Everytime I post my speedpaint on social media, I add a little bit animation on the intro and it raises some question between my follower. How do I do it? Which app did I use? So that’s why, I will explain it in this post, how I usually animate my drawing.

1. Plan your illustration

The first step you need to prepare is planning your illustration. Which parts will move? Is it the hair? The eyes? The mouth? Or small items around it? Plan carefully because when you draw later, these items need to be separated if you want to animate them.

2. Complete your illustration with the separated item

The next step is to complete your illustration with the items separated like this. So many layers, right? Once you're done, it’s time to add animation.

Do I draw frame by frame for this complex illustration? The answer is no. I use the keyframe feature. Actually, there are many ways and applications to do this. So far, the apps I’ve tried to animate my drawings are Clip Studio Paint, CapCut, and Live2D. Of course, each app has its own keyframe feature.

However, since we've already drawn in Clip Studio, let's just use this app to animate as well, so we don't have to switch to another app.

Here is the example of my animation

3. Using keyframe feature

First, let's understand what the keyframe feature is and how it works. In modern animation or video editing software, keyframes are used to determine changes in various parameters, such as position, rotation, scale, opacity, and so on. By setting keyframes at various points on the timeline, the animator or editor can automatically create complex animations or transitions between those keyframes.

1. Open your animation timeline

2. Add new timeline

3. Choose layer you want to animate

for example I want to animate the plant on the foreground

4. Click Enable keyframe on this layer

5. Add keyframe on the first frame

6. Choose another frame and arrange your drawing

for example I choose frame 30, and arrange the plant to move to right

you can arrange your object using tool object

7. test and play your animation

I will show you at the end of this post after we arrange the camera

4. How to use the camera feature

try to arrange your camera by choosing the camera folder and using the keyframe feature too

after that, you can export your animation

that’s the basic of using keyframe for animating your illustration. I suggest you watch my youtube video to watch the process clearly

Here is another example of animation I’ve made