Aaron Doodles

live action lion king spoiler alert

Late last year I wanted to start a series of short tutorials called Tip Jar, as a way of saying thanks to my fans and giving back to my patrons. This is the first of the series I have made, showing my technique on quickly filling in lineart so you can get to painting without coloring outside the lines faster. 

Someday I hope to turn these into video tutorials when I have the income and the time, but for now I hope that I will be able to share useful tips in this infographic format.

Full tutorial image

So alternatively step 1.5 is to click on the channels tab, and create a new layer. Fill the areas that you magic wand(ed) with black (leaving the characters/whatever you want to fill white). Click out of the marquee and use gaussian blur (i use 3.0 on a huge image, sometimes you need to go down for a smaller image)

Then you go to image/adjustments/levels and put in–and this is where I sound like a mad scientist–88 1.42 and 122. Which cleans up the edges so they’re pretty clean! 

Then all you do is click on the circle at the bottom of the channels area (”load channel as selected) and then go back in to layers and click on a layer to load your original view again! and then do the rest of the steps. It will cause you to clean up corners a lot but it saves me a whole heck of time since i have a rougher inking style. This step takes all of 3 minutes at most but otherwise I’d have to base everything by hand :I Or spend a good 40 minutes cleaning up jaggies.

TL;DR alternative step if you have rougher/sketchier lines.

Oh! Since my lines often don’t join correctly, I create a layer underneath and fill any holes before i do selection (with “select all layers” ticked off) which is admittedly tedious but again. Way quicker than doing it by hand! So yeah if you see this and are like oh gee whiz this doesn’t work with how I do stuff, try this added step?

20170226

Feeling that your drawings can look a little bit more fun? Do your character designs seem a little bit static or generic? Maybe they need a small push to their proportions!

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The “How to Make Your Art Look Nice” Series

Developing Style | Lighting | Flow and Rhythm | Thumbnailing | Mindsets | Reference and Style | Color Harmony | Contrast

I’m still trying to process the Trump administration’s latest attack on trans rights and identities. As I read that first article I just felt rage consuming me. I can’t imagine how trans people are feeling right now. 

These policies solve no problem. They avert no danger. They balance no budget. They help no individual or group. They do not serve any governmental function. 

It’s just pure concentrated hate for hate’s sake. 

I wish I had more hopeful words that could help alleviate people’s fear. All I can say is that I support everyone who may be harmed by what may come. I offer my voice and my love. 

Sometimes the most difficult trials birth the most promising futures. If we can win this battle now, perhaps fewer people will have to struggle to be accepted.

This is the “transgender military ban” all over again. It’s a political smokescreen by the GOP, who are willing to SACRIFICE THE LIVES OF REAL PEOPLE to rally a base of bigots around a social issue so they don’t have to talk about the things they’re doing that are causing real harm, like wage suppression, voter suppression, ignoring climate change and attempting to take health care aware from millions of people.

I’m still trying to process the Trump administration’s latest attack on trans rights and identities. As I read that first article I just felt rage consuming me. I can’t imagine how trans people are feeling right now. 

These policies solve no problem. They avert no danger. They balance no budget. They help no individual or group. They do not serve any governmental function. 

It’s just pure concentrated hate for hate’s sake. 

I wish I had more hopeful words that could help alleviate people’s fear. All I can say is that I support everyone who may be harmed by what may come. I offer my voice and my love. 

Sometimes the most difficult trials birth the most promising futures. If we can win this battle now, perhaps fewer people will have to struggle to be accepted.

This is the "transgender military ban" all over again. It's a political smokescreen by the GOP, who are willing to SACRIFICE THE LIVES OF REAL PEOPLE to rally a base of bigots around a social issue so they don't have to talk about the things they're doing that are causing real harm, like wage suppression, voter suppression, ignoring climate change and attempting to take health care aware from millions of people.

Hiya! Sorry to take so long to reply! I’ve been under a huuuuge workload the past months, and I when I finally got more time for myself I was just too tired to do anything else than simply rest. But here it is! I listed couple things I could think about how to think when you animate. Of course this is only my personal list, so I understand if someone disagrees.

It goes a bit in-and-out the range of actually animating things - but I feel like there cannot be one without the other, so here we go! 

Hopefully this will be helpful!

1) Animating is SLOW

The biggest advice I can give is that animation is not easy. It’s hard. It’s tedious. It’ll always take like double the time you think it will. And that’s not on a scale of hours, but days and weeks. You think your scene will take 3 days to rough out? It’ll probably take 6. You think you can clean it up in 1 week? Book in 2,5. Just get some coffee and continue. It’ll be there. Eventually.

2) Take breaks

After a while you’ll become blind to the animation you’re making, so remember to take breaks. Take 30 min break, and when you get back to your animation and play it through you can usually spot a thing or two you just couldn’t see before. It’s also good for your body - I have to admit I tend to sit at my desk way too long hours, but I’m trying to get better.

3) Work out

I feel like I say this every time, but be considerate of your body. I’ve seen so many people having problems with their wrists and elbows, and the best thing to prevent those is to exercise. It also clears your head and ALMOST prevents you from getting sleepy while animating.

4) Start loose

I tend to start with really loose thumbnails in order to get the movement I want. Sketch those thumbnails in so loose that only you can tell what’s happening. You want to feel the movement, making the character pretty comes later. If I start with the construction, I realize half way that the character moves more like a machine than a living thing. Of course this is different for everyone. Some people can be like super humans and draw the final line in one try - I’m not one of them.

5) Kill your babies

Don’t be scared to ditch something that doesn’t work. Of course you want to keep the perfect looking key that you used so much time to finish, but if the movement doesn’t flow, it’s fine to get rid of it. You can use it as a base for your new better drawing

6) Toon Boom vs. TVPaint

These are the two programs I’ve used for 2D animation (+ Photoshop, but that was a bad idea). I actually started with Toon Boom and learned about TVPaint only later. I really like both of the programs, but they have some significant differences.

Toon Boom

Toon Boom is really advanced, bit confusing, originally vector-based 2D animation program. It’s really good, but learning to use it is bit of a work. I started with Toon Boom, and I’ve done most of my personal animations with it. My favorite part of the program is the vector line. You can tweak the line, resize, recolor, do almost anything you want even after you’ve finished your animation. Of course sketching with vector doesn’t feel as good as sketching in Photoshop, but nowadays the newest Toon Boom has been really improving with the feeling of the drawn line and they have even introduced bitmap based layers.

TVPaint

Day02 “Robot Friend”