Hello! In this article I will teach you how to animate a Flower in Clip Studio PAINT!

We will create a simple animation of a flower in the wind, but first, we'll understand how to draw it.

Flower Design

For this animation, I'm going to use a beautiful flower called Lily, and the design is as follows:

The lines in the center of the flower petals are very important; they are the key to animating our flower :)

Once we have understood the design of the Lily flower, we can begin our animation.

This is the animation we will create:

I'm going to make 2 animations, one for Clip Studio PAINT PRO users and another for Clip Studio PAINT EX users.

So that everyone can make this animation!

Clip Studio PAINT PRO Version

Clip Studio PAINT EX Version

If you're excited about the idea, I invite you to watch my super tutorial called:

How to animate a flower in Clip Studio PAINT (TUTORIAL)

Remember to activate the subtitles in your language; you'll surely find them :)

What did you think of the video? We learned in a simple way how to animate a beautiful flower in the wind.

Step-by-step process

Now, I want us to review what we've learned:

1. Project Creation

Go to File - New and create an Animation project with the following characteristics:

2. Timeline

Go to the Window - Timeline menu to make this important panel visible.

3. Sub View

This panel is located next to the Viewer. Once activated, click on the folder called Import.

And we look for the flower design file, which will be a Lily.

Now we have the reference we previously made visible to be able to animate.

4. Pencil Tool

We draw the sketch with the pencil tool. In my case, I really like a brush I downloaded from Clip Studio PAINT Assets, which I'm sharing with you; it's free:

5. First Key Drawing of the Animation

We choose frame 1 on the timeline and create the first key drawing, using our previously made design, visible in the Sub View panel, as a guide.

For now, we edit the duration of the animation folder to 7 frames and leave the animation's duration on the same frame.

Now, to make this an animation cycle, we select frame 7 and then select Specify Cels.

And we select the only drawing we have for now, frame 1.

6. Second Key Drawing of the Animation

We select frame 5 and add a New animation cel.

We change its name on the left side, using the same name as the frame's location.

And we activate the tool: Enable Onion Skin.

And we begin to draw the second key drawing.

We are going to make a smooth movement, as this flower is delicate.

7. Animation Breakdown

We go to Frame 3 and create a new animation cel, renaming it to 3 to continue working in order.

Don't forget to activate the Enable Onion Skin tool so you can see both the previous and subsequent drawings.

And the drawing will be like this:

8. Intermediate Drawings or In-betweens

Now we are going to add new drawings to the remaining frames; this will help smooth the flower's movement.

First, we do it in Frame 2.

Then in frame 4.

And finally, in frame 6.

9. Animation Sketch

And for now, we have the following result:

10. Animation Line Art

For the clean-up of the animation, we are going to create a new animation folder on the timeline.

And inside this new animation folder, we create a New animation cel in frame 1.

In frame 1, in the layers panel, we will create a: New Layer Folder and change its name to the same as the frame, 1.

And we create the following layers inside this new layer folder: Color, Shadow, Highlights, and Line. If you want, you can make the line layer a vector layer. This is one of my favorite features in Clip Studio PAINT!

We select the animation folder called Lily and activate the option: Layer Color, then lower the opacity to 50%.

We select the Line layer and use the pen tool to clean up the animation. In my case, I'll use the Textured sub-tool to give the animation an artistic touch.

Once we have cleaned up the first drawing, we will go to another frame to create a new animation cel.

And you'll notice in the layers panel that the new frame created has all the previously created layers, with the same order and names. Something great about Clip Studio!

And we get the following result:

11. Animation Color

We select the Color layer to paint the base color of the flower animation.

We select the Fill tool. In the Sub Tool, we choose: Refer to other layers. This allows us to paint on another layer, and it will read all visible strokes in the workspace.

We will take the colors from the initial design. To do this, we go to the Sub View panel, select the Eyedropper tool (Dropper) from the Sub View panel, and select the color we want to paint. By clicking, we will paint the areas of our flower.

And on the shadow layer, we can paint other colors of our flower. If you want, you can activate the option: Clip to layer below.

On the Highlights layer, we can add other details.

And we finish with the color for all frames of the animation.

12. Animation Color Preview

We play our animation and we have our flower animated in the wind, but we can still add more things :)

13. Animation Duration

We extend the duration of our animation to 24 frames, as we originally had it.

Now we will duplicate the animation to complete the total duration. To do this, we select the animation at the top; you will see that the cursor changes to a hand.

Then, with a right-click, we activate: Copy

And in the frame following the end of the animation, with a right-click, we activate: Paste.

And we managed to duplicate our animation to complete the final duration.

14. Animation Background

To prevent the flower from being so lonely, I have added a swaying grass animation that integrates very well.

The background we will use will be a sky found in Clip Studio PAINT's materials. Go to the option: Material and search for the sky.

We take it and import it into the animation.

If we want, we can move this sky to best suit our animation.

15. Final Animation, Clip Studio PAINT PRO version

This animation will last 24 frames, ideal if you use Clip Studio PAINT PRO.

16. Final Animation, Clip Studio PAINT EX version

This animation can last 72 or 120 frames. Additionally, if we want, we can animate the sky by simply moving it horizontally and creating a keyframe on the first and last frames, achieving the following result.

17. Final Animation Details

If we want, we can move our flower so it's not in the center of the animation but to one side; this is a matter of preference. Remember to do this with the move layer tool, selecting the Flower Animation folder.

We see our animation, and I think the result looks much better.

18. Exporting the Animation

Go to File - Export animation - Movie

We choose the folder where we want to save our animation.

In the movie export settings window, we leave it at 1920x1080, and the frames per second at 8, whether you created this animation with Clip Studio PAINT PRO or EX version, it's the same.

And we wait for our animation to be exported as a video.

19. Final Animations

Let's see the 24-frame animation we made with the Clip Studio PAINT PRO version.

And finally, let's see the animation we can make with the Clip Studio PAINT EX version.

I hope this article has been useful to you and that you can try animating something different, as we always focus on animating characters, but it's also important to learn to animate other elements.

 

See you in the next TIP!