Animux Guide ← animux.org

Home › Tutorials

Hand-drawn animation in Pencil2D

Draw a short flip-book animation frame by frame with onion skin, play it back and export it as GIF or MP4. About 30 minutes, perfect for beginners and children.

beginner2DPencil2Dframe by frameschool

Traditional animation is a series of drawings shown quickly. Pencil2D makes it as easy as a flip book.

Pencil2D: tools on the left, colours on the right, the timeline with layers at the bottom.
Pencil2D: tools on the left, colours on the right, the timeline with layers at the bottom.

1. Get ready#

  1. Start 2D Animation → Pencil2D. A new project with a Camera, a Vector and a Bitmap layer opens.
  2. Click the Bitmap layer in the timeline (that is where you draw like on paper).
  3. Pick the Pencil tool (N) and a dark colour. With a drawing tablet, pressure works automatically.

2. Key drawings#

Animators start with the keys, the most important poses. We will animate a ball jumping across the screen.

  1. Frame 1: draw the ball on the left, on the ground.
  2. Click frame 7 in the Bitmap layer, then the + button (Add Frame) above the layers. Draw the ball high in the middle.
  3. Frame 13: add a frame and draw the ball on the right, on the ground.

3. In-betweens with onion skin#

  1. Turn on onion skin: the onion buttons above the timeline (previous and next). The drawings before and after appear faintly in red and blue.
  2. Click frame 4, add a frame, and draw the ball halfway between frame 1 and 7: a little lower than half the height (the ball is faster near the ground).
  3. Do the same on frame 10.

Each drawing is held until the next one: frame 1 shows until frame 3, and so on. That is animating on threes.

4. Play it#

Press Play (or Enter). Change the speed in the FPS box next to the play buttons: 12 is classic for hand-drawn animation. Switch on Loop to watch it repeat.

Too jerky? Add more in-betweens (frames 2, 3, 5, 6…) and animate on twos or ones.

5. Colour#

Pencil2D's Bucket (K) fills closed areas. For clean colouring, draw lines on a Vector layer: its bucket fill follows the lines exactly, even after you edit them.

6. Export#

  • File → Export → Movie: choose MP4 (for Kdenlive or sharing) or GIF (for the web) and the size.
  • File → Export → Image Sequence: PNG files, the best quality for editing.

Save your project with File → Save (.pclx).

Next steps#

  • Add a Sound layer (Layer → New Sound Layer) to animate to music or a voice.
  • Use the Camera layer to pan across a wide background.
  • The twelve principles of animation (Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, The Illusion of Life) are the best next thing to learn. The bouncing ball in Synfig teaches the first three.