Sketch Blog

My process is simple in OpenToonz. I always do my draft animation in raster. Over time, vector lines build up and eventually cause lag among other issues. After spending years as a raster painter it's also a comfort thing. And as you can see, no I don't use the automatic inbetweening or morphing or whatever OT calls it. Each program has a different name. I only occasionally use rotate and translate/position. Also referred to as motion tweening. I personally prefer frame by frame animation so I don't use the mesh, cut-out or bone animation features. If I do then it's usually for the entire animation or one scene item amongst fbf animation but it's rare. I do however like to play with those tools for fun but not for any serious projects. I made this video because I was starting to get a lot of questions about how I animate and unfortunately this is all there is to it. I don't have any special tricks or shortcuts. I mostly just do it one drawing at a time. ...

I have been working on this for 4 months. I couldn't make up my mind. At first I wanted to fully commit to raster based animation, but there were certain features of vector that I wanted to use or couldn't resist. This is all frame by frame animation at 24fps about 60 frames in total, give or take a few frames. Originally I wanted to add a texture to the hair instead of colour but it just didn't look right. I was also hoping to try a water colour look but it just didn't suit the lineart. Hopefully when I learn a little more I can do some compositing and add a few effects such as lighting, shadow, and a background I like.

In Toon Boom Harmony, how do you edit gradients? The second icon on the tool bar if you click and hold, the last tool option is the edit gradient tool. To enable a gradient, you need to first create or edit a swatch and click Gradient to enable it and then choose if you want linear or elliptical. The above video, though fast, shows this. Please do use the option to slow down the video if it's too fast. The edit gradient tool is really great and works best on vector layers. It has resize, rotate and skew and is also very easy to move about. As far as I know, even the gradient can be animated but I have not tried to do so since I don't often use gradients in my animations other than for a colour overlay effect over the entire animation. I, like many others, looked for this tool with the painting options and became quite frustrated. It took some getting used to but once you know where this tool is, it makes editing your work a lot easier. The edit gradient tool also e...