Animated books are great! They can become your movie or your personal slides. It is also a perfect way to have fun and learn how to do animation work! They can be silly or profound, and they can be wonderful. We will show you a couple of ways to create your own animated book and give you some ideas on what to do with it. By doing this you will have fun and laugh a lot. Here's how to do it.
Steps
Step 1. Get a stack of papers
You can use notepads, post-its, notebooks, printer paper, or even the corners of a book (make sure it's yours!). Thin paper is usually better, because it's easier to flip through. If necessary, you can use thick paper, but you will probably leaf through it badly or slowly.
- How much paper do you need? The more frames (pages) per second your animated book has, the more realistic the movement of characters or objects will be.
- Animated images usually have between 24 and 30 frames per second - which corresponds to many drawings, even flipping through for 3 seconds! For an animated book anything between 5 and 15 frames per second will be fine.
Step 2. Choose your subject
Start by drawing the character you want to animate. You don't have to be a great artist and your animated book can be about anything you want. Your characters could be stick figures, people, animals, or anything you'd like to see moving, like a car, plane, boat, etc.
- Inanimate objects can also be good for an animated book; something as simple as a bouncing ball can become a work of art.
- Animated books don't necessarily have to be animated; you can also use photos. Use your imagination!
Step 3. Keep the various pages together
If you separate them, the animated book may not work, or it may even be destroyed.
Step 4. Locate the last sheet of the stack
Draw the character or object you have chosen there. Use a pencil so you can erase mistakes. If you want to make the drawing more visible, you can then go over it with a pen.
- You can also start from the first sheet, but it will be much more difficult to get a smooth animation, because you will not be able to refer to the previous image or trace it.
- You can also add a background if you want. It could be a static scene, like a house, or something that doesn't move from frame to frame, or it could be something that moves - like clouds, or an airplane.
Step 5. Go to the next "frame" (the next page starting from the bottom)
You should be able to see the original design through the paper. If you can't, the paper may be too thick, or the lines too light, so start over, as it's important that you can see enough to get an idea of where to draw the object.
- If you want to make your object move, this time draw it in a slightly different position.
- Otherwise, draw it in exactly the same place.
- As you flip through the pages, larger changes in the subject will appear as fast movements, while smaller changes will appear as slower movements.
Step 6. Repeat the process
Keep drawing the character or object on each page, until the end of the sheets. Make small adjustments each time, so that the character or object begins to change position or move. As much as movement depends on you, you should still plan any adjustments based on the number of pages you have available.
Step 7. Try it
Test the final result to see if you've got a character or animated item you like. If it doesn't seem to change much, go back and make some changes to increase the sense of animation.
Once you are satisfied, you can trace the designs with a marker to make them easier to see
Step 8. Be creative
There are many things you can do with an animated book. Start small, perhaps with a bouncing ball, or with an angry face that turns into a smiling face. You can even zoom in on something you've already done, turning it into something else.
For example, if you started with a bouncing ball, you could go back to the drawing and add arms, legs, and a face that "pop out" every time the ball bounces
Method 1 of 1: Method 2: Use Your Computer
Step 1. Open a graphics program
Something like Photoshop, Elements, GIMP, or other graphics applications that offer the ability to draw in layers.
Step 2. Create a new document
To make it the size of a post-it note, set the height and width to 800 pixels and the resolution to 300.
Step 3. Set the color of the background layer to white
If you want, you can also draw a static background on this layer, which will appear on every frame.
Step 4. Create a new layer
This will be the first "page" of the animated book. For this example we will use a simple drawn face and, from a straight face, we will get a happy face.
Step 5. Duplicate the first layer
When you're done drawing Layer 1, duplicate it and then set the Opacity of Layer 1 to 20%. This way the layer will turn a blurry gray and it will be easy to see the drawing of the next layer.
Step 6. Click on the new layer
Erase the parts of the first layer you don't want to keep and draw those elements in a different position. In this example, we have erased the eyebrows, pupils and mouth and modified them slightly.
Step 7. Duplicate the new layer
Repeat the process of erasing and modifying the elements, drawing them in the next position in your animation, until you reach the final frame.
When you're done drawing, make sure you set the opacity of each layer to 100%
Step 8. Create an animated book
There are a couple of ways to turn your drawings into an animated book. The first is to make only one layer visible at a time (plus the background), print it, and then move on to the next layer. When you have printed all the images, cut off the excess paper, pin the sheets together and flip through.
Cutting the sheets is an important step and is best done using a letter opener, not scissors. It is best to have each page perfectly aligned on the "flip" edges, in order for the book to work
Step 9. Make a Movie
Instead of making an animated book using paper, you can make a short mini-movie. If your graphics program has the option to create an animation, check the instruction book for the best way to do it. Anyway, the basic process is this: create a frame for each step of the animation and activate only those layers that you want to be visible in that frame.
- In this example, we have activated the background layer for each frame and set a single frame for each other layer: Layer 1, Layer 1 copy, Layer 1 copy 2, etc.
- Set the number of repetitions you want - once, 10 times, infinite - based on how many times you want to review your animation.
Step 10. Export your animated book
When you're done, use the export function and save your animated book as a video file. If you want, you can put it on YouTube and show it to the world!
Advice
- Remember that starting from the bottom, you can get a better idea of where to draw your images.
- If you want you can start from the first sheet, but it will be more difficult.
- The more frames per second you have, the more realistic your footage will be.
- At first he draws the animated book in pencil. You can always go over it in pen later. Just remember that you cannot erase what is done in pen.
- You can use a diary to create longer animated books. Just make sure you write on the edges of the pages, or use a black marker.
- One way to keep your animated book (and to go completely crazy) is to photograph each page in order to put together something more or less like a stop motion animation.
Warnings
- Never draw your movie on separate post-its.
- Never draw immediately in pen.
- Your animated book may deteriorate over time and start "jamming."
- Make sure you use paper that doesn't get damaged right away.
