Hello! In this article, I will show you how to animate flames in Clip Studio PAINT in a very simple way and achieve a great result.

 

Previously, I explained very basic fire animation in Clip Studio PAINT:

But this time, we will create this animation completely, from movement to color, and even add some very simple effects.

What we are going to do:

We will start with this scene:

And we will create a flame animation to integrate it into this scene:

Before we begin, you need to understand the movement of a flame, which I will explain below.

Explanation of the Fire Movement Cycle

We start with: Ascent, then Swelling, continuing with Division and ending with Reduction. To return to Ascent again, remember that we will create an Animation cycle.

Although we will be guided by the following concepts, in this new animation we will make the flame a bit more realistic.

So, the time has come to create our animation, and for that, I invite you to watch the following tutorial called:

How to animate flames in Clip Studio PAINT (VIDEO TUTORIAL)

The video is in Spanish, but you can activate subtitles in your language; you'll surely find it.

What did you think of the tutorial? I made it as simple as possible so that you too can create your own animation.

Step-by-step Animation Process:

Now, I invite you to see the step-by-step process of this animation again.

1. Scene we are going to animate

This animation only has the characters' eyes animated, so now it needs us to animate the campfire, and that's where we come in, animating the flames.

2. Animation Cel to Layer Folder

The first thing we're going to do is go to the timeline and create a: New Animation Folder.

Name it fire. Or whatever you want.

Normally we would create a new animation cel to start our animation, but this time we will do something different.

 

Once the animation folder is created, we will go to the layer panel to create a: new layer folder.

It automatically gets the name number 1.

Now we are going to create different layers within this layer folder, which are:

• LINE (Fire flame edge line)

• CENTER (Center of the flame's interior where the fire is hottest)

• BASE (General flame color)

• GLOW (Fire flame glows)

Once we have finished, we go to the timeline with the 'specify cels' option and select drawing 1 on frame 1 of the timeline, to make it visible.

As you can see, we have converted a layer folder into an animation cel. This folder allows us to create as many layers as we want, which I find great and is unique to Clip Studio PAINT.

3. Pen Tool

Now we are ready to start animating. For this, we will draw with the Pen tool, in Sub tool: Textured.

4. Key Pose 1

We select the LINE layer and will make the first drawing of our animation. As I explained earlier, we will start with the ascent of the flame, which is as follows:

5. Editing the Flame Animation Folder

Before continuing, we are going to set the duration of the flame animation to 12 frames. For this, we drag it from the right end, placing it on frame 13.

 

Why? Because on frame 13, using 'specify cels', we will select drawing 1, which will serve as a guide to correctly create the flame animation cycle.

And finally, we leave the blue bracket on frame 12, which will be the duration of the flame.

6. Key Poses of the Flame Animation

Now on the timeline, we go to frame 3 to create a: New Animation Cel.

Once this new animation cel is created, we rename it to 3 in the layer panel to continue working in order.

As you can see, when creating this new animation cel in the layer panel, a new layer folder has been created with all the layers we previously created, even with the same names.

This will happen with each new animation cel we create in this animation folder.

Which I think is great and worth using! It will save us a lot of time.

To make this new drawing, we will activate onion skin, which will allow us to see the previous and next drawings:

And this would be the key drawing for frame 3.

Key Pose 3 (Frame 5)

We already have 2 drawings; now let's go for the third, which will be located on frame 5. We create a new animation cel and rename it to 5 in the layer panel. We select the Line layer, activate onion skin, and make this drawing, which will represent the concept: Swelling.

Key Pose 4 (Frame 7)

We go to frame 7 to create a: New Animation Cel, and in the layer panel, we rename it to 7.

We select the Line layer and activate onion skin on the timeline to continue with this new drawing. This drawing represents the concept: Division.

Key Pose 5 (Frame 9)

The next drawing we are going to make is on Frame 9. We create a new animation cel and rename it to 9 in the layer panel.

We select the Line layer, activate onion skin, and create this new drawing. This will represent the concept of: Reduction.

Key Pose 6 (Frame 11)

Finally, we are going to create the drawing for frame 11. We create a new animation cel and rename it in the layer panel.

We select the Line layer, activate onion skin, and make this new drawing, which will be the last key drawing of our animation.

Key Drawings of the Flame Animation

This is the animation with the key drawings we have achieved so far:

7. Inbetweens

Now it's time to smooth the flame movement. For this, we will create new animation cels on frames: 2-4-6-8-10-12. Always activating onion skin when drawing, to see the previous and next drawings.

Inbetween Frame 2

Inbetween Frame 4

Inbetween Frame 6

Inbetween Frame 8

Inbetween Frame 10

Inbetween Frame 12

Flame Animation with Inbetweens

8. Base Color of the Animation

The first thing we are going to do is hide all the layers of the animation scene, leaving only the animation folder called FUEGO (FIRE) visible, which is where the animation we have been working on is located.

Then we go into each drawing and select the BASE layer, which is where we are going to paint.

And to paint, we select the Fill tool, in Sub tool: Refer to other layers.

And we click to paint the area of the flame.

For this, we will continue to use the same color with which we drew the flame's outline.

And we do the same with each of the animation drawings, achieving the following result:

Flame animation with base color

9. Core of the flame animation

Now, on the layer named CENTER, with the pen tool, we are going to draw the center of the flame.

For this, we will be guided by the shape of the flame, making some small changes, and we will choose an orange color.

Doing the same with each of the animation drawings, we can achieve the following result:

Flame animation with the core

10. Flame Glow

Now we are going to make all the layers of the animation project visible again.

Next, we enter the fire animation folder, in drawing 1, and select the layer: GLOW.

Then we select the Airbrush tool, in Sub tool: Soft.

To paint the edge of the flame with the same orange color used previously.

And by doing the same on all the drawings, we can achieve the following result:

Flame animation with glow

11. Post-production

Now we are going to make some adjustments that will further improve our animation.

The first is to extend the blue bracket to frame 24, which will be the final duration of our animation.

Then we select with the cursor at the top of the flame animation.

Right-click, copy.

Now we advance to frame 13, select it.

Right-click, paste.

And done, we have duplicated the animation.

Now I'm going to make a very simple light animation I made visible.

Which helps it look like this:

Flame animation with ambient light

General environment

And to make our flame animation integrate much more into the scene, we are going to do the following: We are going to create a new raster layer above all the background elements.

We name it: Environment

And we paint with the fill tool located at the top, using the same orange color as the center of the flame.

Now, in the blending modes, we are going to change from Normal to Multiply.

And now our scene is much better and all the elements are more integrated.

12. Export Animation

Finally, we will export our animation; it's something simple that we all know, but it's worth doing again.

Go to File – Export Animation – Movie (You can also export it as .gif format if you want)

In the next window, we can give our animation a name and choose the format; I will choose .mp4

Then this window appears where we have the video dimensions to be exported and also the frames per second. We click OK and our animation will begin to export.

And done! We have finished and exported our animation, now let's watch it.

13. Final Flame Animation

This is the animation we have achieved; it's simple but turned out great!

As you could see, animating a flame is simple. I hope you can achieve it too! See you in the next TIP!