Creating A Looped Illustration GIF

1. Introduction: I believe that any motion to an illustration can help to take you one step further and create a deeper narrative. Hi. My name is Rachel Lau. I'm an Illustrator and Motion Designer from Singapore. In this Skillshare class we'll be creating Illustrator GIF. So the first step would be to sketch out your ideas, and just get your thoughts out, and then paint the one which you think is best. Next, you choose your colors and start color blocking. After which we will start illustrating your character and background in Photoshop. Next, we will start to animate it using sound animation and then proceed to animate it further in After Effects. Lastly, we will export it and you will have your very own illustrated GIF. I believe that this class would be great for illustrators who want to bring their work one step further and so as for motion designers who want to improve their workflow for any meeting illustrations. I can't wait to see what you guys create, so let's get started. 2. Concept: Let's start off by sketching rough thumbnails. They can be very rough just to get the ideas out and try to think of the motion that you want to have. In this case, I was thinking of having an alpaca jumping through the background. The one feels a bit too normal, so maybe clouds will be a bit more interesting. Finding photography references online will also help to have a more accurate visualization, finding images with an angle and posing that you want. For clouds, I want something more spaced out. Having video references of the actual movements will help with the animation later on as well. Next, we'll start by sketching the illustration. Open up Photoshop and create a new file. 1080 by 1080 pixels should be enough, but we can work on 150 dpi in case the layers need to be scaled up later on. What might be useful is to create an alpaca and have the references at the side as well. When I'm sketching my characters, I usually try to break them down into simple shapes and lines. We are sketching it out. Also, keep in mind that the more complexities, the more difficult it will be to animate, so I would advise you to keep it a bit more simple in terms of the shapes and style. You can add in the rough form, and the details will be added in later. For the background clouds, looking at the reference photos, they are all odd shaped so don't worry if aren't similar and try to have varying sizes as well to make it more interesting. Once you're done, you can create a new layer for the refined sketch. Bring the opacity for the raw sketch down to about 20%, and we can start to define the lines more. If you feel like you're lines aren't clean enough, what might help is also to increase the smoothing for your brush. It might be a bit slower, but it does help. For the next lesson, we'll learn how to pick the colors for illustration. 3. Colours: Now when we want to choose your colors, and if you're not sure where to start, you can go into Pinterest and have a look at different illustrations and photographs to see what kind of colors work together. Try to observe the main colors that are used as well as the extent colors that are complemented. If you want to create your own color palette, you can do as well. Just go over to Photoshop and then pick a main color that you want to have and then you can start building your palette around it. For the shadow, I usually go with an analog tissue to make things more interesting rather than just having a darker tool. Then for the background color, what would help to make it stand out is a complimentary color on the opposite end of the color wheel, which in this case it's a riddle pink. I want it to have a lot less situation as well so that the green is the main focus. For the clouds, I'm thinking of an off white, try not to use pure white as it usually becomes glaring. Let's just bring the pallet out, so it doesn't cover over the sketch. Next, create the different layers and label them after the different parts of the illustration. Then create a color block using the color palette that you have. It can be a rough one just to see how the colors will be implemented. So creating different layers, even in the rough cut of blocking, will allow you to explore the different colors and tweet whatever you want to without having to constantly redo it over and over again. Feel free to create multiple color palette and color blocking to see which ones work best. 4. Illustrating Character: Once the colors are done, we'll get right into illustrating the character. First, let's clean up the layers. I'm just going to group these sketch layers together so that it's easier to find. Then, change the background color by picking from the color palette. Now, I'm going to pick a brush to use. Keep in mind the look and feel that you want to have in your illustration. I want to use a dry brush because it has a bit more texture in the strokes. I'm just going to test out a few of the brushes and compare their textures and see which one will work better. The big brushes seem to be too rough and will make the illustration look messy, especially when it's animated. I think I'll go for the happy HB brush. Once you have chosen the brush that you want, you can start outlining the character's body. To fill in the color, you can do it manually, but a faster way to do it is with the Magic Wand tool over at the toolbar. Click in the middle of the space to select the area, and then go to Select, Modify, and Expand. I think three pixels would be enough. Then, fill in the area using the shortcut Alt or Option and Delete. The reason for expanding the selected area is to cover the gap between the outline and the selected area. You may also need to fill in some areas that still have gaps manually. Then, you can create a layer for the legs and do the same thing. Once that's done, create another layer for the shading. Make sure it's above the legs layer, and create a clipping mask by holding the Alt Option button, and then clicking once you see the cursor change into the arrow and the rectangle icon. Fill in the shading and repeat the same thing for the lines on the separate layer. There you have it, your Illustrator character. 5. Illustrating Background: With the character illustrator. I'll just scoop the layers together and name it alpaca. Then create a layer for the first back ground element. I'm going to outline the cloud in the same way as alpaca. But instead of a solid fill, I want to let me fill it in manually so that there are some subtle textures. On the second cloud, I'm outlining it in the same way. But because it's cropped, I'll drag it out and extend it to be completed. This is because when it's animated the cloud will float across the screen and the full sheet will be revealed. Continue doing the same thing for the rest of the elements, keeping in mind how it will be animated and you will have your illustrator character as well as your background. 6. Animating Rough: We have everything illustrated, I've just gone in and cleaned up my layers and grouped them accordingly. You can see the sketch alpaca and clouds. I've just gone in hidden the legs because we will be animating them now. Now we can go to the top menu bar and under Windows, we go to Timeline and select it, which will bring up the timeline for your animating. At the top right corner of your timeline, there's a button with three lines and just select "Set timeline frame rate". For this animation, we don't need it to be very smooth. So 12 frames per second should be fine. Then at the top menu bar again, under extensions, what I have installed is a plugin called an investment tool, which improves the workflow for frame-by-frame animation because then you'll have less depths using the shortcuts. It is a free plugin and it's below. Before we go to the next steps, it might be better if you install it first, then just drag the window down to set the above your timeline. Selecting the button with the page that says two, it creates a layer of two frames. Just an example. If I draw the leg now on this layer, it will appear for two frames and then it disappears after you go to the end of it. So now what you can do is, create another layer of two frames and then just drag it down to create a video group, which groups the two layers together to form one whole sequence. Am just going to clear the first layer and draw a rough off the first frame. You can trace or via sketch. I'm also adding a guideline, which will help me to make sure that the position of all my frames are the same, so that the leg doesn't jiggle when it's animated. Clicking this button with three squares, I'm turning on the onion skin. Just going over to the menu again for the timeline, I'm opening up the onion skin settings and I'm just going to set the frames before to two and frames after as well. So that you can see two frames before and after, wherever you are at in your timeline. Am just going to draw the legs going forward and then creating another layer, am just going to draw the legs moving backwards. So using the onion skins allows you to see just how far or close your spacing are between each move. Try to keep the movements spaced evenly, so that the speed of your movements are consistent. To make sure that it loops, what you will need to do is to make sure that the movement of your legs or your limbs go back and then forward again. Now I'm just going to turn on the sketch layer again, to check the position of the next leg, which is behind the front left leg and because the movements are similar, what I am going to do is just duplicate the whole group and just rename it front right leg. Now because the moments are similar but they are slightly offset, I'm just going to drag it two frames backwards and replace the first layer with the last layer. Then just slightly offset it to roughly where the position is in the sketch. Now you see that the movements are similar but they're slightly offset and it feels more natural. Once you've got the hang off the front legs, you can go ahead and do the same for the bag legs and you'll have your very own running alpaca. 7. Animating Details: What we can do next is to just group all of the legs together and name them legs rough. I'm just going to have bring the opacity down, so that I can start tracing over it. Just create a new layer in tools again and pick the color of the limbs. I'm just going to hide the rest of the leg layers first, so that it's easier to keep track of which limb I'm tracing. Then you can just trace over all of the sketches. For the cleanup, just make sure that all of your shapes are much neater and it's not so sketchy. Once you've cleaned up the rest of the legs as well, you'll have the full animation for your character. Just to make the animation a bit more natural, I'm going to extend the frames for the Back Left Leg and delete off the last frame. Because my alpaca will be jumping up and down, when it jumps up, there will be a slight hole, so I'm just going to extend all the first frames for initially by two frames. This next part is just to add more details to your character. What I'm going to do is something similar to what I've done for the legs, which is to add shadows by just bringing down the opacity for the leg groupings, so that I can see where they overlap. Then I'm just going to draw frame by frame each line for the shadow where it will fill up. For the cleanups of the shadows, what I'm going to do is just trace over the lines and then fill it out for the rest of the leg. It's not necessary to trace the shape of the leg because afterwards, in After Effects, I'll be clipping them together. Then for the line details, which I'll be adding, because the legs are of the same color to show some separation. I'm just adding some lines in a pink color. The way I'm doing it is to draw a line where the legs overlap, but it's not necessary to add it for the shadowed parts. Now, the animation is complete. 8. Importing to After Effects: Before we import our file, let's just clean it out. First, we'll save it as a new version, and I'm just going to name it version 3. For this version, I'm just going to delete all of the layers that I wouldn't be using anymore, so things like the sketches and visual references as well. Then head over to After Effects, I usually have a template for my working files so that they are the different folders ready for me to import my files into and keeping more organized. So there's the main comp, pre-comps, SS, audio and reference. To import the file, I'm clicking on the SS folder and just importing the working file that I've saved as Version 3. Make sure you select composition, retain layer sizes so that your layers won't be cropped off. To keep these simple, we're just going to select much layers style into footage, and then just click "Okay". As you can see, there are other layers inside the folder itself, including all of the looping which have become compositions. Just go into the main composition, you'll be able to see the pre-comp inside, which used to be the [inaudible]. Going into the pre-composition, we have all of the different groupings. What I'm just going to do is copy all of the pre-compositions and layers and move it into my main composition. Just make sure that the layers are centered. Now I'm just going to prep my composition for animation, you can use a shortcut Command K to open up the composition settings and make sure that the width and height are the same as your Photoshop file, which is 1080 by 1080, and just change your frame width to 12, and make sure that the video duration is five seconds, which is the same as your animation in Photoshop. 9. Animating in After Effects: Now let's just extend the loop to fit the five seconds, select the first pre-composition and just select all of the layers and press command and D together, which is the shortcut for duplicating of the layers. Then just bring them up to the top and drag them to the right so that they are exactly after the first set and then continue duplicating the layers again and repeat the same steps so that it extends out to fit the five seconds. Then just repeat the steps again for the rest of the pre-compositions so that all the layers that are admitted are now in a five second loop and once that's done, just go back out to the main composition again and if we hit "Space bar" you can preview the window and see that it's actually looping continuously after the five seconds. Now I'm just going to bring out the clouds layers in the clouds pre-composition and paste them into the main composition so that all the cloud layers can be seen together. Press T to bring up the opposite and just bring it down for the clouds pre-composition and then make sure your cloud layers are in the correct position. Using the pre-composition as a guide. Next let's just turn on the transparency for the legs shadows. If you toggle that button, that says toggle switches/ modes, you can see the different icons and just make sure that the rasterization of your shading pre-compositions are all, which is the little icon that looks like a little sun. Then toggle back to see the transparency icon, which is titled T in between, you're mood and checkmate. If usage it on, it should look like a grid within the square. What this does is make sure that your layers are transparent or clipped according to the layers below it and we can make sure that it's fully transparent later on. Now let's parallel our layers to make sure that all of the limbs and the shadings and the lines are linked to the body of the alpaca. Select all the layers except for the body. Click the circular icon and drag it to the alpaca, you should see the linkage from nine to the alpaca layer. I'll just click the arrow of the alpaca layer which should bring up the transformation at the start of your timeline key frame by clicking on the stopwatch icon. You'll see it turn blue for the position and then go to the next position in your timeline and create another key frame. Go further down the timeline again and find the exact same position and create a third key frame and then move your character upwards so that it looks like it's jumping up. Then let's go to the first key frame again and shift your character up again by in-between the highest and the lowest position, so it's somewhere in between. Now if you play back, it should look like your characters actually kicking up and pushing itself upwards like it's jumping. Next, just copy the second and the third key frame and make sure that the spacings are even and paste it so that it keeps your repeating itself and your alpaca should keep jumping up and down. Copy the second and the third key frame and paste it across your timeline, making sure that the spacings are even. This will repeat the animation so that your alpaca will keep jumping up and down. Now let's just off the layers for the alpaca and then select the clouds and another key frame and thus start off the timeline. Then go to the middle of the timeline and create another key frame and drag all the clouds out of frame. Now you want the timing to be a bit different so that it makes things more interesting and has a bit more depth, so then select the objects that are further away or in this case are the smaller clouds and for the second key frames, just drag them to the end of the timeline. This will make the movement for the objects that are further away much more slower. Then just duplicate off your cloud layers and selecting the color box, let's just change the layers to assign color so that we can differentiate between the two sets. Just close the layers for the first set of clouds by clicking on the arrow again so that we only see the key frames for the second set. Then select the middle key frame for all of the side layers and delete them and drag the first key frames to the end of the timeline. Now you'll go to the middle of the timeline again and drag off the clouds to the left so that they'll come back in and your clouds will loop. Now we need to offset the timing again. Select the smaller clouds and in the middle key frames to illustrate them to the start of the timeline so that this speed is as slow as the first set. Now when you play back your preview, you can see that the clouds actually loop from start to end. Now let's just make sure they're off the shading layers are transparent fully. You can unlock your alpaca layers or a character layers and just select all of them and right-click on top of them. Select pre-compose. We're just naming alpaca pre-comp and click "Okay" so this groups off your layers together and makes sure that the shadings are transparent and clipped according to the legs. 10. Exporting as .gif: Now that we've animated the Illustration, let's just go ahead and export the file. Go to the top menu bar and select Add to render queue. Then under output module, click on the arrow and we can create a new template. Hit "Edit", and make sure that the format is QuickTime. Under format options just select Apple Prores 422. We can switch the audio off and hit "Okay". You can rename this template Prores 422 with no audio. Templates are useful because you can reuse them over again for a future project and you won't miss things out. Then select your output destination. For me, it would be a separate folder for my outputs. Make sure you name your version just in case you need to render multiple versions and click "Save". Then once you're done, you can do a quick check and hit the "Render" button. Once you press the Render button, you can hit over to Photoshop. Under the top menu bar layer, go to video layers and new video layer from file. Then select your Render video and you can see it's a video layer. Let's just make sure that it's under the up button and switch off everything else that you don't need. Make sure that your video layer is at the center. Let's just extend the timeline and make sure that it's five seconds, the same as your animator loop. Just select your up button press Command Shift G which would ungroup your up button, and the top menu bar again. Edit your canvas size and make sure that it's 1080 by 1080 pixels. Once that's done, we can save it by going to the top menu bar again. Under Export, save for Web and another window will pop up. Make sure that the second option says GIF. Under Looping options select forever so that your animation will continue to loop constantly. Hit "Save" and select your output destination once again. Usually, I'll save the final output in another folder and just make sure that your version number is correct. I am just going to rename it, bouncing alpaca. You don't have to change anything else and just hit "Save". If you go to that same folder, you should have your very own animated looped GIF. 11. Thank You: Thank you for following the lessons. If you found it helpful, you can also add your projects under my Skillshare class as a header Projects and Resources where there will be a button called create project. Just click on it and you can start to add your files and share with other people who have been following along the lessons as well. I can't wait to see what different characters and interpretations of this lesson you will create. There are many other helpful classes on Skillshare as well. Feel free to explore more of them including classes for illustration and motion graphics.