Learn to create nostalgic 90s GIFs in Clip Studio Paint

1. Course Introduction: Have you ever been texting a friend when you realize you need something extra to really emphasize your point? You finish typing, you select that app search, you type in the word scroll to find the perfect animated GIF, and hit Send. Your point has been made. I bet you find that you often do this on Facebook and even on Instagram stories and mails. Just have Truly become a part of everyday life. From regular folks, to creatives, and marketers alike, people have found ways to become extra playful and creative using GIFs. I personally enjoy creating my own GIFs and sticker GIFs that have that little extra something that I'm looking for as a designer and illustrator. With apps like Procreate and Clip Studio Paint, you can go beyond simple illustration in design work and take your work to the next level using basic 2D animation. In this one's class, we're doing just that. Learning how to create our own '90s inspired GIFs in Clip Studio Paint. Hi everyone, if this is your first class with me welcome, and if you are a returning student, welcome back. I'm Jen, and I will be guiding you through this creative course. I'm a freelance graphic designer, illustrator, and educator based out of the Midwest and I run Bella & Sofia Creative Studio. If you want to learn more about me you can visit me online at www.bellasophiacreative.com, and you can check out my YouTube channel, The Creative Studio. There you'll get a behind the scenes view of the work that I do as a creative freelancer and educator, as well as access to a huge library of additional free tutorials relating to art, design, and illustration. I'm a huge advocate for sharing knowledge in accessible ways, and I found that online courses and places like YouTube are great for this and help me to connect to a really diverse group of people who are looking to learn and grow. What is this class about? This month I'm coming back with another fun, creative course. This time we're focusing on the ever popular, spunky and fabulous GIF. We will be working together to create a set of fun and simple animated GIFs using our own illustrations inspired by the '90s, and animated using the powerhouse software , Clip Studio Paint, that we can then upload to the ever popular GIF site, Jiffy. What are some of the skills students will learn in this class? When it comes to the skills that you will learn, I will be walking you through the basic animation concepts needed to create a GIF using your illustrations. Then we will do a walk through of the Clip Studio Paint interface, I will show you how to work with the tools, the layers, how to set up your timeline, and how to use things like the built-in onion skinning effect to help you as you work through animating your illustrations, flip book style. 2. Course Project and Tools: When it comes to the class project and the tools that you'll need, the tools that you'll need to work through the class include the following: a computer with Clip Studio Paint installed, a tablet of some sort for illustrating, and a stylus. I personally am working on a Huion brand tablet, and I find that these tools make things a bit easier when you're illustrating and animating. When it comes to your class project, we will be working on creating three simple '90s-inspired animated GIFs. I'm pulling inspiration from the current '90s Y2K trend throwback as well as my personal youth but you're free to work on anything that you are inspired by. Don't feel limited by my suggestions. I personally find the era fun to work with and it brings a little joy to me. I'll then walk you through my process for uploading my GIFs to Giphy and how you can still use the GIFs even if you don't have an approved, verified artist account. Make sure you share the final GIFs that you create in the course project gallery if you so choose to, I'd be happy to see what you created. I'm really excited to create with you today. Let's get started. 3. What is a GIF?: Before we get started, let's learn a little bit more about GIFs. What is a GIF? In its simplest form, a GIF some people pronounce GIF, others pronounce it GIF. I've always understood it to be the same as the peanut butter brand, so I just stick with GIF. But essentially it's just an image file. Like the JPEG or a PNG file format, the GIF format can be used to make still images, but the GIF has a really fun special feature. It can also be used to create animated images. The idea is that it works really similar to how a classic flip book would work. Multiple pages with images changed just slightly so that it will move when it's looped and decoded in a certain way. A GIF is a type of computer file for sending images, especially moving images. A GIF is generally a short animation of a series of static images which makes it look jumpy, which is why I think it's a fun and quirky way to go about creating animated illustrations. With the GIF platform, you're able to create two styles of GIFs, your traditional GIF, and a sticker GIF. They both mean files of moving images and GIFs will essentially loop endlessly playing over and over again. When it comes to a sticker, basically a sticker is a GIF or animation with a transparent background. GIFs are really popular with marketers and brands because they're really good at getting people to engage. They're essentially a hook that overcomes our resistance and makes something stand out. I find that they're a really great opportunity for creatives to showcase their style and brand in a really fun and engaging way. 4. GIPHY Best Practices: [MUSIC] Before we start creating our GIFs, let's talk a little bit about GIPHY best practices. When it comes to the GIFs that I tend to make, I make mine in a square format with a background. If you wanted to though, you can create a sticker GIF really easily, depending on the software that you're using by just turning off the background layer of your GIF's canvas and exporting the same way you normally would using your editing software, just ensuring that it is a GIF with a transparency. For our specs, we'll want to keep the following in mind. Uploads on GIPHY are limited to 100 megabytes and 15 seconds, although they do recommend no more than six seconds. Also keep in mind that Jiffy automatically resizes GIFs upon upload so that they can be used in various contexts on their GIPHY API. When you're exporting, make sure you set your GIF to loop forever and then also use whatever resolution makes your sticker or your GIF look best, and they recommend using multiples of four for width and height. I personally tend to work in a higher resolution because I know it's going to be res down, so I want to make sure that it's still the most crisp that it can be. So I might create something in 2,000 by 2,000 pixels with my DPI ranging anywhere from 75 DPI to 200 DPI, just depending on what I experiment with and what it looks like once I do the whole upload process. I kind of play around with that a bit. I suggest experimenting to see what works best when you're working with your files and when you're uploading to GIPHY and then work from there. GIPHY also offers some recommendations on how to improve your sticker and GIF visibility. A big thing that they mention is making sure that your GIFs are easy to use in conversation. As I mentioned with the phone example, being able to have something that works perfectly for a conversation or a point you're trying to make, that's a great way to utilize GIFs. You'll also want to make sure that they appeal to a wide audience and that they're timely and relevant. Another really important point they make is to ensure that your GIFs are colorful, unique, creative, and fun. This helps to ensure that your GIFs stand out among the crowd. Then finally, keep in mind your GIF is often resized and reformatted, so they often suggest not including really fine details that might get lost. Also minimizing the total number of frames that you use in your animation will help GIPHY preserve the content that we're creating when they're downsizing and reformatting it and this will ensure that you still have the highest quality final image when you're uploading to the platform. Now that we have a better understanding of what a GIF is and some GIPHY best practices, let's jump into creating our own GIF. 5. Animation Principles: Before we jump into creating the GIFs, I want to go over some basic principles of animation that I think will be helpful as you work to create your layers, to create the movement within your animated GIF. There are 12 basic principles of animation. These are a group of key teachings for the professional animator, and the list has served Disney animators since the 1930s and was outlined by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in the 1981 book, The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. Well, there are 12 key principles. For our GIFs, we're going to be focusing on three; squash and stretch, slow in and slow out, and exaggeration. Squash and stretch is a term used in the field of animation. It's among the leading and core principles of animation. It is basically a drawing method used by animators to show the hyperbolical movements in characters. Squash and stretch is a critical principle of animation that deals with how a character or an item moves. What do hyperbolical movements mean? Well, it just means exaggerated. The reason is that if an animator wants to show a character jumping, they're going to draw them as though they were squashed and then stretched. Squash and stretch prevents rigidity or stiffness of the motion that you're seeing within the animation. It also allows for a feeling of flexibility and elasticity to your animation. Another principle that I want to highlight is the slow in and slow out. Slow in and slow out refers to how an object needs time to accelerate and slow down as it moves from one place to another. Typically, an animation looks more realistic if there are more frames at the beginning and at the end of an action to depict this increase and decrease in speed. Let's look at an example. If we apply slow in and slow out to this animation, you will notice that there's a slow increase in speed as the item starts to slide and also as it comes to a halt with fewer frames being seen in the middle to give the appearance of acceleration. We can utilize this really simply as we're creating our GIFs if we're moving something from one area to another, adding in additional frames at the beginning, adding less frames in the middle, and then more frames towards the end. The final principle that I'd like to discuss today that I think will be helpful in creating GIFs is exaggeration. What is exaggeration in animation? It basically talks about how an idea is displayed on screen to portray a particular emotion. Accentuating the essence of an idea through the design and the action is what exaggeration is all about. You could also use this in conjunction with some of the other principles, like the squash and stretch. For example, perhaps a character is supposed to look surprised. You can use exaggeration to make their eyes much larger than they normally would be to get the point across that they're surprised. Now that we understand some principles of animation and how we can utilize them within our own creations, let's work on creating our GIFs so we can apply some of these principles in action. 6. Setting up your file + Animation Settings: So the first thing we'll wanna do to get started with this project is launched Clip Studio Paint. When you launch Clip Studio Paint, you'll likely either pull up a prior file that you may have been working on or it'll be a blank screen. You may have some of the tools that you see on my screen currently or you may not depending on what you've set up. So what I'm gonna do is walk you through my setup. So the first thing I wanna do is just set up a new file. So we'll go into File, select New, and we're going to create a canvas that is square and 2 thousand pixels by 2 thousand pixels at 300 DPI. What you'll see is that the top of your new file pop up here is you have different types of work, like use of work. You can select illustration, a comic, different types of comics. And then you'll see one that looks like a film strip and that is an animation. So what we're gonna do is update the size of our output frame. Currently it's 720 by 720 and I'm gonna change it to 2 thousand by 2 thousand. And I'm going to keep it at 300 DPI. I know that's really high. I dislike working in a higher resolution because I know when I load it to something like Giphy or I put it online, it is going to be raised down, so the resolution is going to be compressed. On the right-hand side, there is a lot more detailed items that you can play around with an update, like your frame rate. I'm just going to keep it at one frame per second. Just because basically that's what we're gonna be working with. A single cell animation where we'll adjust each frame individually, kind of like a flip book. So everything that I have here on this right-hand side, in terms of my frame rate, playback rate, I'm just going to keep that all the same. I'm just going to keep it at one. And then you can go in and update your file name. I'm going to change it to nineties. Jeff's nineties, Geoff one, because this will be the first in the series. And then I'm gonna hit, Okay. And it'll create a new window for us to work within, highlighting our frame that we're gonna be creating inside. Now what we need to do is work on getting everything set up in order for us to be able to animate in this. So we'll have to go into our Window menu at the very top here, and we're gonna go down to our animation options. You want to select Animation cells. You'll also want to go back in and select your timeline. That will be where we update and edit and adjust our visuals and we'll walk through that whole process. But basically that's what's going to allow you to see the animation progress. First, I want to give you the lay of the land. On the left-hand side, you're going to see all of these different tools. You have eyedropper tool, pen tool, pencil tool. All of this stuff is what we'll be utilizing to outline our drawings, refine them. You erase anything that may need to be erased and of course colored. Then you'll see next to that. Alright, now I'm currently on the brush tool. And then you'll see all the options for the brushes in this little panel to the right of that. And then next to that you'll see our navigator and then our animation cells so we can see what we're animating. And this will allow us to work with some of the onion skinning so that we can see transparency throughout each layer. So we can kinda see what is being changed. Within each layer, you'll have your general Layers panel as well at the bottom. And then right here on the lower right-hand side is our timeline. Basically, each of these little numbers is like a second and it'll basically be a frame within your animation. 7. Animation Settings - Specifying Cels: [MUSIC] Now that we have our file setup, we can go in and start to get all of the animation settings put into place before we actually start creating. The first thing we'll want to do is enable onion skinning, which will allow us to visibly see each layer above the other. It adds a layer of transparency and it allows you to create your line work in different colors as you're basically animating each layer. To do that, we're going to go into animation, show animation cells, and then enable onion skin. This will ensure that we're able to see those layers as we build on top of each other. The next thing we'll want to do is go into our layers here in the bottom and we're going to duplicate that layer. Basically what we're going to do is each layer will be a frame. I'm going to select that layer, make sure it's highlighted and that bluish gray color. Select "Command C" as a shortcut, or you can go to "Edit Copy." Then I'm going to select "Command V" to paste or you can go into "Edit Paste." Then I'm going to paste four of these because I'm going to create four frames within this GIF animation. It doesn't have to be complicated. I'm doing one frame per second. If you want it to create more, obviously, the more frames you have per second, the more it looks like your image will flow. But just for the sake of ease and get you used to this, we're just going to stick to one frame per second and then I'm going to create four frames total. What we'll do, now that we have our frames within our animation folder, we need to assign it to a second within our timeline here. If you click on the first frame, one, you'll see that it's already associated with the first second within our timeline. The next thing we need to do is basically just associate each of these frames or animation cells, or if we're looking at it in other terms, basically layers. I'm going to select the second one and then in our timeline icons here, we want to specify this second two. What we'll do is go into our timeline. You should see these two little blue cursors here. This is basically a key for us, like a keyframe. We're going to take that blue keyframe on the right-hand side and drag it so that it goes over two. Then we're going to click on ''2'' and right now it comes up blank because there's nothing associated with it. Then we're going to select "Specify Cell" and you click on that. What you'll want to do is select two so that it specifies the second layer to that second within our timeline, and then hit ''Okay''. Now, I'm going to go back into my layers, and I don't know if you've noticed, but I have 1A and 1 copy. I need to update the names of these to be 3, and 4. I'm just going to double-click where it says 1A, and type in 3 and hit ''Enter'' and then double-click where it says one copy, type in 4 and hit ''Enter''. I'm going to go back to my timeline. I'm going to pull out my keyframe here so that it goes over three. I'm going to go back to my layers now that I've pulled that keyframe over 3. I'm going to tap on ''3'' first so that 3 is highlighted in red, tap on my third layer within my layer file here, and then I'm going to specify the cell so that it goes to the third second. I'm going to select on my "Specify cell icon, select 3, hit ''Okay'', and it'll fill that space. The reason we do this is because when the cells aren't specified, you're not going to be able to see anything pop up when you're working on that specific layer. I like to just specify my cells beforehand and then work on them as I go. I'm going to go back to that keyframe in my timeline, pull that blue key over to 4, tap on "4," go into my layers here, select "Animation Cell 4." Then go into my timeline icon, select "Specify Cell," select "Layer 4," hit ''Okay'', and it'll specify that cell. Also another thing you might notice is that there is paper. Yes, so you can add a background. What's nice is with this, this isn't necessarily going to be changing every time you animate. What you want to do is just make sure that it's consistent throughout each of your frames. What I'll do is I'll select that paper and then I will just drag it out. You'll get that little double arrow. I'll drag it out to my 4-second marker so that there's paper behind each layer. 8. Creating GIF 1 - Linework: [MUSIC] Now that I have all my layers set up, I have my cell specified, what I want to do is drag in my sketches so that I can start outlining and then animating. I'm going to go into File and I'm going to select "Import" and I'm going to select "Import Image" and I'm going to go to my Downloads where I have downloaded my artwork with these '90s inspired sketches and I'm going to select "Open". I'm actually just going to drag this outside of my animation folder so we can see and resize as needed. I have a bunch of different little icons that I sketched out. What I think I'm going to focus on is this like Tamagotchi, the little video game controller and this [LAUGHTER] very bulky retro laptop. I'm going to start with the simplest first, just so that we can get that out of the way. I'm going to resize by dragging my corners of my image out and then I can basically drag the image where I'd like it. I'm just going to resize it so that it is the exact size that I want it to be. I actually sketched this in Procreate. You could sketch in Clip Studio Paint if you wanted. I just was working on the go, didn't have access. I don't have Clip Studio Paint on my iPad actually should invest in that soon [LAUGHTER] but I have not done that yet. Sketching on my iPad and I was using Procreate. It's obviously a raster file so I'm going to increase the size so that when I outline it, it's not too small. I'm going to center this and what I'm going to do then is basically use this as the base of my file and I'm going to outline over it. To do that just to make things a little easier, I'm going to reorganize my layers here, and I'm going to pull this so that it goes underneath all of my animation cell folders here and then I can just draw on top of it. I'm not even going to erase any of this other stuff here because I'm going to reuse this file anyways but what I will do is just make sure I pull that layer all the way to the bottom, above my paper, but below my animation folder and then I'm going to double-click where it says "Untitled-Artwork 2" and I'm going to rename it and I'm going to change it to original sketch. I'm going to select my first layer within my animation folder, and I'm going to start sketching on this. I'm going to select my Paintbrush tool. Once I select my brushes, I'm going to go into my brush settings. If you notice you can't see anything. You just have to resize your Brush tool options here and what I'm going to do is just go through and find a brush that I think will work nice. I'm going to select the India Ink Brush. I'm just going to select the Smooth option and I'm going to bring my taper down to one so that it stays relatively the same because I want this to be more of a mono line style brush. I'm just adjusting as I go. Then I'm going to increase my stabilization because they do have. Then what I'm going to do is zoom in so you can see what I'm working on and then just start outlining. I'm going to keep the original drawing as my base outline and then I'll adjust. I'm thinking what I'll do is I'm going to increase the heart size, playing around with the concept of the exaggeration animation principle. I exaggerate it, so it gets really big and then small within those four cells. We're just going to keep the base outline very simple. Keep it relatively the same to what it is and then we'll just adjust the heart. Making sure I'm on layer one, I'm going to start outlining. We can also rotate our screen to make it easier to work on this outline. Depending on what you're working with, if you have a trackpad, you can just take both fingers and rotate your screen. I'm going to do that so that I can work on this bottom section a little bit easier [MUSIC]. If you need to erase anything, just select your Eraser tool and then you can resize this by adjusting your brush size, and then you can zoom in to anywhere to clean up any of your line work [NOISE]. I'll go back to my Brush tool and then just continue finishing this up [MUSIC]. Once I'm done outlining everything to my liking, I can just zoom back out, see what it looks like. I'm going to take this original sketch and I'm just going to turn it off by selecting the little eyeball icon and then just unmarking it so that it turns off and you no longer see the background. Now that we're done with this illustration, now what we're going to do is basically create that same process and basically change bits and pieces of this little Tamagotchi in each layer. I'm going to have it wiggle a little bit. I'm going to when create my sketch of the original, I'm going to just tilt it to the left and then I'm going to resize the heart in order to create that exaggeration of it growing and getting smaller. I'm going to go on to my second layer, select my Brush tool and then redo this whole process, but adjusting the way I'm drawing it to give it that bit of a wiggle as it's playing within the loop. [MUSIC] Once I'm done outlining it the second time, I kept in mind the size of the heart and I resized it. You can also see where the original lines were in purple, whereas my new lines are in red on top here and then what I'm going to do is adjust it so that the Tamagotchi is leaning more towards the left. What I'm going to do now is go into my Transform tools now that I'm done outlining everything, I kept in mind the size of the heart but now what we want to do is lean this and tilt it a little bit to the left. I'm going to go into Edit, select "Transform" and I'm going to select "Free Transform", and it'll give me my Transform tools and then I'm just going to take my move arrows here and just rotate this just slightly to the left and move it just a bit as well. Then we'll hit "Okay" and it will transform it and move it. Now what we want to do is go into our third layer and we're going to basically do the same process, keeping in mind the size of the heart. We're going to make it smaller and then adjust the placement of the Tamagotchi overall to move it back towards the right just a bit so that it creates that jiggle function. I'm going to select my Brush tool and I'm just going to get back into outlining everything and finalizing this third layer. [MUSIC] Now that we have this outlined, we can go into our Transform tool once more and we can readjust the placement of this. We'll go into Edit, Transform, Free Transform and then we're just going to rotate this back in the other direction and then hit "Okay" and then what you'll see so far is the change in each layer. Now that we have Layer 3 done, let's go into Layer 4 and repeat the process, re-outlining, adjusting where the placement is, and resizing the heart down. This doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, I want it to feel slightly imperfect with my lines in order to get that wiggly effect that we're going for. [MUSIC] Now that we're done with this outline, what we can do is go into Edit, Transform, Free Transform, and we are going to rotate it slightly to the left this time and then hit "Okay". Then what we could do is test this out before we jump into coloring and then we get into our other two animations. In order to test this on the timeline, what you can do is just go into your timeline and you can hit this little "Play" icon. Obviously, we'll want to start from Layer 1 and see the 4-second loop all the way. What we'll do is just hit "Play" and it'll show you the little animation. The Tamagotchi is wiggling back and forth and the heart within the Tamagotchi is going from big to really small. That is just the simplest form of animation using Clip Studio Paint. Now that we have the base layers done, we have the animation created, now we can jump into coloring everything. 9. Creating GIF 1 - Coloring: [MUSIC] Now that we're done with the line work, I'm going to jump into coloring the line work. In order to do that, we're going to create another animation folder. You can go down here to our timeline menu options and just select new animation folder, or you can go up into animation and then select new animation layer and then select animation folder. Then what we're going to do before we do anything with these folders, I'm going to rename them. This new animation folder, I'm going to rename it color and then I'm going to go into my original one, double-click it, and I'm going to rename it to line-work. This way I can keep everything organized. What we also want to do is basically associate our line-work with our color so that we can use the color drop tool and be able to reference that line work. I'm going to right-click my line work folder and then I'm going to go down to layer settings and I'm going to select set as reference layer. Basically what this does is allow me to reference the lines within this layer when I'm filling the color within my color folder. Now what we want to do is add some new animation cells or new layers into the color folder. I'm going to make sure the color folder is selected and then I'm going to go down into my timeline here and I'm going to select new animation cell. Then I'm just going to add four of these. Basically, each one of these is going to associate with each one of the line works within our line-work folder. Now I want to take this folder and I'm going to drag it underneath our line-work folder because basically, we want our line-work to be on top of our color. That way it just looks cleaner. Then I'm going to select that first layer and I'm going to select my color dropper tool and then I'm going to select a color. I'm going to select my color options towards the bottom of my tools here, make sure my fill is selected, and then I'm going to update the color and then I'm just going to tap into the area that I want to fill and it will update my color for me. Then I'll just do that for each layer. Let's start with this first layer. I fill the outside. I'm going to fill the screen part and then I want to update the color of the heart to a blue. I just have to update my color fill and then just tap wherever I'm trying to fill color. Now that we have this first set colored, now let's go into the second layer and we'll begin the whole process once again. We're going to be referencing this second layer here, and we're going to be coloring within that layer. Let's select Layer 2 and then we're just going to select the same colors that we worked with before. We can color pick if we need to, or we can just make sure that they're all added to our color palette. What I'm going to do is just make sure that all of my colors that I'm working with are right at the beginning of my color palette history. I'm just going to select my eye dropper tool and then I'm just going to tap on my pink and it'll come up in my color area down here in the lower left, select the yellow, and then tap on the blue, the gray, and the white, and everything should come up in my color history. Now let's go to my second layer here and what I want to do is turn off my color. I'm going to turn off my first layer within my color folder just so that it's not distracting. Go into my line-work menu and turn on my Layer 2 so I can see what I'm doing and then make sure that my color layer is selected in my color folder. Then I'm going to select my eyedropper tool and I'm just going to go back through and use the same colors I used before to do my fieldwork. Just tap on the areas that I'm filling with color and then repeat the process with the next layer. I'm going to turn off my Layer 2, go into my line-work layer, turn on Layer 3 so I can see what I'm working with, making sure my Layer 3 within my color folder is selected, go into my color dropper tool, and then just fill it with the same colors that I've been working with. Like the bucket fill tool, the color drop tool makes it really easy and quick to be able to fill colors and that's why I like working in this just because it's really fast. I don't have to worry about outlining and then dragging and dropping a full color. I could just tap and fill because I can use my line work as a reference. Now I'm going to go into layer four, turn off my color view for Layer 3, and then turn on my Layer 4 within my line work so that I can see what I'm working with and just repeat this process until all of my layers have been colored. All right, so everything is colored. Obviously, these are all just very flat colors. What I would like to do is add some shadow effects. But first, let's see what this looks like. Let's go into our timeline menu. Select Play, and see if this plays properly with everything colored and it does, so everything's colored. But what I like to do is add some layer effects just to give the piece some depth. It looks a little bit more 3D. It feels not super realistic obviously because my style isn't realistic, but still feels like what you think the time I got you might look in the 3D world. I like to add a little bit of shadow and highlights. 10. Creating GIF 1 -Shadows: [MUSIC] Now that we have our line work done, we have our coloring done, we can jump into adding some shadows, very basic, just so that we can give this a little bit more of a 3D effect. Just like what we did with the coloring, in order to add shadows, we will need to create a new folder, so we're going to go onto our timeline menu and select new animation folder, or you can just go into the animation option in your menu, and then new animation layer, and then select animation folder. I'm going to double-click where it says folder one and rename it shadows. Then within here, what we have to do is add additional animation cels, so those layers. What I like to do though, to make things a little bit easier, just create one layer for this first and then copy that and paste that three more times. Once I've added the shadows so that I can revise it slightly for each of the following layers. I'm just going to add a new animation cel within my shadows folder, and then what I want to do is change my layer options for this from normal to multiply. This will allow me to basically paint over the color with a similar color or any base shadow color like a gray, and I'll be able to apply that to all of the different colors, and all it does is multiply and just slightly darken and change the color overall. I'm going to select my brush tool now, and I'm going to find just a basic gray tone and making sure I have my fill color selected. I'm going to double-click that color, and then I'm going to adjust my color options here and hit "Okay", and make sure that the multiplier is applied to the whole entire folder. I'm going to select the folder, I'm going to go into my layer options and I'm going to select multiply. Then I'm going to go back into my layer within that shadows folder, and then I can just start to apply that color on top. On top of it being multiplied, I'm going to actually decrease the opacity just a bit, and then it gives us a nice color that we can work with to create our shadow. I'm going to make sure that my opacity from my actual brush is at 100 percent. I'm going to use this to color it and create the shadow work within this folder, and I'm going to make sure I'm on the correct line work, so it'll be the first one. Same thing, I'm going to make sure I'm showing the correct color version as well, and then I'm going to close those folders. We also want to make sure that this cel that we've created is associated to the correct second within our animation. So what we can do is select animation cel one within our shadows, and then we can just select layer one and then just make sure that this is within the first second, or we can go back through and manually move it so that it's on the correct layer and associated with the correct layers, so this should be on the first second. Now let's make sure we're on the correct layer, and then we can start to add our shadow effects. What's nice is that we can adjust our brush size as needed, zoom in and get even more fine detail to make sure that wherever we want that color, it's added in. Then I'll just go back through and add shadows wherever I think I might need some. For example, on the little silver beads here, these very basic places. Then I can select the eraser tool and just touch up any key areas that I need to remove any color that may have gone outside of the lines, and just detail these final pieces. Once I'm done with that, I'm just going to copy that layer, and then I'm going to paste it three more times, and then I'm going to go in and rename them. So have layer one, two. Where it says one, I'm going to double-click, change it to three. Double-click versus one copy, change it to four, hit Enter. Now what I want to do next is go to my next colored version of this, which is where it's tilted to the side, and I want to make sure that cell is associated with this second as well. I'm going to select that layer, I'm going to go to specify cel in my timeline options here, and I want to specify this layer to the second second and then hit "Okay". I want to select layer two and then I'm going to specify that cel to the second second. I just want to make sure that two is selected in my timeline. Select specifies cel in my timeline options select two hit "Okay". I want to select three, and I want to tap on my third, second within my timeline, and then I want to make sure three is selected in my shadows layers. I'm going to select specify cel, and then I'm going to tap on three, and that will specify it to the third second. Then if you notice that the layers or the cels expand in terms of length, you can just select that cel and re-size it. You'll get the little double arrow and just bring it over one. Now you want to make sure four is selected and then go into our shadows folder, select the fourth layer. We're going to hit Specify Cel and then we want to select four so we know that cell is associated with the fourth second and then hit "Okay". You'll notice that obviously the shadows have adjusted where they were and we have to go through and fix that, which is fine. We can either completely erase or use and build off what we already have, and that's what we're going to do for this. We're going to do a combo of both erasing certain areas and then building off what we have, so like this big area, we're going to build off of that, but the little beads, we can just adjust that as needed, and I'm just going to erase those. I'm going to select my eraser tool, go into my brush options, resize the brush a bit so that it's bigger and then just erase these pieces because we don't need them. Then also what I'm going to do is turn off these other layers, so it's not confusing, we know we're only working on this second layer. I'm just going to select the little eyeball icons and toggle them off on any other layer that I'm not working on except for two. I have two turn down in my shadows, and then I have two turned on in my color and two turned on in my linework. It just makes it easier so you don't have to worry about getting confused. I'm going to close down those other folders, go into my shadow folder, select layer two, and just clean up in here. I'm going to select my brush tool, I'm going to select that gray I was working with. I'm going to increase the size of my brush and I'm going to adjust where I have this shadow placed. I'm going to color in any areas that need to be colored, and then I'm going to erase some key areas as well. Now that I've filled it in my color, I'm going to go through with my eraser tool and just adjust and erase any areas that I don't need. Once I've erased and adjusted, I'm just going to go back and fine tune. Select that darker orange so that I can add the shadows back to the buttons and then fill in any where where there's color missing that we need color. Now I'm going to go in and add some shadows to the bead work here, adjust my brush size, make sure I have the correct color, which is that gray, and then I can go in and add shadows here. Now essentially I'm going to do this exact same process for my last two layers, and then we can come back and play this and see what it looks like. [MUSIC] All right, now that we're done with all of the additional layers, let's play this and see what they look like as one, and make sure before you play them that all of your layers have been turned back on, and then we can hit play and see what the final piece looks like. The shadows and all the additional pieces all move together. There's nothing sticking out strangely, and you basically have created a really simple, fun Tamagotchi inspired Jeff using three folders, one for line work, one for color, and one for shadows, and this is just a basic rundown of how to make a GIF. So let's jump into our next two designs. 11. GIF 1- Optional: Removing Linework: [MUSIC] So depending on what you'd like to do or what you want your final piece to look like, you could choose to have it look a little bit more flat and keep your outlines. Personally, I'm going to remove some of the outlines so it doesn't look as flat. So I'm just going to go into my linework folder here, select my eraser tool, then just remove the parts that I don't want. Then I'll be able to just go back into my color folder and update it to clean up any areas that look a little messy and that just needs some smoothing out. First, I'll remove the linework with the eraser and then I'll go back into the color and clean that up as well. I just think this gives it a little bit more of a softer look and that's what I'm going for with these final bits and pieces. So this is just another final, small detailing work that you can do to finalize your art work. Once I'm done with removing the lines that I don't want to have, I'm just going to go back through and fix up the color and the shadow sections. So I'm going to go into my first color here, turn on my shadows for this as well. I'm going to go in and clean the shadows first. I'm going to turn off all of my other layers. Just turn on the Layer 1 and then I'm just going to go in and clean this up to make sure everything is inside where it needs to be. Then go back to my color area as well, select my Brush tool, select the correct pink that I'm working with here, and then just zoom in and clean up any line work to make sure it doesn't look messy, and that it's all complete in terms of the area of color that I wanted. [MUSIC] Once you're done with the first layer, then you just want to go through and basically do the exact same process for all the rest of the layers. So I'm going to do that, and then I'll check back in and we'll get started on our final illustration. [MUSIC] 12. Creating GIF 2 - Linework: [MUSIC] Now that we're done, we can begin to work on our laptop. Just like what we did before, we're going to start File New. We'll keep all of our inputs the same in terms of size, height, width, and do something like two frames per second and then let's update our filename from animation to 90s GIF three and then let's hit "Create" and hit "Okay". Just as we had before, we're going to need to create folders in order to house our line work, our coloring parts, and then our shadow work. Let's start with this first animation folder. We'll rename it to line work and like what we did before, I'm just going to do the line work for this first layer, and then I'm going to copy that layer three more times. We could go into one of our previous GIFs if we wanted to, and then just copy the original sketch from there. I'm going to go into my GIF 1, select the original sketch layer. I commands here go to Edit copy and then go to my new file, select "Edit," "Paste" or Command C and drag this to the bottom outside of our line work folder and let's turn it on by clicking on the little eyeball and then what we need to do is obviously find where the actual drawing and sketch of the laptop is. I'm going to select my move tool. I'm going to zoom out just a bit [MUSIC] and then I'm just going to tap on the image and drag it so that I can find where this picture is. I am going to have to resize this. I'm going to go into Edit, transform and then scale, and then I'm just going to scale this down a bit. I'm going to hold shift, so everything stays in proportion, and then I'm going to scale it just so that it fits right in the middle of our artboard and then hit "Okay" and I'm going to zoom in to see what I'm working with. I'm going to decrease my opacity just a bit and then what I'm going to do is tap on my line work layer within my line work folder, and then we'll begin the process of creating the line work for this. Because a lot of this is just straight lines and angles, I'm going to utilize the line tool, so, it's all the way towards the bottom. It might be something different for you because if you hold it down, once you tap it, you get different options. You can create curves, poly lines, continuous curves, bezier curves. Then you can also create rectangles, ellipses, and polygons, so it could be a different shape. I'm going to select the straight line. I'm going to adjust my brush size to about 10, and then I'm just going to use this tool to create the lines for this laptop here, and it gives me a nice straight line, so I don't have to worry about my hand shaking too much, and then I can just follow the shape of my design here. This is just a really fast and convenient tool to use, especially if you're creating something that is just straight lines and angles. [MUSIC] Once I'm done with that, then I can just go back to my Brush Tool, resize it so that it's the same width as my line tool was, and then finish the rest of the additional elements that I have on this that it aren't lines. Once I'm done with that, I can turn off my original sketch and I have my outline here. Now that we have a line work done, what we can do is copy this layer three more times, so you can hit "Command C," "Command V" or "Edit," "Copy," or "Edit," "Paste" and then we're going to go in and rename the additional layers 1, 2, 3 and 4. I'm going to tap where it says 1a, type in three, hit "Enter," where it says 1Copy type in four, and then hit "Enter" and then we can begin to figure out what we're going to do in terms of the animation. For this one, what I'm thinking is we'll have a little arrow come in and tap on the little X button that usually is within [NOISE] these little circles to close out of the screens here. This first layer will be the same. We'll tap onto the second layer and the only change we'll do really is adding in an arrow. But before we do all that, what I want to do is make sure we have all of our cells associated to a second on the timeline. I'm going to go into our timeline here, take the blue key, drag it over to tap on the second, second then go into our timeline icon, select specify cell and hit "2" and then hit "Okay" and then also really quickly, I want to make sure the paper goes all the way across four seconds so, I'm going to go down here where our paper is, and then I'm going to wait for the double arrows and just drag it over to four seconds. Now I'm going to take my blue key, drag it over to three, tap on the third second, and then I'm going to go to my timeline icon, select Specify Cell, select 3 and then hit "Okay", and then repeat that process for the fourth one. Now all of our cells are specified. Now we can just go in and revise as needed. I'm just going to draw a simple arrow here, and then I'm going to use my Lasso tool to select it, and then I'm going to move it to where I'd like for it to be coming in, and then I'm going to edit, I'm going to go to select deselect, and then I'm going to go into my tool, select my Eraser Tool, and then edit this so that I don't have the additional line work underneath the arrow. It looks like it just right on top of the drawing. Once I've done that, then I can go into my second layer, and I'm going to basically do the same kind of process. I'm going to draw another arrow that is a bit closer and then that final one will hit it and I actually probably end up adding in another layer where the screen is blank. Also, for noticing you're not able to see your layers underneath each one, we can just go into our animation options in our menu and then select show animation cells and then enable onion skinning. I'm basically just going to redraw this arrow again, adjusting it just slightly, cleaning it up where I need to, and then I'm going to use my Lasso tool to select it, and then I'm going to select my move tool, and I'm going to move it so that it's a bit closer, then I'm going to select deselect, and then I'm going to zoom in and clean up and remove any line work underneath that doesn't need to be there. Now I'm going to go into this fourth layer, and I'm going to repeat the same process. But before I do that, I'm going to copy it and paste it because I am going to need one more layer where there's nothing on the screen. I'm going to copy that layer, edit copy or Command C, Command V to paste it and what I'm going to do is redraw this arrow, so that it's right on top of that little circle and then for this last one, I'm just going to erase the Window on the screen. Now that I've drawn that arrow, I can select my lasso tool. I'm going to select around the arrow, use my move tool to move it where I'd like it while it's selected, going to transform it so that I can flip it. I'm going to go to edit, transform, and I'm going to select flip horizontal, and then I'm going to angle this so that it's right on top of that little circle icon then I'm going to hit "Okay". Then I'm going to go into select deselect, and then I'm going to go into this last layer here and what I want to do is erase everything off of the screen from this big Window area. I'm going to select my erase tool and if you're noticing you can't edit this file, that's because we don't have it associated with a second. Let's go down to our timeline, select that blue key, move it over to five, select the five-second mark, go to our timeline icons, select specify cell, select five, hit "Okay", scroll down in your timeline. Select your paper. Tap on your edge to get that double arrow and then drag it out to five. Now we're on five and what we'll do is erase the larger window here. I'm going to increase the size of my brush, and then I'm just going to basically delete [NOISE]. Erase all of this right here because we aren't going to need it because essentially we're closing that window. Now that I have the base of the animation done, before we get into coloring and shadows and all that stuff, I just want to see how this looks like once we play it. I'm going to select the first second within our timeline, and then I'm going to hit the play icon. I'm noticing I need to erase some of the lines underneath the last arrow and I still have some leftover residual ink from erasing, so I'll just go in and clean that up. What I'm thinking we could also do for this last one is add some sort of movement lines. In the area of where that initial folder or Window would be, we can just create some movement lines. People know that essentially that little Window disappeared. Let's look at this now that we've done that. Let's see how this looks. Now that I have that done, let's play this once more and see what it looks like. That's cute. Now, I need to go back to four though, and they need to erase the lines that are underneath the arrow and clean that up really quick. Once we're done with that, I'm going to turn these all back on and play this once more to make sure everything looks okay, and then we can get into coloring. 13. Creating GIF 2- Coloring: [MUSIC] That is super cute, I like that. Now what we'll do is add our folder for our color. Just like what we did before, we're going to have to create a new animation folder. We're going to go to our menu options, [NOISE] select the animation, then new animation layer, and select animation folder. We're going to double-click where it says folder and rename it to color and then hit ''Enter.'' Then we're going to drag that folder underneath our linework. Then what we want to do is select our linework and we want to right-click it so you can either hit control and then tap on your layer. Either right-click our linework folder or you can select control and tap if you're working with a stylus and a tablet, and then what we want to do is select Layer Settings and then set as reference layer because that's what we're going to reference when we're coloring. Now we want to go into our color folder and we want to add in five new layers, new animation cells, so that we can associate that with each of the layers or animation cells within our linework folder. I'm going to select the new animation cell icon in my timeline. Then I'm just going to copy that first one and paste it four more times so that we have five total. Then I'm going to go back in and just rename them so that they're named properly. We have one and two, 1a should be three, and then hit ''Enter.'' One copy should be four, hit ''Enter'' and the final one should be five, hit ''Enter.'' Now that we have our color layers, we can use our Color Fill tool just to quickly color each of our new layers. Then we want to make sure we are on the correct layer that we'll be working in. We want to be in layer 1. We're going to select layer 1, and then what we'll do is just turn off all the other layers so that we don't get confused, and to turn off those layers we'll go into our linework layer and then tap on those little eyeballs. That way, you know that the layer you are working on is the correct layer. I'm just going to leave the eyeball on for our first layer because that's the layer we're working on. I'm going to select that layer here. If you're noticing any issues with your timeline it could also be because we need to associate those cells to the proper seconds as well. This first layer should be associated till the first second. We're going to select one and then we're going to tap on the first layer and our color folder. Then we're going to select specifies cell in our timeline and hit ''One'' and then hit 'Okay.'' Then go to two and then select the second within our timeline, select specify cell in our timeline, icon options and then select tool and then hit ''Okay'' and then we're going to select three. Tap on the third layer in our color folder, select, specify cell, select three, hit ''Okay.'' Then we're going to select the fourth layer in our color folder, and then we're going to select the fourth second in our timeline, select specify cell, select four, and then hit ''Okay.'' Then we're going to go to our fifth layer in our color folder. Select the fifth second, select specify cell, select five, and then hit ''Okay'' and now all of our layers should be properly allocated to the correct second. Now we're going to work on this first layer, and we should see the first layer of line work as our option when we tap on it. With the paint bucket full tool selected, we can start to fill in our colors. [MUSIC] I'm going to select my color and then tap in the lines where I want to fill things. In this case I'm just filling a little keyboard, this dark gray, and I'm just keeping in mind those same colors that I've used with the other just to create a cohesive color palette. You very well could go back and change things if you wanted. I'm just going to keep things as is. [MUSIC] Once I've added in all my colors, I'm going to go back into my line work folder and select that first layer of my line work. I'm just going to erase some of the lines similar to what I did with that first, just not make everything look so flat with lines. I think this will work beautifully for this. I'm only keeping lines where I need to delineate between sections and colors. [MUSIC] Now that we're done with that, I'm going to start the process again and then just re-color the rest of these next few sections. Now I'm going to go to my second layer here. I'm going to turn on my second color layer by tapping on the little eyeball icon. I'm going to turn off my first layer by tapping on that eyeball icon and then turn on my second layer. Then I'm going to begin the coloring process again. I'm going to select my second layer, go into that bucket tool, then go through and recolor these additional elements here. [MUSIC] 14. Creating GIF 3 - Linework: What I'm going to do now is just create a new file, so that we have a fresh file to work with. I'm going to select New in my File Options. I'm going to keep all of my settings the same as the last one, 2,000 by 2,000, 300 DPI. My timeline is all the same. My frame rate is all the same, just one because we're working with a really basic gif that we need to upload to gif here and then I'm going to update the name of the file. Then I'm going to make sure that the use of work is animation. All of the same settings and then hit, "Okay." As it did before, it created our animation folder for us. I'm going to double-click this where it says animation folder and change it to a line work. Then I'm going to repeat the process that I did before. I'm actually going to update my color of my paper first, this time around. Then I'm going to pull in my illustration, my original sketch. I can actually just go back into my first gif copy that layer, go into my second gif and then hit, "Command V" to paste it in. Again, I'm going to pull it underneath my line work folder. I'm going to turn it on so we can see what we're doing and then I'm going to select my move tool and I'm just going to move it to the icon that I want to illustrate. I've got this one. What I want to do is resize it though so that it's a bit bigger. I'm going to go into Edit, Transform, Scale, and then I'm just going to hold Shift and then pull my corners out so that it stays in proportion. I think that's good and then I'm going to hit Okay. Then I'm going to transform it again because I want this to be a bit angled up. I'm going to go into Edit, Transform and then I'm going to select Rotate. Then I'm just going to rotate this a bit because I want it to be at an angle and then I'm going to hit, "Okay." Then I'm going to go into line Work 1. I'm going to select that first layer and I want to sketch on that layer. This time around I'm going to show you how you could do this by just copying and pasting your original sketch and then revising that sketch instead of re-drawing it every single time on your new layer. I'm going to select my first sketch. I'm going to go into my paintbrush tool. I'm going to select my India ink. I have that smooth option. Then I'm just going to adjust the size of the brush. I think this is a good size and what I want to do is basically use this original sketch as my base layer and then I can adjust it as needed. I'm going to decrease the opacity just a bit. Then I'm going to go back into my line work folder, select that first layer and I'm just going to trace over this using India ink and I think this time around, I'm going to use a black ink to outline it and I'm just going to outline it quickly. [MUSIC] Once I'm dun outlining the illustration, I can go into the original sketch, turn it off and then just do any additional fine tuning that I may need to do with the line work. Then what we can do is take that first illustration within the line work and then we can copy it and paste it three more times so that we have four total. Then we can go in and revise those as needed. We're going to select the first sketch, copy it, paste it three times and then we're going to go in and rename them 1, 2, 3, and 4 is to go into 1A. Double-tap where it says, 1A and just type in three and hit, "Enter." Select one copy, type in four and hit, "Enter." Now, what we have to do is associate each of these cells with a second within our timeline. I'm going to go into my timeline, I have the first second highlighted. I'm going to drag out that blue icon so that it goes past the second, second and then I'm going to select the second layer I have in my line work here. I'm going to select the second layer. I'm going to tap where it says two on my timeline. Then in my timeline icons I'm going to select specify cell and then I'm going to select two and then hit, "Okay," and it'll specify that layer. If you notice that you have lost your background, all you have to do is scroll down a bit in your timeline, go to your paper icon and then just make sure that it drags across all four seconds that you're going to need it to be. Select the first one here and then drag it so that it goes across four seconds and that should allow it to be across all of your illustrations as you specify them to each second. Now, let's go to our timeline again. Select your blue key mark and you're going to drag it so that it goes across three. Select three in your timeline, then we're going to make sure that the third layer is selected in our line work folder. We want to select specify cell within our timeline icon and then select Layer 3 and then hit, "Okay." Then drag your key to four, select the fourth second. Make sure your fourth layer is selected. Go to specify cell, select Layer 4 and then hit, "Okay." Right right all of the seconds are the same because we've literally just copied and pasted our original line work. But now what we can do is basically just revise each of these elements in order to make the work a little bit easier. Also, what we want to do is make sure onion skinning is turned on so go to Animation, show Animation cells and then select Enable Onion skin. What we'll notice is if we go into two and say we wanted to erase something, let's select our Eraser tool. You'll see that the original sketch underneath is going to show in green. Now with this illustration, what I'm thinking is we will likely do something similar to the slow in, slow out. We may end up needing more layers, but let's just get started. Basically, it's going to look like this little video game controllers swinging back-and-forth, so will likely want to start it so that it begins more towards the left. I'm actually going to move this original sketch just a bit. I'm going to go to Edit. I'm going to go to Transform. I'm going to go to Free Transform. That way I can rotate and move things as I need them. This is going to start more towards the left and then it's going to swing towards the right. We don't really have to do much in terms of redrawing as we have to adjust placement. Once I've adjusted the placement, I'm going to hit "Okay" and then I'm going to go to my second sketch. Now you can see the blue underneath. I'm going to move this one just a bit as well. I'm going to go into my Edit, Transform, Free Transform and then I'm just going to adjust this one a bit so that it comes over just a bit to the right of where that first one is placed to the left. I'm going to rotate it so that it goes upwards a bit. Then I'm going to apply it, hit Okay. I'm going to go to my third one and I'm going to do the same exact process. I'm just going to move this just a bit. Go to Edit, Transform, Free Transform. I don't need to move this too much, but I do want to rotate it just a bit. I'm going to move it just a little bit to the right, then I'm going to hit Okay, and then I'm going to select my fourth layer. I'm realizing that I might want one or two more layers here so that it goes off the screen. I'm going to take that fourth layer, I'm going to copy it Command C. Or you can go to edit, copy, edit, paste and then I'm going to hit Command V to paste it two more times so that we have six total. I'm going to double-tap where it says 4A and change that to six. I'm going to go to my fifth one and I'm actually going to make sure that these are associated with the correct seconds. I'm going to go down to my timeline. I'm going to take my key, I'm going to move it to five. I'm going to tap on five, five second time mark in my timeline, and then I'm going to make sure the fifth layer is selected. I'm going to go to Specify self-select five, hit Okay, then I'm going to move my T over to six, select the six second marker in my timeline. Make sure I have the sixth layer selected in my linework layers here. I'm going to select specify cell within my timeline icon, select six and then hit Okay. Then I'm going to go down to my paper and just make sure that it goes all the way across six seconds. Now that I have those added, let's go back to four. What we'll do is move that just a bit so that it follows the trajectory of the swinging that we've already created. I'm going to go to Edit, Transform, Free Transform. Again, I want to rotate it so that it goes up and then I'm just going to move it to the right a bit and then hit Okay, and then I'm going to go to my fifth one, and then I'm going to go to Edit, Transform, Free Transform. I'm going to rotate this one up a bit and then move it to the right as well, and then hit Okay, and then I'm going to go to my sixth one. I'm going to go to Edit, Transform, Free Transform. I'm going to rotate it so that it goes up. I'm going to drag it so that it goes to the right and off the screen. Now I'm obviously going to have to edit the controller chords. But let's just see how this works so far. Now that I have all the line work done, I'm going to go into my timeline and I'm just going to play it to see how this plays. I'm going to modify my placements just a bit. I like how that looks a bit better. Now what we need to do is fix the cord. The chord should be essentially in the same place as if it's hanging. We're going to adjust the placement of the chord so that it makes more sense in terms of placement. I'm going to go to layer 2, I'm going to select my eraser tool, I'm going to resize my eraser, and then I'm going to adjust where the cord is here. Wanted to follow the original chord as close as possible with just some minor changes. Hey, then we're going to go to the second one, turn that layer on, turn off the first layer, tap on the third layer, erase this chord. See how it's so far off. We want it to be closer to the original placement. I want to make sure it goes off screen at the same place. Now that I've erased that and select my brush tool and then just follow the line with just some slight modifications. Now I'm going to go to the third layer, turn off my second, make sure my eyeball is still turned on for my third layer and then turn on my fourth layer and then go back in and do the same thing. Let's fix this line. You erase the pieces we don't want. Just make sure it follows closely with that original line. Turn off layer 3, tap on layer 5, make sure layer 5 is turned on and then modify here as well. Now, turn off layer 4 and then turn on layer 6, and then edit your line as needed, making sure it still goes off the paper at the same location about revising anywhere else you see fit. Then let's replay this to see what it looks like. 15. Creating GIF 3 - Coloring: [MUSIC] Now that we're done with the line work, let's jump into coloring. Just like what we did before, we're going to have to create a new animation folder for coloring, and we're going to have to have the same number of cells within that folder as we have in our line work folder. Because essentially each color layer will associate with each illustrated image on each layer within the line work folder. We're going to go into our animation options at the very top in our menu, and then select "New Animation Layer" and then select "New Animation Folder." We're going to rename this folder "Color", and then we're going to drag this folder so that it goes underneath our line work, and then we're going to right-click our line work folder. What we want to do is go to "Layer Settings" and then "Set As Reference Layer" so that we can utilize our bucket fill tool to color the layers really quickly. Once I've created that new folder and I've moved it, then I need to add new cells to this folder. I'm going to go into my timeline options here and select the "Add New Animation cell icon. I'm going to do that six times because we have six layers that we need, and that will associate with each of the seconds within our little loop here. Now we're going to go to the first layer, and like we did before, just to make things easier, I like to turn off all the other layers so I don't see them and I know exactly what I'm working on. Layer 1 within line work is what we're working with, and then I'm going to select the first layer within my color, and then I'm going to select my color options here, select the fill bucket tool, and then I'm just going to tap where I need to fill color. If I want to update a color, I can just double-tap the "Color" icon here in my tools and then adjust as needed. [MUSIC] Once I've colored the first one, I'm just going to go in and repeat the process for the second and third. What I'll do is go into my line work, uncheck the eyeball within that first layer, turn on the eye icon for the second layer so I know what I'm working with. Then I'm going to go into my second layer in my color folder, I'm going to turn it on and then I just go back through and repeat the process using my bucket fill tool, and then quickly just go through and color the rest of these layers. [MUSIC] Now that we've colored everything, we've added our line work, let's just double-check, make sure everything looks the way we want it to look, so I'm just going to hit "Play" once more. I'm going to make sure all of my layers are turned on, and then I'm going to close these folders and then I'm just going to select the first second, so it starts from the beginning, and then I'm going to hit play within my timeline. It works the way it's supposed to. Now let's jump into adding shadows and additional effects to the illustration. 16. Creating GIF 3 - Shadows: [MUSIC] Now that we've added our color, let's jump into adding some shadow work. In order to do this, just like we did before, we have to create a new animation folder. I'm going to select the Animation, New animation layer, Animation folder. Then where it says Folder 1 we're going to double-click and change it to say Shadows. Once we've done that, we can add in our animation cells so you can go into your timeline icons here and select New innovation cell. We're going to add in six total. What we'll do is update the name so that they match each layer, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. If you have any issues or something doesn't look right, you can just double-tap where the text is and update it to the correct number and then hit Enter. I'm going to add shadows inside where there might be different elevations within the game controller, where the buttons are and things like that. What I want to do is go to my first layer and then I want to make sure that what I am looking at aligns with the layer that I should be working on. I'll turn off all the other layers and then just work on that first layer. I'm going to select the first layer in my color, so that I can see what I'm doing. Then I'm going to go into my shadow layers, turn off all these other layers and then just select my Layer 1. Then before I do that actually really quickly I want to select the shadows folder and I'm going to change it from normal in my layers options to multiply. Now, if you notice that any of your layers within the shadow options here are not showing up. That could be because we haven't they didn't automatically specified to the correct second. What we'll do is go into our timeline, select the first second, and then making sure that Layer 1 is selected. We can start to specify. Select second one, go into our timeline icons, select specify layer, select one and then hit Okay. Then select two and then tap on the second layer. Select Specify cell, select the second layer and then hit Okay, and then do the same thing for three just to make sure everything is the correct layer. Select the third, second in the timeline. Select Specify cell, select three. Hit Okay. [MUSIC] Now all of the correct layers are now specified to the correct second, we can start to add in our shadows. I'm going to select my brush icon. I'm actually going to select something that has a bit more texture to it, so that rough and new ink option will work nicely. Then I'm going to zoom in to key areas that I think we need to have some shadows. I'm going to select a color that will work nicely with this. Then also make sure that my layers are changed from normal to multiply. Once I've changed that, then I want to adjust the opacity of my brush just a bit, bring it down. Then also adjust the size. I'm going to decrease. You can use the brackets to quickly decrease or increase the size of your brush. Open bracket increases the size close bracket decreases or you can just go into your brush size options here and adjust there as well by hand. [MUSIC] Once I'm done adding in my shadows, I can also go in and filter these and give them a bit of a blur. I can go into Filter Blur, Gaussian Blur and then I can soften the shadows up just a bit so that they don't feel so harsh. Then I can hit Okay. Then once I'm done with that, I'm just going to repeat this process for all of the additional elements. Then we'll come back and add some additional final touches. [MUSIC] Now, if you wanted to add some additional like little elements, whether it be like sparkle effects or lines or anything like that. This would be a great time to do so. You can just add it after you've added all of your color and your shadows, I would add it to the color section of your folder. I'm just going to add some like little like motion lines to each of my layers here within the color section. Now let's play this and see what it looks like. Now that I'm done adding the little additional elements, we can just hit File, Save As. I'm just going to save it as my 90s-GIF, and save it in my folder. I'm going to go back to my first one and save that as well. File, Save As, 90s-GIF-1, save it in the required folder that I've set it up for. Now, we can jump into exporting our files. 17. Exporting the GIF Files + Extra: Sticker Settings: [MUSIC] Now that we're done with all three GIFs, we can work on exporting our final files. I'm going to go to my first GIF and then in order to export it, what we're going to do is select "File" and then we're going to scroll down to where it says Export Animation and then we're going to select "Animated GIF." We're going to keep the same name and then we are going to select where we would like to save them. I have a file set up already, the file type to be animated GIF, and then we can select "Save." Then you're going to get these settings. With Giphy, they often suggest exporting in measurements of four. I'm going to update the width and the height. Currently, we have it at 2,000 by 2,000 pixels. I'm just going to keep that export range. We're exporting all four seconds or all four frames one to four. We can update our frame rate if we'd like to make it a little bit faster so I can change it from one to two. Then what we want to make sure we do is select "Unlimited Loop Count" because we have to make sure it plays to infinity when we're uploading it to Giphy. I check mark differing just so that it gives me a little bit more of a higher quality image and then I hit "Okay." Then when the export is done, you'll get this pop-up that says animated GIF export is complete, tells you what the file size, and then hit "Okay." Now we can do is go into our file system. I can click on our final GIFs, and I can play this loop by just selecting that file that I just exported, hitting my spacebar and it'll play it for me. I think this turned out nice. Let's do the other two and then we can get into uploading to Giphy. Now we're going to head back into Clip Studio. Now I'm going to select my second GIF. I'm going to go into my file menu options, I'm going to select "Export Animation," "Animated GIF," and then I'm going to make sure I select the file that I want it in, and then hit "Save." Then I'm going to update the width and size to what my original measurements were. I'm going to update my frame rate to two just so that it's a little bit faster. My loop count should be unlimited and then hit "Okay." Then after I get this pop-up, I can just hit "Okay" again, and then I'll select my third GIF. Now we're going to go into our third GIF and we're going to go and export this. We're going to select "File" and then we're going to scroll down to Export Animation, select "Animated GIF," and then we are going to keep the same name, and then we're going to select the final folder that we're going to have this saved in. Then we're going to select "Save." Then we're going to update our settings to 2,000 by 2,000, we're going to update the frame rate to two, keep the export range the same, make sure your loop count is set to unlimited and then we can select "Okay." Then when this pop-up comes up, you can just select "Okay," and now we can just double-check in our file system that everything worked out the way we needed it to. Now that everything is exported, let's go into our file system and just double-check to make sure everything works nicely. I'm going to select my first one, works beautifully. Select my second one, works just how I wanted it, and then let's select the third one. It plays exactly the way I wanted to, so perfect. Now all of our GIFs are exported. There was one tip that I did want to share before we move on to uploading to Giphy. I recently had an update to my Clip Studio Paint and what I've found is that you can now export your GIFs as stickers. Basically, this is a PNG file. It's an animated PNG file with a transparent background. If you've ever looked at something like Insta Stories and you see these GIFs that don't have a background, but they're like little sticker icons that you can place on your stories and things like that, that's where these come into play. In order to be able to export as a GIF, we have to turn off our background and create transparency. The easiest way to do that is to go into your layers and select your paper layer and then turn the eyeball off. You have a transparency. Then what we'll do is select "File," "Export Animation" and then we're going to select "Animated Sticker," which is an APNG and it will allow you to export your file as a transparent PNG. I'm going to update my filename and then I'm going to save it in my file set, in my final GIF file, and then hit "Save.'' Then same as we were doing with the GIF, we can update our export settings. I'm just going to update it to 2,000 by 2,000. It's going to resize it based on the height and the width of just the colored area of the file. But I just update it to be the same size, just to be safe. You could adjust your framework. I'm going to change it to two. Then what you want to do is just make sure your loop count is unlimited. Select "Delete Blank Spaces." I uncheck mark color reduction because I don't want to reduce the colors that I'm using. Then I'm going to hit "Okay." Once you're done, you'll get this pop-up. You can just hit "Okay" again. Then we can go into our file system and see if this worked. I'm going to go into my file system, here is the sticker file that I've created. I'm going to select it and then hit the space bar on my keyboard just to test it out. It worked. We have created a transparent Tamagotchi-inspired sticker. Now that we're done and we've exported all over final files, let's jump into how to upload these all to Giphy. 18. Loading to GIPHY + Using Your GIFs: [MUSIC] Now that we are done creating our GIFs, what we want to do is load them to GIPHY for use. Depending on the type of account you have, your GIFs may be searchable in GIPHYs like search engine that they use on web sites like Instagram or Facebook. But even if you are not like an approved artist or you haven't been approved for an account that can be searched for, you can still utilize your GIFs. I'll show you how to do that. I'm going to show you how to load everything from the computer and then we can jump into the phone later when it comes to being able to use our GIFs. I'm going to log into my account. Once I've logged into my account, I have a whole bunch of different like organized biggest folders that I have, set up a playlist, seasonal themes. It all like whatever my GIFs are, they're organized in these little areas here. I'm going to probably create a new collection with 90s themed GIFs. I'll add the ones that I've created in this class, but then I'm likely going to add some more. I'm going to first upload and then I'll show you how to edit those collections. I'm going to select "Upload" I'm going to select GIF, I'm going to choose my file. I'm going to go into my final GIF files and I'm going to select them. I'm going to select all of them by clicking on the last one holding shift and then clicking on the first one. I will select everything in my series and then I'm going to hit upload. Then I can go in and add tags for everything because this makes it easier when it comes to searching for just they relate to the content that people might be using. I'm going to add tags based on what I've created, and I'm going to separate the tags with commas. When I upload these, what I'm going to do after I've added all my tags, I'm going to select plus, it's going to add all of my tags in bulk. I'm going to add these to a collection. I'm going to add a new collection and I'm going to name that collection That's So 90s. Then I'm going to create the collection. Then I'm going to go in now and update the rest of these. Once I've added that first one, I'm going to select my second one, and I'm going to add my tags for this one. What's nice is that it also gives you tags to add, so I can just click on those tags and it will add those to my GIF for me based on the image itself as well as prior images that I've created. I'm going to go and add tags for this new one. I'm going to utilize the tags that they've created for me. But I'm also going to add my own tags as well. You can only add 20 tags at a time though, so you just want to make sure you don't overdo that. Then I'm going to click on my next one, and then repeat the same process. Then I'll click on the very last one and then repeat that process. All right, once I've added all of my tags, I'm happy with the settings I've created and want to make sure that the visibility is set to public. Then I'm going to add them to my That's So 90s collection. Then I'm going to select Upload to GIPHY. Once my upload is complete, if I have any errors, I can double-check them. Let's see this one. I'm just going to hit retry. That one has been uploaded and now I can open my channel and my GIF should load. It'll be under my That's So 90s collection. I can now utilize these GIFs and reshare them and also use them in something like the search engine when I'm searching for GIFs to utilize on my phone, in text message, and things like that, or online in different places, you can utilize an embed code and copy that or you can just share. You can copy the link. But I really like the ability to organize everything and keep it all in one place. I like to add collections to my account just to make it easier to find stuff. But basically that is how you upload everything to GIPHY. You can also do this directly from your iPad if you're working on an iPad or your phone and things like that. But I like to work on the computer obviously because I'm using stuff like Clip Studio Paint. It just makes the most sense. But then I can access them on my phone as needed. Even if you aren't like a verified artist, I'm not a verified artist, but I was approved to get my GIFs found and search. But even if you're not that, you're not a verified artist or you don't have your GIFs approved to be found and search, you can still utilize the GIFs that you load to GIPHY. I'll show you how to do that next. Now that we've loaded everything to GIPHY, what I want to quickly show you is how you can use your GIFs in apps like Instagram and even if you aren't an approved artist. I'm going to go into GIPHY and I'm at my account. I can see my favorites, I can see my uploads, and I can also see everything by collection. I'm just going to go to uploads, the most recent uploads of the GIFs that we created in this class today are here. What you'll see is that if you click on your GIF, you can actually select it and then tap it to copy and then it'll say GIF copied. Then if you go into Instagram, if you have a story ready to go, you can add this GIF right in there. You don't have to search anything. I'm going to delete this really quickly by just holding it down. I'm going to tap on it and drag it to the garbage icon to get rid of it. Another way you can search for your GIFs is if you are an approved artist or a verified artist, you can select the stickers icon. You can, if you ended up uploading something like a sticker, like I showed you how to export with a transparency, you can search for your handle. If we go back to GIPHY and we look at my main page, you'll see my handle is Jen from the block. If I search Jen from the block, all of my approved GIFs that have been approved to be searchable come up so I can select one and use it in my stories. But even if you don't have that option to be searchable, you can still go directly to your GIPHY account, find the GIF that you want to share, tap on it, and then tap it to copy, and then go back into Instagram. Make sure you have your reel or your story ready to go. It'll pop up in that lower left-hand corner, select it, and then you can add it to your screen. Then you can share your story as is. I like to just use this as a self-promotional tool, things like that, and since I'm creating these for this specific class, I can just create a post about it. Then I can share it. Even if you don't have the option to have your work searchable using the API that GIPHY and Instagram and all those other social media platforms use, you can still go directly into your GIPHY app and use your GIFs directly from your account. We're just clicking on them, copying them, and then you can add them to your storage just like that. Really simple. 19. Course Outro: [MUSIC] Thank you so much for learning with me today. I hope you found this course interesting and that you're more comfortable creating GIFs in the Clip Studio Paint software. Now you can begin creating your own GIFs inspired by anything that you're interested in. Remember to share course project. You can even share it on Instagram and tag me @ Bella Sophia Creative so that I can re-share your GIFs and even offer feedback. Remember, if you want to learn more about me and my work, you can visit me online at www.bellasophiacreative.com. Finally, if you want to get a behind the scenes video of the work that I do as a creative freelancer and even for these classes, make sure you follow along on YouTube @thecreativestudio. Thank you so much for learning with me today again, and I will see you in the next one. Bye.