if anyone is interested in learning more, look into the 12 principles of animation! they break down things like anticipation and follow-through that fourleafisland was talking about very succinctly, and also it's nice to have a big list of things to keep in mind when you're animating. something else to note that was touched on in the video is that the more frames/inbetweens you have in an action, the slower it looks in motion. that's why having that extra frame that only moves a little bit on the claw swipes looks good, it gives the illusion of acceleration and deceleration (slow-in-slow-out, another principle)
great tutorial! but just so you know can actually take the folder system another step further. you can use the "new animation folder" button next to the loop animation toggle on the timeline and then put your frame folders all together into an animation folder. that way they're not spread out into different rows. also by doing it this way and using the "new animation cel" button, the next frame made will copy what kind of layers you have set up in the previous folder. you'll also need to assign the cels to each frame too with the button that has a little chain on it. whatever way works best for you is of course absolutely valid, but i just want to spread the info that not a lot of people know about! thanks for the video! it's exciting to see more people trying out CSP's animation tools!
@@OmegaMagus5947 THANK YOU 😭 i want to do a part two where i break that down too, i explained the way i learned but if theres a faster way or more efficient way i want to learn it to share!!
I've animated full color things before in clip studio (its great for animation!!) but this tutorial has not only taught me new things, it has inspired me to pick it back up again. thank you critter!!
i love your new stream set up w the green border and lil fishies !!!1!!1! aaaahhhh it’s so adorable and it reminds me of like a nintendo DS loading screen :3
You're doing a good job! I have a couple tips that have helped improve my workflow when doing animations: Onion Skinning - CSP uses frame by frame animation tools, much like traditional animations with light boxes. Turning on the onion skin will make it easier to see the previous and next step in your animations. For the bouncing ball, a tail wag or a pizza toss, it can help to draw the trajectory of where you want things to start and end. You can also customize the colors your union skin shows if you have an easier time seeing them over the default. Symmetry tools - You can make a separate folder to hold the placements for different things you'd like to make symmetrical if you need to reuse them. Works with color and erase, too! Vector lines - If you want to be able to reuse your line art at different sizes, like a sudden closeup or zoom out, then vector lines will stay nice and crispy~ And, you can reuse the lines for any other projects with ease. You can use your custom brushes for the vector lines, too! I mostly do this for hands, but it works for anything that you'd want to save some on drawing.
Im glad you made that point about Clip Studio Paint because I always tried to use other programs but Im just so used to CSP's tools and have my layout all set up n stuff. I never tried using CSP's animation tools because I always figured there wasnt much point in not using a program dedicated for animation
no its genuinely so good and if you already own csp like. why pay for another program is my thought right? also its stupid proof. example: i figured it out by just clicking buttons long enough and made it do what i wanted to LOL
This is the most cohesive and beginner friendly tutorial I've seen so far. Most of the time I can barely understand where I need to click and what anything means at all 😭 my brain straight up fries when I try and understand programs and their layouts so ty!!
Not an exaggeration when this is the most helpful tutorial i've EVER seen!! I went from watching in advance as background noise to actually taking out my tablet and following along. Thank you so much!!
Thank you Critter :) the way you explain things is so fun and casual it's super easy to follow along. Also I had the tab of the 3 hour vod of this open to watch at some point when I saw this upload so managing to condense that into 14 minutes is fantastic for my attention span 😭 :3
seeing a great artist like you lightly struggle to do lineart and needing to redraw your lines and circles makes me feel a lot less shameful as a slow drawer, it just takes time to get it right 💜
very informative :3 i think im quite far off from even thinking about learning animation in detail, but i have made a silly two frame ish meme in krita. for anyone else who uses krita, heres a smol tip. the process for flipping something like lineart is a little different. instead you have to make a selection on the layer, ctrl c and v to copy paste the selection, click layer at the top of the window, transform, mirror layer horizontally. it's a little messier, but the copy pasted selection is put into its own new layer so you can take the transform tool on the left side of the screen and just move it and stretch it where it needs to go. if you have very clean layers, i think you can skip the whole selection part and just duplicate the layer you want to flip. i don't tend to have very good or clean layers though so i almost forgor. there's also horizontal and vertical mirror modes that mirror what you're currently drawing on the other quadrants of the canvas. it can make really cool effects, though it's a little hard to incorporate into anything that's not a sketchy, or stylized art style.
wonderful tutorial, as an animator (I think I'm kinda good idk) and someone who uses clip studio for most of my art, I think ur tutorial came out wonderfully !! the thing I would note, is that those tiny inbetweens to end off (or even start) movements are used for "follow through" which is basically when a part of a form is less dense / more dense and thus moves on a different art from the main piece (like how hair or a tail flows differently when a body moves) !! minor inbetweens also help the brain understand where the movement is going by building anticipation before a large movement !!
the note about less is more with the inbetweens is also a great point! when I started out as a little kid I would try add "as many frames as possible" and it actually hindered the flow of the end result
OOOOHH ive been really wanting to get back into animation and ive been looking forward to this video… your explanations were so easy to follow and i appreciate it so much
Would it be possible to at some point make a breakdown of how you made the animated artwork(? idk how else to describe it) that you use at the end of your video? It's very lovely!
OF COURSE HEHE the one on my vods channel was just to tide people over in the meantime, but i figured this would make a really great edited video subject as well! ill be doing a stream on how to animate/make a pngtuber using veadotube mini and clip studio paint next monday, which will eventually be an edited video here as well!
hey! really great video but quick tip! you might want to check out animation folders. they'll simplify your workflow drastically! edit: woops! just saw you reply to someone else with that same tip, I'll be on my way!
IM SO CONFUSED THIS IS MAKING ME CRY MAN OMG I WANNA LEARN ANIMATION SO BADLY AND BE GOOD AT IT SO I CAN WORK AS A 2D ANIMATORRRR i already have good digital art skills, but i feel like im in level 1 again with all of this ;-;
@@akazasoyama_x its okay, take deep breaths! when i first started this, all i did was a little two frame animation and got frustrated/stepped away before i finished it. its normal to be scared to try something you really want to do, its a lot of pressure to put on yourself. for me, that pressure meant i didnt try animating until i was 26. i made this video so maybe i could make it less scary for other people. i know it might be hard, but i promise if you take little steps its worth it. i believe in you!!! im cheering for you!!
@ no worries! to the right of the screen (and covered up by my border during streams) is the layer manager. at the top of that manager, you'll see a few different little icons, including one that looks little a little tiny square with a plus sign over it. if you hover over that it should say 'new raster layer'. thats the button you want to click! if youre ever lost and cant find a layer command, too, the bar on the top of a screen has a layer 'drop down' menu with all the things you can do with a layer, including create a new one. if youre ever lost you can try there!
i HAVE to ask. why did you decide to make each frame a separate animation layer? it makes it so that onion skinning doesn't work, as onion skins only apply to whichever animation layer is selected afaik. i typically do the opposite (based on other tuts) where each moving element is on its own animation layer, and each frame is linked to a folder within the animation layer folder. does that make sense?? i know this is a beginner tut and not in depth but. what you do is so entirely opposite from everything else ive seen so im curious lol. unless i read your workspace wrong!
that does make sense!!! honestly - the truth is because i did not learn to animate using animation layers, i just learned by playing around in the program for awhile! ive been grouping the layers together in folders in the illustration layer organizer (like, just usual folders and raster layers) if theres a better way to organize layers/keep frames together i would absolutely love to know and ill add another part to this where i show the proper way to do it!!! people had asked how i specifically was animating and i wanted to show what id learned, but i realized that learning by just toying around with something myself means risking not knowing how to do it as efficiently. though, im always happy to keep learning and making updates ^7^
@fourleafisland of course!! i remember really liking Manu Mercurial's tutorial on it! it's a bit more advanced with some of the techniques but the setup would basically be the same as for me, pretty much how i set it up, which i think it relatively typical from how I've seen it, is that each animation layer is a moving part, so I don't have to keep track of, say, lip sync and hair movement timing on one animation layer. so the head would be on one layer, and any movement would be a frame. then lip sync is on its own layer, and then the eyes, etc. and every frame is "linked" to a layer folder. by default, when you make a new frame on a new animation layer, it'll just be a simple layer. but you can go to the layer panel, make a folder, and "link" the frame to the folder instead. now every time you make a new frame on that animation layer, it'll be a folder. it can be tedious and there might be a more streamlined way but that's what i do lol that way, you can do the entire animation (tweening and all--you can edit tweened layers by simply turning off tweening. when you turn it back on, it saves your keyframes) with each frame being a sketch, and you can make new layers within that folder for lines and colors and shadows etc. like i said im pretty sure i learned all this from manu mercurial's "how to animate like a pro in csp" video! and there's a couple others, i forget who but one is like "how i animated my short film in csp" but idk who it was and don't remember as much about it lol I'm pretty sure this setup is how celcys intended for it to work. unfortunately it's very different from how you do it, so there might be a lot of relearning to do lol, but i think you'll ultimately have an easier time and will be able to do more in the future with this setup!! (ive been following you for a while now btw like a few years, im on an alt acct hahaha)
@@fourleafisland i really reccomend derrek's clip studio animation tutorials (the original and then the updated one)!!!!!! his were really easy to follow (and entertaining) and help you learn how to use the animation layers and folders. you can actually do SO MUCH in csp with the animation features, it is an actual proper animation program with tweening and camera movement and stuff!!!! i definitely suggest looking at that way of animation in csp because it is really straightfoward when you get the hang of it!!! :D this video is wonderful too
I love the way the gingham/checkerboard background moves! Does anyone know where I could find more information on how to make a repeating background like that? I'm having trouble figuring out how to word it. I'll report back here if I have any luck to help anyone else who might need this.
i’m back from my journey of listening to the entire PMD soundtrack! The song is Blizzard Island from Explorers of Sky! (˶ˆᗜˆ˵) 🤍 Also on an unrelated note, thank you for your amazing tutorials! I recently discovered your channel and I absolutely fell in love with your art style. I’m currently working on an animation of my own for my senior thesis in college, and listening to your stream vods has really helped me get through the grind!
Can't stress this enough, that you showed where it only requires a frame out of the pose and a frame into the other key pose is king, it's exactly how to convey motion as fast and efficiently as possible. Also "Don't use clip studio paint" And use what? Photoshop? Blender? Adobe Flash? Oh please, get real. Only thing remotely close is Harmony and TVPaint. I personally tried all of them including pixel art ones. I stuck to Harmony and mainly Clip Studio cause you can not only keep some really good illustration brushes in your animation but you can also immediately make vector based animations too as easily.
My god, i love how cute your sona looks!! They look like an absolute creature and they for sure move like one too!
if anyone is interested in learning more, look into the 12 principles of animation! they break down things like anticipation and follow-through that fourleafisland was talking about very succinctly, and also it's nice to have a big list of things to keep in mind when you're animating. something else to note that was touched on in the video is that the more frames/inbetweens you have in an action, the slower it looks in motion. that's why having that extra frame that only moves a little bit on the claw swipes looks good, it gives the illusion of acceleration and deceleration (slow-in-slow-out, another principle)
great tutorial! but just so you know can actually take the folder system another step further. you can use the "new animation folder" button next to the loop animation toggle on the timeline and then put your frame folders all together into an animation folder. that way they're not spread out into different rows. also by doing it this way and using the "new animation cel" button, the next frame made will copy what kind of layers you have set up in the previous folder. you'll also need to assign the cels to each frame too with the button that has a little chain on it. whatever way works best for you is of course absolutely valid, but i just want to spread the info that not a lot of people know about! thanks for the video! it's exciting to see more people trying out CSP's animation tools!
@@OmegaMagus5947 THANK YOU 😭 i want to do a part two where i break that down too, i explained the way i learned but if theres a faster way or more efficient way i want to learn it to share!!
I've animated full color things before in clip studio (its great for animation!!) but this tutorial has not only taught me new things, it has inspired me to pick it back up again. thank you critter!!
i love your new stream set up w the green border and lil fishies !!!1!!1! aaaahhhh it’s so adorable and it reminds me of like a nintendo DS loading screen :3
You're doing a good job!
I have a couple tips that have helped improve my workflow when doing animations:
Onion Skinning - CSP uses frame by frame animation tools, much like traditional animations with light boxes. Turning on the onion skin will make it easier to see the previous and next step in your animations. For the bouncing ball, a tail wag or a pizza toss, it can help to draw the trajectory of where you want things to start and end. You can also customize the colors your union skin shows if you have an easier time seeing them over the default.
Symmetry tools - You can make a separate folder to hold the placements for different things you'd like to make symmetrical if you need to reuse them. Works with color and erase, too!
Vector lines - If you want to be able to reuse your line art at different sizes, like a sudden closeup or zoom out, then vector lines will stay nice and crispy~ And, you can reuse the lines for any other projects with ease. You can use your custom brushes for the vector lines, too! I mostly do this for hands, but it works for anything that you'd want to save some on drawing.
Redrawing a circle continuously is so real
Im glad you made that point about Clip Studio Paint because I always tried to use other programs but Im just so used to CSP's tools and have my layout all set up n stuff.
I never tried using CSP's animation tools because I always figured there wasnt much point in not using a program dedicated for animation
no its genuinely so good and if you already own csp like. why pay for another program is my thought right? also its stupid proof. example: i figured it out by just clicking buttons long enough and made it do what i wanted to LOL
This is the most cohesive and beginner friendly tutorial I've seen so far. Most of the time I can barely understand where I need to click and what anything means at all 😭 my brain straight up fries when I try and understand programs and their layouts so ty!!
Not an exaggeration when this is the most helpful tutorial i've EVER seen!! I went from watching in advance as background noise to actually taking out my tablet and following along. Thank you so much!!
Thank you Critter :) the way you explain things is so fun and casual it's super easy to follow along. Also I had the tab of the 3 hour vod of this open to watch at some point when I saw this upload so managing to condense that into 14 minutes is fantastic for my attention span 😭 :3
I would suggest any newbie to animate on 12 frames, half the images and you can achieve smooth animation either way
seeing a great artist like you lightly struggle to do lineart and needing to redraw your lines and circles makes me feel a lot less shameful as a slow drawer, it just takes time to get it right 💜
very informative :3
i think im quite far off from even thinking about learning animation in detail, but i have made a silly two frame ish meme in krita.
for anyone else who uses krita, heres a smol tip. the process for flipping something like lineart is a little different. instead you have to make a selection on the layer, ctrl c and v to copy paste the selection, click layer at the top of the window, transform, mirror layer horizontally. it's a little messier, but the copy pasted selection is put into its own new layer so you can take the transform tool on the left side of the screen and just move it and stretch it where it needs to go.
if you have very clean layers, i think you can skip the whole selection part and just duplicate the layer you want to flip. i don't tend to have very good or clean layers though so i almost forgor.
there's also horizontal and vertical mirror modes that mirror what you're currently drawing on the other quadrants of the canvas. it can make really cool effects, though it's a little hard to incorporate into anything that's not a sketchy, or stylized art style.
this is a great tutorial for beginners tbh, you explained it really well thanks!
also your sona and style are sooo cute, love it!
wonderful tutorial, as an animator (I think I'm kinda good idk) and someone who uses clip studio for most of my art, I think ur tutorial came out wonderfully !! the thing I would note, is that those tiny inbetweens to end off (or even start) movements are used for "follow through" which is basically when a part of a form is less dense / more dense and thus moves on a different art from the main piece (like how hair or a tail flows differently when a body moves) !! minor inbetweens also help the brain understand where the movement is going by building anticipation before a large movement !!
the note about less is more with the inbetweens is also a great point! when I started out as a little kid I would try add "as many frames as possible" and it actually hindered the flow of the end result
Oh yeah, this absolutely helped me understand how to use CSPs animation stuff!!! Tysm Creature :D
OOOOHH ive been really wanting to get back into animation and ive been looking forward to this video… your explanations were so easy to follow and i appreciate it so much
Clip Studio is actually the industry standard for Anime production now lmao
@@r1zmy HELP FOR REAL?! I KEEP GETTING LECTURED FOR USING IT BUT ITS SO INTUITIVE IMO I LOVE IT
Would it be possible to at some point make a breakdown of how you made the animated artwork(? idk how else to describe it) that you use at the end of your video? It's very lovely!
ur arts sooper cuteee :D
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!! its much easier to follow and the animations are adorable. ❤❤❤
Catmask's mascot is like so cute its like wtfffff
THANK YOUUU ; 7 ;
I love your sona critter! It has such a nice aesthetic to it that’s very easy on the eyes and my autism can absorb….
omgosh new vid and its less than an hour :0 , thankk uuu
OF COURSE HEHE the one on my vods channel was just to tide people over in the meantime, but i figured this would make a really great edited video subject as well!
ill be doing a stream on how to animate/make a pngtuber using veadotube mini and clip studio paint next monday, which will eventually be an edited video here as well!
ORANGE LOUNGE SPOTTED😊
Also I love ur tutorials and art in general:3:3
loved this tutorial! i appreciate the simple language and easy to follow instructions
hey! really great video but quick tip! you might want to check out animation folders. they'll simplify your workflow drastically!
edit: woops! just saw you reply to someone else with that same tip, I'll be on my way!
Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed and you're very good at teaching and describing things!!
IM SO CONFUSED THIS IS MAKING ME CRY MAN OMG I WANNA LEARN ANIMATION SO BADLY AND BE GOOD AT IT SO I CAN WORK AS A 2D ANIMATORRRR i already have good digital art skills, but i feel like im in level 1 again with all of this ;-;
@@akazasoyama_x its okay, take deep breaths! when i first started this, all i did was a little two frame animation and got frustrated/stepped away before i finished it.
its normal to be scared to try something you really want to do, its a lot of pressure to put on yourself. for me, that pressure meant i didnt try animating until i was 26. i made this video so maybe i could make it less scary for other people.
i know it might be hard, but i promise if you take little steps its worth it. i believe in you!!! im cheering for you!!
@@akazasoyama_x is there anything specific i could explain more clearly too? ill happily make a follow up to this if needed so its a little simpler!
@@fourleafisland HOW DO YOU MAKE A NEW LAYER!?!?!?! I CAN'T FIND IT!! IT'S SO EASY TO FIND THE NEW LAYERS OPTION IN MEDIBANG
@@fourleafisland ua-cam.com/users/shortsvVqImp_0LgU I JUST WANNA ANIMATE LIKE THISSS !! IM GONNA CRY MANN
@ no worries! to the right of the screen (and covered up by my border during streams) is the layer manager. at the top of that manager, you'll see a few different little icons, including one that looks little a little tiny square with a plus sign over it. if you hover over that it should say 'new raster layer'. thats the button you want to click!
if youre ever lost and cant find a layer command, too, the bar on the top of a screen has a layer 'drop down' menu with all the things you can do with a layer, including create a new one. if youre ever lost you can try there!
Thanks to this video, the world is gunna get a lot more... heh... animated
Yo this is an amazing video, :)
I too shall animate my lil chibi OCs or die trying ò_ó
i HAVE to ask. why did you decide to make each frame a separate animation layer? it makes it so that onion skinning doesn't work, as onion skins only apply to whichever animation layer is selected afaik. i typically do the opposite (based on other tuts) where each moving element is on its own animation layer, and each frame is linked to a folder within the animation layer folder. does that make sense??
i know this is a beginner tut and not in depth but. what you do is so entirely opposite from everything else ive seen so im curious lol. unless i read your workspace wrong!
that does make sense!!! honestly - the truth is because i did not learn to animate using animation layers, i just learned by playing around in the program for awhile! ive been grouping the layers together in folders in the illustration layer organizer (like, just usual folders and raster layers)
if theres a better way to organize layers/keep frames together i would absolutely love to know and ill add another part to this where i show the proper way to do it!!!
people had asked how i specifically was animating and i wanted to show what id learned, but i realized that learning by just toying around with something myself means risking not knowing how to do it as efficiently. though, im always happy to keep learning and making updates ^7^
@fourleafisland of course!! i remember really liking Manu Mercurial's tutorial on it! it's a bit more advanced with some of the techniques but the setup would basically be the same
as for me, pretty much how i set it up, which i think it relatively typical from how I've seen it, is that each animation layer is a moving part, so I don't have to keep track of, say, lip sync and hair movement timing on one animation layer. so the head would be on one layer, and any movement would be a frame. then lip sync is on its own layer, and then the eyes, etc. and every frame is "linked" to a layer folder. by default, when you make a new frame on a new animation layer, it'll just be a simple layer. but you can go to the layer panel, make a folder, and "link" the frame to the folder instead. now every time you make a new frame on that animation layer, it'll be a folder. it can be tedious and there might be a more streamlined way but that's what i do lol
that way, you can do the entire animation (tweening and all--you can edit tweened layers by simply turning off tweening. when you turn it back on, it saves your keyframes) with each frame being a sketch, and you can make new layers within that folder for lines and colors and shadows etc. like i said im pretty sure i learned all this from manu mercurial's "how to animate like a pro in csp" video! and there's a couple others, i forget who but one is like "how i animated my short film in csp" but idk who it was and don't remember as much about it lol
I'm pretty sure this setup is how celcys intended for it to work. unfortunately it's very different from how you do it, so there might be a lot of relearning to do lol, but i think you'll ultimately have an easier time and will be able to do more in the future with this setup!! (ive been following you for a while now btw like a few years, im on an alt acct hahaha)
@@fourleafisland i really reccomend derrek's clip studio animation tutorials (the original and then the updated one)!!!!!! his were really easy to follow (and entertaining) and help you learn how to use the animation layers and folders. you can actually do SO MUCH in csp with the animation features, it is an actual proper animation program with tweening and camera movement and stuff!!!! i definitely suggest looking at that way of animation in csp because it is really straightfoward when you get the hang of it!!! :D this video is wonderful too
@@taudjey seconding derrek's tutorials!! theres SO much packed inside this program its insane!!
I love the way the gingham/checkerboard background moves! Does anyone know where I could find more information on how to make a repeating background like that? I'm having trouble figuring out how to word it. I'll report back here if I have any luck to help anyone else who might need this.
ohhh wait I did this very incredibly inconveniently when I tried animating in csp before pfffttt
same 😭i was wondering why it felt so off compared to my other program, turns out… 🤦
How can i see the timeline on phone edition? It seems i cant bring it to light no matter if i activate it or enable it
does anyone know what PMD ost is played at 6:55?
i’m back from my journey of listening to the entire PMD soundtrack! The song is Blizzard Island from Explorers of Sky! (˶ˆᗜˆ˵) 🤍
Also on an unrelated note, thank you for your amazing tutorials! I recently discovered your channel and I absolutely fell in love with your art style. I’m currently working on an animation of my own for my senior thesis in college, and listening to your stream vods has really helped me get through the grind!
Can't stress this enough, that you showed where it only requires a frame out of the pose and a frame into the other key pose is king, it's exactly how to convey motion as fast and efficiently as possible.
Also
"Don't use clip studio paint"
And use what? Photoshop? Blender? Adobe Flash? Oh please, get real. Only thing remotely close is Harmony and TVPaint. I personally tried all of them including pixel art ones. I stuck to Harmony and mainly Clip Studio cause you can not only keep some really good illustration brushes in your animation but you can also immediately make vector based animations too as easily.