to another, I select the Cel I want to move it from then I go to the Layer menu> Selection from layer> Create selection.

With the selection still made, I then go to the Cel that I want it moved to then click the Fill button to fill in the selection with the Active Color which is Black.

Click back the first Cel and click the Delete icon at the top to easily erase everything from the Cel.

Deselect.

This method is only suitable for when there is only one color present in the image that I want to move.

During this process I had to lower the Opacity of the Video layer so I could see the lines of sketches to the right of the Lemon better.

After the main expressions are in, I go in and add the In-Betweens on the rest of Cels.

 

The Onion Skin feature was useful for this.

To activate it, click the Enable Onion Skin icon in the Timeline palette while still at the Sketch animation folder.

To set it up, I go to the Animation menu> Show Animation Cels> Onion Skin Settings.

In the Onion Skin Settings dialog box, I set the:

 

Number of skins for the Previous and the Next Frame to 1.

Select colors for the Previous (Blue) and Next (Orange) Frame.

Opacity levels for Start 50 and Step to 10.

 

 

If I need more skins or anything else I can always go back and edit it again.

Whenever I need the Onion Skin feature I enable it and disable it when I don't need it. It's pretty easy, I just click a button.

Line Art

Now it's time to do the Line Art, which is just me redrawing what I have on the Sketch animation folder but neater.

 

I lower the Opacity of the Sketch animation folder and Lock it.

I click on the Line Art animation folder and unhide it. It already has all its Cels so all I need to do now is to just draw on them.

With the color Black selected, I use the G-Pen and the Continuous Curve to draw the line art.

I set the Brush Size to 4px and the Anti-aliasing to Weak.

 

 

I do neater drawings of the facial expressions, effects, tears and hearts.

The brows are thicker than the other lines drawn with a 4px Brush Size, so I drew all the other lines then went back and drew the brows with a bigger Brush Size.

Color

For the coloring stage, I first hide the Sketch animation folder as it is no longer needed.

I unhide the Color animation folder as I will be filling in the line art on it.

Select the Fill tool and select the Refer Other Layers sub tool.

 

In the Tool Property palette under Refer Multiple, select the Reference Layer option.

In the Layer palette, click the Line Art animation folder, then set it as the Reference Layer by clicking the Lighthouse looking icon.

 

I also Lock the layer by clicking the padlock icon  to prevent me from accidentally coloring on it.

In the Color animation folder I fill in the colors based on the drawings on the Line Art animation folder above.

 

 

Unset the Lineart animation folder as the reference layer by clicking the lighthouse icon again.

Adjusting for Xoom Out and Blur

Now that I have everything colored, it's time to adjust them so they xoom and blur when the original video does too.

 

To do this, I can simply just use the Blur and Transform features in CSP but there is a problem…I need to Blur or Transform the contents on both the Line Art and the Color animation cels together at the same time.

 

Therefore, I would need to merge both the animation folders together before I can do the remaining edits. Unfortunately CSP EX doesn't have an official feature for this so I would have to do it manually.

Though I'm sure there are a few ways one can do this in CSP with some methods being more ideal than others, I chose this method because it's very intuitive and I only need to do it for 27 cels.

 

Namely, cel numbers 68 to 95 where the zooming out and blurring happens. This is a total of 27 cels. It starts from frame 135 to frame 190 but its on twos.

 

For this method, I create a new layer at the top of the Layer palette solely for aiding me in this process. 

I go to the Line Art animation folder.

 

Then, I drag Layer (Cel) 68 from the LineArt animation folder and place it outside above the empty layer in the Layer palette.

Then I also drag Layer (Cel) 68 from the Color animation folder and place it above the empty layer BUT below the other Layer 68.

I click on the top one which is from the Line Art animation folder then click the ‘Merge with Layer below’ icon at the top of the Layer palette.

Once merged, I drag it back into its position but into the Color animation folder. Hence, there is no more Layer 68 in the Line Art animation folder.

I do this for all the other Layer/Cels upto the last one at Layer/Cel 95. When done, the Line Art animation folder should not have any Layers/Cels from numbers 68 to 95. This is from frames 135 to frame 190.

 

When done, I can delete that random layer I created at top.

Now that the cels are merged onto each other in the Color animation folder, I can now begin to adjust them for the Xoom and Blur.

 

Click the Outline layer then go to Layer menu> Selection from Layer> Create Selection.

 

 

I then hide the Outline layer so as to not confuse me.

Then with the selection still made, I go to the merged Cels in the Color animation folder and fill in the outline of the Lemon on it by clicking the Fill icon below the selection. Do this for all the merged Cels.

 

 

When done, I press the Deselect icon to terminate the selection.

With the outline of the lemon on the Cels, I go to the Edit menu> Transform> Scale to shrink the drawings on the Cel until the outline of the lemon on it matches up with the shrinked image of the lemon on the video below.

I do this for all the Cels where the Lemon shrinks. When I'm done, I go back and erase the outline of the Lemon from the Cels.

After that, I blur those that appear where the lemon in the video starts to get fuzzy.

I do this by going to the Filter menu> Blur> Gaussian Blur.

 

 

Then, I go through the whole animation and erase parts of the drawings that overlap with the hand.

Sleeping Zs

The final thing left to be added are the Sleeping Zs. This is very easy to add with the use of Keyframes.

 

First, I created a new Raster layer and named it Zs. Its position in the Layer palette doesn't matter.

 

On this layer I draw a big letter Z. 

While still on this layer, I go to the Timeline palette and click the Enable Keyframe on this layer icon.

Then I click the first frame in the Timeline and add a Keyframe here by clicking the Add Keyframe icon.

I click the Keyframe then click the Operation Tool> Object Tool.

 

I then shrink the Z and move it closer to the Lemon.

 

 

I then go to the Tool Property palette and lower the Layer Opacity.

I then created another keyframe between frames 10 and 11. I adjust it similarly to the first. I expand it and drag it off the canvas where it should move to. I kept the Layer Opacity at 100 though.

 

 

I duplicate this layer two times and drag them to different positions in the Timeline. This allows for two more Zs to appear but at later times from the first one.

Export

Now that I'm done, I need to export it.

 

To do this, I go to the File menu> Export Animation> Movie (or Animated GIF).

Remember to set the Frame Rate to 12.

 

 

This is a GIF of the Final result.

This is the end of the tutorial, thanks for reading. I know this tutorial is not perfect but I hope it gives you some ideas if anyone ever wants to try something like this, bye for now.

And while you are at it, do check out my comic on Webtoons. It's currently on hiatus but I am currently trying to get some things out of the way before I resume it. It’s called Acid Tears. Thanks ❤️.