✨ Introduction

Hi! I'm Maya Kalico and this is my first Tips ✨ Today I'm going to share with you how to make a super easy animation in Clip Studio Paint's Simple Mode. I hope you have a lot of fun making yours too! Shall we?

○ Follow along with the video

💬 AI subtitles and dubbing are available in different languages.

1) Basic Concepts

A movement in animation is made of several images in sequence. These images are flipped very quickly between them, making the action happen. Each image in this sequence is called a Frame. How quickly we pass between one frame and another depends on the FPS: Frames per Second.\n\nLet's head to Clip Studio Paint and we'll understand better!

2) Initial Settings

2.1) Canvas Size

• On the Clip Studio Paint home screen, click Draw and then New Project;\n>\n> • Select the Animation tab;\n>\n> • Click on 1080x1080px\nYou can create an illustration and then turn it into an animation if you want, but today we're going to start directly with the animation.\n\nSince we're making an emote/avatar, it's important that the dimensions are square to fit better.

2.2) Frames per second

Clip Studio Paint's Simple Mode has a default of 12 frames per second, which is great because it means we only have to draw 12 images for each second of animation (we can always duplicate, you'll see!)

Think of a basketball. Essentially it has three movements: Throwing it on the ground, hitting the ground, and returning to your hand. But only these three movements passing very quickly between them will make the animation very stiff, observe:

So, we add more movements between these three main ones, making the animation more fluid:

2.3) Onion Skin

In Clip Studio Paint, the previous frame is lilac and the next frame is green. You can enable or disable the Onion Skin view via the Timeline: at the bottom of the screen, click the 3 dots and enable/disable Onion Skin.

Onion Skin is the term used for the preview of the frames before and after the current frame. This way, you can plan exactly which parts of the drawing should move and which should stay in place for the animation to be very fluid.

3) Planning your Animation

3.1) Emote Design

The Emote design will be made according to your style! It's important to remember that emotes usually focus only on the face (using facial expression and a little bit of the neck). Remember that the emote will be scaled down, so the expression needs to be very clean.\n\nFor our case, I made a design I like: giant eyes, lots of eyelashes, and a big ear. I think characters like this are very cute!\n\nTake your time with a sketch. I like to use charcoal or mechanical pencil brushes for this part, in red. Then I create a new layer and trace the final design that I liked, observe:

Use different tools to support your work: I used the Transform tool to adjust the face size inside the square. You can also use the Selection tool to copy and paste different parts of the drawing, like the eye :)

01\. Start creating your drawing (here I used the Draw > Charcoal brush);\n02\. I use the Transform tool to adjust the size and alignment of the head;\n03\. Continue your drawing until you're satisfied with the design;\n04\. Start doing the lineart (here I used the Pen > Rough Pen brush);\n05\. If you want an element to be exactly the same, use the Select tool and copy and paste, as I did with my character's eye;\n06\. Finalize the lineart.\n\n

3.2) Choosing What to Animate

Now looking at your design, choose what you want to animate! In my case, as I like very expressive eyes, I want my character to blink nicely.\n\nAnother cool point is that since we're in Simple Mode, you feel like you have a lot of freedom to go back and forth in your design. You'll see that during the process, I decided it would also be cool to have a little hand waving goodbye :)\n\nRemember, the fun of the process is the best part. Feel free to go back and forth on your design or your decisions if you feel like it.

4) Animating

4.1) Creating Frames

To create a new frame: \n>\n> + Tap the first frame on the timeline;\n>\n> + Select Duplicate.\n>\n> This way, it creates a new frame for your animation, copying all the layers of your initial design along with it!

Now that you have your design, let's start our animation! Remember what we talked about at the beginning regarding frames? It's time to create the first step of our movement: \n\nThis bottom bar with the play button is called the Timeline. All our frames will be there. Tap the first frame and click Duplicate. This will make all the layers of your design be copied to this new frame.\n\nThis type of action makes it easier when we want to be sure that everything will be aligned, but you can also click the + button and create a completely empty new frame. If you have onion skin enabled, you will only see the shadow of the previous frame and nothing else.

01\. I hid all the layers of the duplicated frame and the only thing we can see is the previous frame, which due to the Onion Skin, appears here in lilac;\n02\. I use the design sketch to erase and plan how the blinking eye design will be;\n03\. When I'm satisfied, I unhide the main layer and redraw the eye in the middle of the blinking movement.

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// Animation details:

I decided that for the blinking movement I would only do 3 frames:\n\n+ Eye open\n+ Eye half-closed\n+ Eye fully closed\nTo loop it, just duplicate the middle frame (Eye half-closed) and my character could be blinking all day long xD

Want to add a special touch and more personality? I chose to also animate the eyebrows during the blink, so it looks more natural and gives the impression that there's much more movement than just the eye.

Extra Tip: You can also adjust the time a movement lasts just by duplicating frames and reorganizing them. With this example design of mine, I duplicated the open eye twice, the half-closed eye twice, and the fully closed eye twice. This way the blinking movement happened with less speed.

4.2) Using Other Tools

4.2.1) Transform Tool > Scale/Rotate

Remember I mentioned I decided I wanted my character waving goodbye? \n\nSo, I drew the little hand in the final position and using the Transform tool, I created new frames, dragging the hand down and reorganizing the frames in reverse.

4.2.2) Transform Tool > Puppet Warp

Within the Transform tool, we have several options to use. A very cool one for animations is Puppet Warp!

Basically with the Puppet Warp tool, we can define where the character's “joints” are and create distortions that will simulate movements.\n\nFor example, our wrist is a “joint” between the arm and the hand. It dictates most hand movements. So, for our goodbye to look nice, here's how to use it:

• Select the Transform tool;\n>\n> + Switch to Puppet Warp;\n>\n> + Adjust the selection using Expand Selection;\n>\n> + Tap where you want to create the “joint” points.

Remember: Each stage of the movement should be a frame, so create new frames and keep using the Puppet Warp tool to create the movement the way you want.

4.3) Coloring your animation

You will color your animation the same way you usually color illustrations in Simple Mode! You can color the animation as you create each frame or all at once at the end, I chose to color everything at the end.

4.3.1) Define what coloring style you will use

Think about the visual style you want to achieve in the end. Is it something more consistent? Something more fluid and natural?\n\nThinking specifically about an emote that will be very small, I don't recommend using brushes that have a lot of detail or are very natural.\n\n> Example: A brush like the watercolor edge will be almost unnoticeable at the size of the emote; furthermore, it can hinder the definition of your drawing.\n\nI recommend using solid color brushes with little texture. But, if that's your goal or you want to use other types of brushes: experiment! The important thing is that it looks like you and the way you find most beautiful.

4.3.2) Create a color palette

Creating a color palette is super easy and will help us maintain consistency in the animation. If you just pick a random orange for the shirt and in the next frame you don't get the same color, every frame will have a slight difference and this can be distracting.\n\nHere's how to create a palette:

01\. Tap the main color selector;\n02\. Tap the color palette title;\n03\. Tap the + symbol (if you like an existing palette, you can just select it at this stage);\n04\. Tap “New Color Set”.

Then just give the palette a name and select each color you want:\n\n> + Slide the selector to the color you want to save;\n>\n> + Tap the + symbol to add to your palette.

Since my character's head doesn't move during the animation, I used the Lasso Selection tool and outlined the entire head. That way, you just use the bucket on each frame and color faster.

All the resources you already know for faster coloring, available in Simple Mode, will also work when we create an animation. Enjoy!

5) Exporting your Animation

Yes! We've reached the best part: Seeing our animation ready!\n\nExporting is super simple:

• In the top right corner, tap the 3 dots;\n>\n> + Tap “Export animation”;\n>\n> + Tap “Save to device”.

Clip Studio Paint will show a preview of your animation. If you're satisfied with the result, click Save.\n\nIf you want to make any adjustments, click the back arrow on the left side and make adjustments.

You can also preview the animation via the timeline by clicking the Play button.

And that's it! You have your animated emote to use wherever you want :D

✨ Acknowledgments and Materials

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for your patience! I hope this Tips helps you in some way.\n\nIt was super fun creating this emote and Simple Mode really makes the animation process very easy and light. It's a great way to explore and start making animations.\n\nUntil next time. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions and I'll respond and help however I can.\n\nKisses!

// Brushes used:\n+ Default Crayon Brush\n+ Default Rough Pen Brush