Motion Design: Illustrating Vector Storyboards for Animation (Complete Process) | Amanda Motion | Skillshare
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Motion Design: Illustrating Vector Storyboards for Animation (Complete Process)

teacher avatar Amanda Motion, Motion Designer

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Class Trailer

      0:38

    • 2.

      Research: Introducing the Brief

      0:47

    • 3.

      Research: What you need to know

      1:18

    • 4.

      Research: File Management

      3:20

    • 5.

      Concepting: Creating a Moodboard

      3:02

    • 6.

      Concept: Thumbnail Sketching

      2:14

    • 7.

      Concept: Compositions

      2:16

    • 8.

      Concept: Storyboard PDF

      2:51

    • 9.

      Concept: Creating an Animatic

      1:47

    • 10.

      Design: Introduction Styleframes

      1:45

    • 11.

      Design: Set-up Styleframes

      4:32

    • 12.

      Design: Rules for Motion Design

      7:34

    • 13.

      Presenting: How to present your work!

      2:16

    • 14.

      Production: Setting-up Artboards

      1:57

    • 15.

      Production: Illustrator Tips

      15:08

    • 16.

      Production: Layering

      2:49

    • 17.

      Good Job! :)

      0:37

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About This Class

In this class you will learn all about the motion design process. From introducing the brief to delivering your vector storyboard!

Learn how to come up with a creative direction, make style-frames, present your work and illustrate for motion.

As a Freelance Motion Designer I’ve stumbled across many tips and tricks from different studios, projects and (online) teachers. With all that knowledge, I’ve created a reliable and industry proof process for myself.

We’ll go over different stages while working along side on a creative brief from Mr. Cat:

  • Researching: Finding out everything we need to know and setting up our project for succes!
  • Concepting: Generating new ideas and figuring out our creative direction. Including:
    • Moodboards
    • Storyboard Sketching & Templates
    • Composition Tips
    • Animatics
  • Design: Illustrating a style frame based on our creative direction and learning how to illustrate for motion. Including a style frame questionnaire!
  • Presenting: Delivering all of your hard work to your client.
  • Production: Creating a visual design (aka full storyboard) in Adobe Illustrator including some helpful tips and tricks about Illustrator itself and how to prepare artwork for motion. 

I’ve included many templates to give you a head start in the industry! But most of all I hope this class can give you more confidence in your own process, show you how fun it can be and prevent you from pulling out your hair when it get’s frustrating! 

This class is for anyone that is interested in vector illustration for motion design or starting out (freelance) in the motion design industry, but knows the basics of adobe software! :) If you are unfamiliar you can still follow along, but I do not explain all the software I've used. So it might be a bit overwhelming! If you are an intermediate illustrator / more experienced you can always skip a head to the lessons you might find interesting. 

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Amanda Motion

Motion Designer

Teacher

I'm a Freelance Motion Designer and my ultimate goal is to teach and experiment with creativity. I believe we can all learn from each-other and that we're truly never done learning.

Everyone should have the opportunity to start their own creative adventure. 

That's why I've started the motion club a place with helpful resources, plus you can also find me on YouTube sharing tips and tutorials. 

 

 

See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Class Trailer: Making stories come to live with something really magical. But where do you start? My name is Amanda. I'm a freelance motion designer from the Midlands. In this course, I'll teach you everything I know about the process of creating an illustrated specter storyboard. Promotion was saying, the process of creating a storyboard promotion designed might seem really intimidating. But with a few simple steps, I guide you through the process, will go over different stages of the project or working on a brief for Mr. gets. This class is for everybody That's curious about motion design industry or wants to go for this class is meant to give you a confidence boost when starting on your own. I hope to see you in class. 2. Research: Introducing the Brief: Welcome to the first part, the research. In this part, I'll go over the brief and talk about what we need to note and why. I'll also help you with file management to get started. You ready. Let's get started. Let's introduce today's brief. Mr. Get. A fictional company that's like setting well domination by infiltrating the homes, millions of innocent and oblivious people. To get. This animation should make everyone that's still doesn't have a good one to get as soon as possible. Sounds great, right? And probably safe. Mr. Care is a script prepared and needs and illustrate storyboards, including his guest version and some style frames. So let's get started. 3. Research: What you need to know: When starting your brief, it's important to find out what you need to know what kind of assets the clients still needs to deliver. You can either do some research online or having more extensive talk with your client. What you need to know and why. Finding out who is going to watch your animation can greatly impact your style decisions. And even debating. Doing a bit of research about your demographic and help you identify what they prefer and how they would like to be addressed. Elderly people usually don't do well with fast-paced animations and would benefit from slower timing. Given the information time to land. Finding out why they want an animation can make it easier for you to figure out the call to action. Knowing where your animation is going to be. Feud helps you decide the right sizes and specifics. It also keeps you from adjusting anything later on. When you scan the optional. Since I mostly use my own calendar for planning and don't find it necessary to add dates to all documents, since there can be many adjustments in planning. And two, when working for studios, they often use their own time management software. Before starting, it's important to collect all your brand assets. Can be colors, guides, bonds, elements and visuals from your client. This way you can create a cohesive style frame that fits the brand or client you're working for. 4. Research: File Management: Welcome to the next lesson. In this lesson I'm going to talk about file management. Having all your resources and files in an organized place can save you a lot of time and maybe prevent some mental breakdowns along the way. Because you can see here the client map. I usually start with client name and the project name. The project name is usually the name of the animation. So let's dive in. You can see we have client files, pref scripts, creative direction, visual design, animation, and feedback. Depending on the project, the contents of this map can change. I won't always write your script or create the animation for each storyboard. Sometimes even a creative direction is skipped, especially when I create animations that already have previous animation and are part of a series. We'll start with client files. This is everything the client sends to me. This can also include style guides and video brand guides. I like to include fonts in here since it can be quite annoying if you lose them. And the reef is a short summary of the project including how long it's gonna take and some basic information. The script, some script versions and possibly translations. Creative direction. I usually start with sketching some thumbnail sketches. These are the shots bar InDesign document. I also include thumbnail sketches in here. Then we have the mood board. We usually add some images that I make myself from outside or from the client that I received. I've put them in here if they're necessary for the mood board. But most of the time I just use images from Pinterest and place them in the mood board. Also. I think this is an important one. Template. I put all my templates from this year in here that I'm going to use for the creative direction. This is the document I sent to the client, and this is all the guides and style frame guides that I've placed in here. We have Visual Design, illustrates storyboard including the shelves, and again, some templates that I might use. And here we can see animation, the project files with After Effects, low host and sound effects, voiceover. I won't go in depth with the animation part because I'll only do the illustrated part for this class. And lastly, the feedback. I include all the feedback I received from the client in here, this can be central e-mail or short summary. I ride during. This way I make sure that I don't lose the feedback and stay on top of my project. I've placed this map in the resources so you can reuse it and adjust it to your own needs. Your first assignment you can either choose to go along with Mr. Gibbs or pick one of the other briefs I've included in the resources. Let me know which brief you picked and y don't forget to add some of your personal goals to the brief TO next lesson. 5. Concepting: Creating a Moodboard: Welcome to the second part. Contracting. Concepting means generating new ideas that can give the project a sense of direction. That's why I call this creative direction when sending documents to the clients. Creative direction can help you create a more meaningful connection between the story and the audience. Setting up a few basic guidelines about what should and should not be included in the story or the animation can really help uplift the project to the next level. In this space, I'll be going over wood-burning, finding your inspiration, creating thumbnail sketches, a storyboard, and then enigmatic. So without further ado, let's begin with the first step of the creative direction. And that is finding inspiration for your mood board. As you can see over here, I create a new project folder and duplicate that one and gave it the right name, and deleted the folders that I am not going to use during this project. And we'll start with creative direction here. Abusive template and create a depression once, since it can be changed. With adjustments from the client. I usually start by making a mood board, collecting some images online and placing them in this grid. I also write a short description of the style or the things that I would like to see in it. You can make that part as detailed as you want. You can also add some keywords to it and some colors that you think would fit this style the best. Making a mood board pinterest makes things really easy. Basically 11 place for all your images. This is the board that I created. I usually usually have ten to 20 images for Moodboard. And then I'll use or find some reference images like holding a cat or some color images that I really like and add them to the mood board along the way. Make sure you don't stay on Pinterest too long because boards over a 100 images are not going to help you anymore. It's addicting though. So I think that's the only downside to Pinterest. When I'm done collecting all these images, I add them to the creative direction template. As you can see here. I'll use a clipping mask to add them into this file to make sure the grid stays intact. And that's basically it. You can create as many concepts as you want. But I recommend one or two, since too many choices can be a bit overwhelming. Your second assignment, we'll start with the moodboard. Collect some images online, and fill in the template. You can also create your own template. This is also the part where you choose to either have one or multiple concepts. Don't forget to add some personal goals and have fun. 6. Concept: Thumbnail Sketching: After you've defined the direction, you might find a job, right? Integrating style frames, just grab an interesting sentence and create something cool, right? Well, I've done that before and even though the style has been approved, the frame didn't end up being used to prevent you from creating a frame that ends up in the trash. Let's start with some rough thumbnail sketches. This way we know for sure or at least have a good flow, makes sense and fit the storyline. And even if your client doesn't want to sketch a storyboard version, creating thumbnail sketches is a must for my creative process. It's quick and it's a lot easier to erase your IDs. Now, before you've put a lot of work in the design, this process brings out all of my ideas and creative juices before starting production. I make sure to be really messy and write down as many notes as I can. Sometimes I'll even make multiple storyboards. If you are not fond of creating messy sketches, you can also create a mind map. But I've found that seeing your ideas on paper and exploring transitions can help you figure out if they work or not. Sometimes you need to go to your IDs with an animator. If you are not doing their part yourself, discuss possible transitions and if that works for them in the time and budget they have. This is also where I start collecting reference photos for my ideas on Pinterest. My thumbnail sketches laid out, it's easier to draw the final sketch on top. I don't have to do a lot of guesswork, but don't get too attached to the IDs. Don't spend too many hours on them. This is all the first boss and sometimes a lot of the frames and changing. If you want, you can stay and watch this little speed paint of all the frames I've made in Procreate. I'll go on to the next lesson. 7. Concept: Compositions: Going a little bit more in depth with compositions, creating compositions for motion you shine can be really similar to that of movies, animations and, or photo graphics. I've put a few simple tips together to get you started with competition. Most people probably are already heard of the rule of thirds before. It's used in many different fields. It's also a great tool to improve balance in your illustrations with a simple grid and for main focus points, then draw attention to the fewer. I think I even read in a research article that the top-left point is one of the places people's eyes get drawn to first, it's quick and easy to apply and immediately focuses on balancing your illustrations out. The rule of thirds can be a little bit fake in term of rules. Playing with the four middle and background. This means that you can basically divide your illustrations enough to treat layers of depth within landscapes. You can create a foreground that is close to the camera. This helps frame your illustration. You can also play with the depth of field, blurring things in the foreground or background. This can be fun addition to switch up in animation. Lastly, adding perspective to your illustration with a finishing point can give your composition a realistic perspective. We didn't move these. There's a lot of different names for certain shots. It's good to know the basics and find out why certain shots are used. A close-up shot is a shot or details are very important. Maybe you want to see what's reflected in someone's eye. Medium shot of a character is from the torso went up. Perfect. If you want to show body language or expressions within a character, a full shot. This often shown if the situation the characters In matters to the story. Trying out different camera angles, it might seem really difficult at first to try out different angles, but it helps figuring out what works best for the story. Here we see three different angles of someone working behind the computer. The first image can be called an over the shoulder shelf. The second one is a full shot, and the last one is a medium shot. I hope this helps you get started with getting more comfortable creating compositions. Hope to see you in the next lesson. 8. Concept: Storyboard PDF: Let's create a storyboard PDF. You've already filled in our mood board and the creative direction. As you can see here. Theta direction or brief. So we have filled in concept a, B filled in our mood board. What we want to see in the animation, and what do you think is going to be a good luck for the client? Before working on the staff, Boehm, I now fixed my thumbnail sketches. You can see thumbnail sketches in here. Put them in here, so I don't lose them and can easily put them in Illustrator if I need to. All the shield Sykes borders on Procreate. I also added already. So motion frames because I'm gonna create an automatic just a transition from one frame to the other frame. All the sadness I've created. And this is the storyboard template that I've filled in. Let's show you a little example. I always create my storyboards PDF document in InDesign, but I find it easier to work with. It can easily replace images if I need to have a few different sizes. The perfect bomb for sketches. I find sketches are usually not that defined as illustrated storyboards. So I use a lot more frames on one page. You can easily change the name and the date in one of the master pages, and that quickly changed it on all the pages. You can add a quick little description over here that describes the animation and what you see in the frame. And here's where I've put the voice-over chicken see to make it even more clear, I've added some arrows to indicate which where the camera is going to move. And that's basically it for making a storyboard. I've also added a feedback page. Very important to let your client know what happens when you don't get the feedback on time. And at a little, thank you. Yeah, have fun creating this third assignment. You're gonna create your own storyboard. Start out with some thumbnail sketches or mind-mapping, just what you prefer. And then work towards getting the storyboard. If you don't want to sketch a storyboard and don't think it's necessary. I still highly recommend to work on thumbnail sketches since that can fill out any gaps story that you might have. I also added some templates that might help you start out. See you in the next lesson. 9. Concept: Creating an Animatic: Creating an arithmetic. Sometimes clients have no experience with animation or just want to have a super clear direction. Especially when their own animators are going to work on my storyboard. Something that's can give it an extra push is called an antiemetic. It's a rough animated version of your storyboard. You can report your own voiceover or even let a computer voice say descript out loud. You can turn this to the frames accordingly. When necessary, I add some motion frames in-between. This can answer all your questions about dining and transitions. Hi there. Have you been lonely, sad, or depressed? Well, we can fix that. Sorry. But maybe she can gets have been scientifically proven to boost your mood and overall life experience. Everyone with a cat, Greece, and once you've to get 12, no need for Hobbes anymore. We will be looking at your flow for every second of the day. You might want to throw away your alarm. Since your chemical they worried about finding the right one gets can vary in character and their personality. Just like people. What are you waiting for? Ordinal. And you'll probably end up with two instead of one. Assignment for one of the most fun things to do in the beginning is seeing your animation come together. Then an antiemetic, you can easily put all your frames next to each other, but some voice over under it and see the complete animation from beginning to end. You can work this out in any program or software you're familiar with. I usually use Premiere Pro or After Effects, whatever floats your boat to you in the next lesson. 10. Design: Introduction Styleframes: Welcome to the design phase. There are so many different options in style that I'll show a few examples here. I've worked on animations that have Galatia images in it. I've also worked on science-fiction animations, are thick animations, and even animations with an isometric design. An isometric design is an animation that uses a certain kind of grid to draw your illustrations on. As you can see, there are many different options and even a lot more than I just named. In this stage, you will figure out your character design, color choices, and even the use of tech. 11. Design: Set-up Styleframes: I start with creating a style frame. I use an onboard 925,080 pixels and place the sketches and the needed with the 30% opacity. I'll show you how to. But my settings are 925,080. Yeah, and that's it. Basically, you can add a few more arc or two if you want. Sometimes I create two of the same style images. Get the clay to give them more clear indication of the style. And I also created some other templates with guidelines in it so you can create for multiple sizes in one go. These textboxes are for placing your sentences from the script in it, or some short descriptions if you want. The guide layer and you can turn them off and on. You just put this on. You see that this is the size that I mostly use to fill in this whole artboard. You know for sure that you also have the other size is included with the main focus on, of course, everything that's within all of the frames. So I will put the main focus inside this square. And then you basically have created artwork that would be able to be animated for multiple sizes. But I think the most common users usage for animation, you still on board tonight, 25,080 pixels. But I think this is a really handy thing if you want to already know or if you already know that you're going to need the animation to be exported in multiple sizes is where you will also fill in the blanks for animator or else it. And maybe we'll have to think of filling in all the empty space by himself. If you're animating into shelf, you will also save some time. But this is where I start with my style frame. And basically just illustrate dealing with the pencil tool. And it might sound a bit, it might be a bit daunting at first to start by just going keep illustrating, and you eventually end up with something. Here I have saved some color testing and some different versions. She can see my process. So you can see this already looks very different. From that. I changed the sizes of the first and the colors a lot in the flower has changed a bit surreal process to create style frame. So I wouldn't be discouraged if the first hour it doesn't look good. Just keep adding things, deleting things, and trying out different colors. The easiest way to experiment with color is by, by this button here to color wheel. The color wheel. But certain things are going to look. So yeah, I, I'm usually experimenting a lot with it. And if you need to select something like all of these same colors, I would just click on this. Go to this or no, sorry. You want to select the same color. You go to. Select same. You have all these options, and I want to select same fill color. You can easily select all the same color and change them. Again with the color wheel. That's usually how I experiment with color. Yeah. I think this is a really fun process to do. It might sometimes be a little bit annoying because it doesn't end up how you envision it or might not look good for the first day. But also if you create something that you are, that you will like. Don't be surprised if you want like it anymore at the end of the week. That's usually how these things go. I think that's it for creating your style frame. See you next lesson. 12. Design: Rules for Motion Design: Rows for illustrating for motion. There are not many roles for promotion since there's many ways to create artwork for motion, you don't even have to create vector artwork. You can also create stuff in Photoshop and other programs. The number one basic rule is to keep everything I lose object. So don't merge any anything. Just keep all of them separated. Since you want to be able to make them move. Like this deal is not the part of the body so that I can just rotate it with when animating. Second part is with characters. It's very important that the joints are all rotatable. So we have here a circle and the pharmacist circle. And as you can see, when I put the anchor point in the middle there, it rotates very smoothly. It's basically what you wanna do with a lot of it. But if you can, if you can create as many rotatable bonds, that will be the best for animation. Sometimes it's a little bit hard to figure it out in Illustrator. You will have to do some problem-solving in After Effects. It's okay if you sometimes have to redraw certain things to make it better for animation. Yeah, makes sure to keep a lot of loose objects. And also for path animation, for access if I want to move some of these fingers, but I don't want to create older circle rotations for them. The joint and stuff. Make sure they have as less parts as possible so it can easily adjust it in After Effects. The likes of maybe I want to use path animation to animate it, then keeps the anchor points as low as possible. This way, they'll be really smooth to animate. But yeah, sometimes you will have to do so. Frame by frame animation to solve certain issues and redraw things. I think in a meeting is a lot of problem-solving. It's okay if you don't get it right the first time. It's also good to discuss it if you don't animate it. Or they animated would want. Sometimes they use overlord logins and all the things. You don't don't you don't have to think about everything on your own, then. They usually will tell you how to layer stuff and how they will want things to me. Some people don't even use the circle joints, but like strokes to animate, to Rick certain things. And this is the arm for example, and then the LoRa getWidth strokes. So yeah, that's it. Or motion design rules. I want to think of them as rewards, but more for its use, the problem-solving. That's it, I think for grading and stuff. Because luck with cranial stuff and make sure to keep using your Pinterest boards. Look for references, and don't be afraid to experiment with color a lot. Don't be too hard on yourself. And the illustration is a process. Keep that in mind. How often you do, the better you get at it. Welcome to the fifth assignment. For your fifth assignment, you're going to create your own style frames. If you're not sure where to start when creating your own style frame, I've added a template that might help you get started with a few simple questions. What shapes you're going to use? Is this going to be minimal or very detailed? And by filling out the questionnaire, you will have a complete vision of the style you're going to create. You can also fill in this multiple times to create a concept, a, concept B. So have fun with it and see you in the next lesson. 13. Presenting: How to present your work!: Welcome to the fourth phase. This is the phase where you present all of the hard work to your clients. It can be a bit scary, sending off your work through your appliance, but no worries. First things first present depending on your client. I usually send pdf documents to my clients, but if they are not in the field of animation, I've tried to explain more. I write short descriptions. Planning a goal. It's important to explain why you need feedback on what you need feedback and when you want to receive it. And what happens if you don't receive it? Make sure to be excited for feedback, since it means that the project is coming along. So let's go over all the files that I send to my clients when I'm done with the creative direction face. So the first thing I will deliver to my clients is this creative direction. Style frames document the script, the mood board, create. Finishing here. First style frame, I always name the stuffing. Give it another name so that the client can reference that name if they're talking about it. No confusion. What are they talking about? Another style frame or not. And this is the second one here. The sketch a storyboard. This will be included. And the montage video, I will just include in the email also. Most of the time, I plan in a coal when they received all of the files and went over it. Then we can discuss all of the feedback and talk about it a little bit more in-depth. Assignment six, presenting your work. Fill in the template, placing all your images and short summaries of the styles you created. And also write why you need feedback and what happens if you don't receive it? It should think of this in your own words and phrasings also if you want. So you can think of a few feedback points that your client gave you and make a version of it so that it feels like a real client projects. I hope to see you in the next class. 14. Production: Setting-up Artboards: Welcome to the last phase production. After fixing your storyboard and style frames with your feedback from the client, we get started on production, the visual design of the animation. This is the bulk of the project and it will take up most of our time. In this phase, I will go over the setup, how we start creating our storyboard files and things. Also, I will talk about some Illustrator hacks, tips and tricks, how to create stuff. I also talk about how to prep for animation and sending it off to your clients. Since so many artboards in one Illustrator file can be, can become really messy really quickly. So let's get into the setup. She could see this is my setup for this storyboard. I've created all these art boards next to each other, placed in the whole sketches up the storyboard. This process is almost the same as creating style frames. I've also made this guidance template where you can feel all in the storyboards and also write the text in it. But it's up to you what you prefer to work with. For now, I've created this. What I'd really like to start implementing this in the future for my projects. Since we already created style frames, we can copy these frames to the visual design and start from there. Right now I haven't organized the layers very precisely, so it's a little bit of a big mess, but I usually start organizing when I get an agreement and all of the frames and have to send it off to the client. As you can see, this is the production phase, all finished. If you're curious about some Illustrator tips, I would recommend following the next lessons. And if you're already familiar with Illustrator, then just go ahead and create something fun. 15. Production: Illustrator Tips: Welcome to the next lesson. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about my workspace and tools that I use a lot well illustrating or motion design. As you can see, this is my workspace. I have all my favorite tools right here. Effects and things that I use a lot of color selection, my art boards in the layers. This one is probably important to me because this is where I can see your answers. If I have added, for example, you see here up and edges selected, I can delete any effects I want. This is the properties. If my shape is cooked, not the right angle, I can adjust it here, I can make the size is bigger. So this is basically my favorite setup for when working in Illustrator. You can adjust your own workspace and then a Windows Settings, and then the workspace. And this is where I can add all these different kinds of workspaces. You can create a new workspace or reset your own workspace. And I won't look too much at my workspace. My workspace station always changes a lot. Depending on what I'm working for. There's no right or wrong workspace, just what you use the most. I think that's important to have in the frame. There are lots of tools that might be really handy. But as I don't use, for example, the shape builder tool, I'm don't use it a lot in my work, but it might be really handy for you. I've placed this Illustrator file and the resources so you can create these shapes together with me. Let's start with creating the star-shaped. Most of the shapes and things like create starts from the basic shapes. I'll create an circle. Also, shortcuts are very important to know. Illustrator. You don't have to know them all. But for example, holding Shift while dragging the shape makes sure that it's around circle and scaled proportionally. If I let go off the shape tool, you can just create any kind of circle shape ellipse. You want this, you want the perfectly round circle hold shift and drag it. Let's create another circle, an ellipse. Now let's both of them selected. I'll go to Effect, distort and transformation and ago duplicate and then I do Bucher, I create these little starch. And she can also create these little fun flower leaf shapes if you go the other way and adjust them like this. And if you want to change the color, for example, we can grab the eyedropper tool with E and then select, for example, this gray color. And then you get a gray color. If you want to change the line from Bill on Farmville to stroke, press the button and hold Shift because this is a fill and if I hold Shift it will stay line. If I don't hold Shift, it will change the fill color. That's that. Now, if you import these shapes to after effects, they will import as circles and ellipses instead of the sharp edges. So go to object and expand experiences. And then they are, they changed into shape. You want them to be in after effects. Let's go to the next one. Roughen edges will create a circle again, like this. And if your lines are not on, I highly suggest checking the few settings and smart book, smart guides on. As you can see, these purple lines everywhere. I switched it into a line. Now we go to Effect, Distort and Transform again, roughen edges. And you can experiment a lot with this. You can also create some really, really weird shapes. If you want to. Roughen edges effect, I usually do a soft effect, smooth, and use these settings to create a really smooth, tiny fact here. If you make too much right now, if you add this to your whole illustration, you can really see it's more of a natural drawing setup, a stiff vector drawing. This does have issues with exporting to After Effects. If you're exporting to After Effects, you won't see the roughen edges effect. After Effects really have some fun effects on its own to create a scribbly line. So this is only for illustration effects. And to show your client what it might look like if you really want to have a clear image of what your stuff I was gonna look like after adding all the effects. It's creating clean artwork and putting that in After Effects and adding all kinds of glow or transformation or a noise effects to certain things. Export a PNG from that frame. That way you can show your client but is really going to look like. For the next shape, we're going to create these cartwheel. You'd be surprised how many clients suggest the shape for a certain icons or want to have this shape in their animations. Lots of shapes get you use like for example, working at a desk or holding a phone, are all things that will be coming back for you in animations and storyboards. Knowing how to make them and adjusting them each time is really important. We'll start with a circle again. As you can see, a lot of shapes start off with a basic circle. Placed in the middle, give it the line with the eyedropper tool. And I'll copy it in place with Command Shift D. And then I'll drag it out like this. One, them all in the same size. I want this a little bit smaller. Like this I think. I'll create. You can adjust the lines here on the two coins. And let's create a rectangle to then go with holding Shift again to create proportionally the same size, smaller. And with the a tool, the direct selection tool, I can adjust the anchor points on click on this and adjusted my dish. And then with the guidelines, I can see that in the middle of breast the art rotate it on the center from the circle and then drag it with shipped across these lines. And I can grab all of them. And circle. And then I go to Pathfinder and choose Merge. What is the cochlea? She's really fun to create shapes from other shapes and mixing and matching them together with the Pathfinder tool. So yeah, I'll group them at least a minute middle of my own work. Let's start with the next one, the pen tool and anchor points. We already used some anchor points and the pen tool here. Let's create a circle. Again. With the direct selection tool will select this point, which shifts with all the other point and then change them in a point instead of a curve. Then I'll squash it down into the shape of an eye. Let's try out water droplets. You can see here, I'll select this anchor point, converted. Push it out. Now you have a little droplets on a grid around the droplets. You can still adjust these ones. Some more Pen tool tips. You can also create spawn shaped by deleting certain anchor points. For example, you drag this one and then click on this one and then that one delete. So you can start over right here. And this is usually how I create some fun collapse. Feel like, well, this doesn't look good. Just drag it and adjust it. I really enjoyed it. You can still adjust any point. And if you mess up, you can just go back to it and fix it. Also, if you don't want to have these sharp points, you can go to strokes in here. And that way you have more rounder edges instead of the sharp bones. You can see here. And let's fill it in. So yeah, that's how you create the shapes. If you're unfamiliar with the ventral and struggling with it. I suggest going through the Bezier Method and playing this game to help you master the pen tool and redefine, it shows you exactly how it works and gives you some basic instructions on how to create shapes. I know it has helped me out in the beginning, not something you have to do for hours. A little bit of the few of the shapes is really fun. Textures in your illustrations. Just like with the roughen edges. This will not always translate very well, not perfection. You will have to recreate something in After Effects on your own. But I can still show you how to do certain elements. For example, if I want to change the edges into a sibling edge, I'll go to one of my brushes. I have the stippling brushes that I found online. You can easily look up brushes, illustrator online for free and add them to your artwork. You can see it. It might take a little bit of time. This creates a stippling brush effect around your illustration. Normal, I click on Basic again. Now a lot of different websites where you can find textures. I use Unsplash a lot. It's website where you can find free high-quality photos online. And for example, if you want to use this texture, I'll download it and place it in my Illustrator file. You see here I jumped to the new shader. For now, I'll just make it really small. And I'll give this a color so you can see it better. For example, I get this blue color and now you can see the shape. But if I change the opacity and the settings here, with color burn, for example, I use color burn and look for certain things. You can really fun shape. You might want to shave everywhere. And then I'll use the clipping mask. Select both out, creates duplicate of this shape. And I'll select both of them, clipping mask. And then you see it has this shape inside anything. I just did. And now your Cloud has a really nice texture. Let's go to the next lesson, smoothing. And I can create a really weird shape here. And it might look a little bit odd. Now on this edge to be different. I can adjust it, but the smoothing tool smooths things out. I think it's a really good tool to use if certain things don't look the way you wanted to do a new concept adjusted a little bit. Careful though, because you have a sharp edge. You an example. If you have a sharp edge, it will also make that round. I think it's really fun to add some smoothing to certain lines sometimes. For a clipping mask, I already showed you in here how to do it. But it was idle. It's really fun to see what your character looks like when rolling is high in different positions. We'll start again with the circle. Select both of these shapes, comfort them. Squash it down a little bit. And lie. And not a circle. It's going to be black. I'll duplicate this layer Command E, That one is Schottky that I use very much to see everything. I'll select that one and clipping mask it. This way. The I will not go over the shape that you've created. So yeah, that's, that's it for this lesson. I hope you learn some new Illustrator tips and some basic ways to create some complex shapes. 16. Production: Layering : Welcome to one of the last lessons, prepping your storyboard for animation and sending it off to your client. As you can see, this is my final storyboard. I've created all these different centers for each frame and grouped all the layers together. As you can see here. I've named all of them with the block and overload. You can push your selections to After Effects and it will keep the name. So it's really handy if you name your layers already in Illustrator. Just like coefficients, layering isn't the most fun, but it's an important step to stay organized. I feel like people always focus a lot on being the best in illustration. But certain skills Like organization can really help decide if you're going to be higher next time. Just like being on time and being fun to work with. I think those are already very important things to keep in mind when starting out. If you don't want to spend time layering all your stuff. In the end. You can also start when you're illustrating in the beginning. I'm a very chaotic Illustrator, so I've just put blobs everywhere and don't really track anything and start layering at the end. I also made sure everything was rounded off properly. I've put this in the resources so you can have a look at this file. You can use it for practice, modified for personal use, and mess with it as much as you like. Also for animation, it's important to create the back layers for certain things. Let's go to the bone. You can see here the phone has garnered shouldn't be empty, but they're still should be something. And this isn't the best or the prettiest example. But I'm gonna see if it works in animation or not. Maybe I'll have to create some more depth in the hand. When you finished your storyboards in Illustrator, it's important to showcase all of your illustrations. That's why I use this to find perfect page templates. That way you can really show off the details in your illustration. This way you can not only present your work, but also give the client an indication about what is important in the frame by writing these descriptions and he can properly give you feedback. I'll usually sent only a PDF. And when everything has been approved, they'll send over the files with the right layering and everything that's been prepped for animation. So that's it for this lesson. Okay, this is your final assignment, is creating your own storyboard in Illustrator. Make sure to export all the images and create the PDF document and sent off to your clients and prep all your layers in Illustrator or animation. 17. Good Job! :) : Well done, You have finished the course. I hope you learn something new and enjoyed my class. Make sure to keep experimenting with the process and figure out what works the best for you. I'm really excited to see what kind of products you guys come up with and would love to see them. I really enjoyed making this course, even though it has been a little bit awkward recording myself and since my native language isn't English, I hope it hasn't been too difficult to understand me. Definitely let me know if you have any feedback so I can improve my next possible courses. Thank you so much for following my class and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye.