Sketch Star - Cartoons and Animations

Drawing Lucy Liu by Clymenus

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Clymenus

12 June 2010

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Sketchy's Tips

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Transparency

Did you know that you can change the transparency of an object by using the Transparency slider in the Edit section?

Start your Animation with an Outline

Before you start on the beautiful details of your animation, try drawing a simple outline. This way, you can get the overall composition looking great, and you can make sure everything's going to fit in the frame! Once you're filling in the details, you can start deleting your outline if you don't need it any more.

Background Objects

Did you know that when you select a background object it is automatically placed on the Background Layer?

Ask your Friends and Family for Ideas

If you don't know what to draw and need inspiration, ask your brothers/sisters, friends or other members of the family - they might have just the right idea for your to create a killer animation!

Foreground and Background Layers

Try using both foreground and background layers to improve your animation and make it stand out.

Challenge Yourself! Draw what's Difficult

Even skilled artists find it difficult to draw and paint certain things. For example, many people find it hard to draw realistic hands, or horses. However, drawing what's difficult for you is a great way to challenge yourself and improve your artistic abilities.

Stories

Looking for ideas for your animation? Try animating a well known story and put your own twist on it!

Experiment with Realistic Light Effects

Are you finding some of your animations a little flat and unrealistic? Bring life to your animations by bringing in some interesting light and shadow effects. Where is the light coming from? Are there any reflections? What directions are shadows falling?

Changing Shapes' Color

Did you know that you can change the color of an existing shape object by clicking on it with the bucket tool?

Show off your Storytelling Skills

If you're not a brilliant artist, you can still make exciting, popular animations. Forget beautiful graphics for a while, and flex your storytelling muscles by making a really funny/sad/happy/scary animation with a great plot. This is still great drawing practice, so your artistic skills will improve as well!

Puppets

Try using puppets to tell a story without having to draw each frame.

Sketch your Animation on Paper First

Even the greatest artists usually plan their masterpieces carefully before they step up to a canvas. Well, the Animation Creator is your canvas, so try sketching out your ideas on paper before you reach for your mouse. This will give you the chance to quickly experiment with different ideas, until you know exactly what you want.

Save your Animations Regularly

Save your animation as an Active Project every 15-30 minutes, to avoid losing it in case of a power outage, Internet problem or computer crash.

Animate your Drawings

Sketch Star allows you to make beautiful animations, so why limit yourself to a still image? Try using more frames and instill life and movement in your creations!

Zoom In For Perfect Details

Here's a special zooming technique to create detailed animations. When you're using the Animation Creator, hold 'Ctrl' ('Cmd' on a Mac) and push '+' a few times to zoom closer. While you're zoomed in, perfect the detailed parts of the animation. When you're finished (or you just want to check what you've done), hold 'Ctrl' ('Cmd' on a Mac) and push '-' to zoom out again, or 'Ctrl' ('Cmd' on a Mac) and '0' to go back to the normal view.

Hover Over an Object for a Description

If you're unsure about an object in the Animation Creator, hover over it and a description will pop up along with its name. This might even give you some ideas for using the object in an animation!

Tag your Animations - Get more Views!

When you publish an animation, you can add a number of "tags" to describe it. For example, if your animation was about Sketchy playing tennis on the moon, your tags might be "Sketchy", "tennis", and "moon". Sketch Star uses these for search results, so adding relevant tags will help other users find your animations. You might even get some extra votes!

Become a Fan of your Favorite Artists!

If you really like an artist, click the 'Become a Fan' button on their profile. You'll get a notification whenever they publish a new animation, so you won't miss any of their masterpieces!

Control Your Frames Easily

Moving animation frames around is easy! Just click and hold on the frame you want to move, and drag it to wherever in the timeline you want it.

Send Animations to Your Friends

Now it's even easier to share your favorite animations! On the animation page, just enter a friend's username in the 'Send to a Friend' field to add them to the list. When you've added all the friends you want, click 'Send', and each one of them will get a notification about the animation!

Use the new Spray tools to create interesting effects and textures

Each spray-can tip in the Spray tool has been enhanced with its unique special behavior. Experiment with different Sprays to create natural effects and organic textures!

New soft Eraser tip for feathered edges

Make gentle eraser strokes or interesting feathered edge effects with the new soft eraser tip in the Eraser tool.

Create your own colors with the new ‘My Palette’ feature

Sketch Star members can create their own customized color palettes for a coloring style that is rich and unique! To create your own color palette, click on the ‘My Palette’ tab and then on the Add color button. This will bring the color picker with millions of options to choose from. You can even specify the opacity of your new color with the slider at the bottom!

Drag and drop to create Custom Objects

If you are a Member, you can take any Object, Puppet, or any combination of them, and save them as custom Objects by dragging and dropping into you open My Objects folder!

Puppets have multiple Heads!

Did you know that each Puppet comes packed with its own set of “Heads” with different facial expressions you can control? Hover over a Puppet’s head to reveal a menu with all available “Heads” and click on one of the options to change your Puppet’s facial expression

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