#finally teaching myself how to animate in krita

[doccywhomst]

trapped in the narrative?? nah the narrative is trapped w him

[wipnexus]

So... I may have had a lil bit of a crisis today...

I've wanted to teach myself how to animate ever since I was a kid, and since I'm unable to work because of serious physical and psycological health issues, I thought now was gonna be the perfect time.

It took me almost a month to write the script for my first animated youtube video and create the storyboard for the animation as well as the thumbnail, and it took me two days of recording and mixing the audio before I was ready to animate in Krita-- cuz that was my only option.

I spent several hours being confused and frustrated with the buttons before I finally made progress and made maybe around 30 seconds of (sketchy) animation...

Then it crashed.

And again.

It kept crashing every time I tried to draw a single line.

Upset by the fact that hours of hard work were for nothing, I tried to get adobe animate, which was unsuccessful thanks to their software being impossible to even download now.

So my only option that won't crash is clip studio paint ex.

I have pro-- which means I can only create 1 second long animations.

To upgrade, it's like £150. WAY too much for me to be able to afford within at least the next year.

Luckily, my birthday is in like 2 weeks, but I have very little faith that my family will even get me anything this year, let alone send me money so I can chase a dream.

So I have a Ko-Fi goal, and there's no pressure to help, but regardless of whether or not I get phenomenally lucky enough to recieve the money for it for my birthday, anyone who decides to donate will be credited in every video I make for AT LEAST the remainder of 2024 because I can't imagine me being able to afford this without help for the forseeable future.

[checkthebox]

finally decided to teach myself how to use krita's animation feature so i can make higher quality transparent gifs!

[mauesartetc]

Howdy hi! I have been struggling to keep my characters consistent when ever I drew them, but it's been hell. Others say to use shapes to help but I don't know how to do use them to get the right feel.

I think, more specifically, what people mean when they say that is to use structure to help. It's all well and good to convey personality with shape symbolism, but without a strong foundation to build on, your characters won't look solid at all. And because of that, it'll be extremely hard to remember specifics of how you intended to arrange their features. It's like trying to build a house without a blueprint.

To demonstrate this, I tried drawing one of my characters using only outlines and no understructure.

It was... painful. I've been drawing this woman for years, but drawing like this made me feel so unsteady and unsure of myself. This really shows in the results, especially at the top of the head. The hair looks too flat since there's no cranium underneath to support it. If you've been trying to draw with no structure, I can see why "hell" was the word you used to describe it.

Now let's try drawing the same expressions, but with a cranium and crosshairs to serve as a base.

A million times better. The structure underneath gave me so much more confidence in what I was drawing, and again, it shows. There seems to be a misconception out there that guides are like training wheels and professionals never use them, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. If anything, having a firm grasp on structure allows the artist to draw characters in much more dynamic poses and perspective angles than they ever could if they were only drawing outlines.

Another step that could help immensely (other than just practicing drawing the character) is creating detailed model sheets. If you had to teach someone else how to draw this character, what would you tell them? Discovering the answers will teach you how this character needs to look, and how to keep them on model.

Be as specific as possible, and don't hesitate to jot down plenty of notes, including what not to do. The simple act of writing will help you retain the information.

Finally, a great way to learn to draw anything is to animate it. You could take a brush in Krita or the grease pencil in Blender (both programs are free to download, fyi), and hand-draw this person doing whatever it is they do. If you force yourself to understand how they look in different poses over numerous drawings, you'll nail down their vibe in no time.

Hope this helps!