Moho Forum

Hi friends every body. I have some experience in anime studio. To improve the workflow. I wish to hear tips from you..every body. For example how we can create/draw a vector character extreme fast using all tools available in anime studio such as...magnet,masking,point dragging,hide edges...etc...it is better any one post a video in youtube
thanks every body
aji

I am "old school" I guess. It is way faster for me to draw everything as tight as possible on paper first then scan and trace.
I get all the "outlines" drawn first and try to keep the idea of animating in mind to make the best decisions for how to connect shapes and how many points should be in a specific spot.

I don't even create filled and stroked shapes until the whole thing is drawn. To speed up the process and keep the preview less complicated, I will create additional vector layers to trace isolated elements, then copy and paste into the main layer. Or if the character is complicated I will leave the shapes on multiple layers.

I will use the point distortion tools to modified copied and flipped elements. For example today I was working on a cartoon shark with two rows of many teeth. After finishing the top row, I copied and pasted, then used the bend, skew and perspective points tools to tweak that shape to fit the lower teeth.

Doing all of this point tweaking and drawing BEFORE creating shapes keeps things less complicated. Less to worry about.

When ready for color and style, I will create NAMED STYLES in the style palette for various attributes; default stroke, hair, clothes, body, etc etc etc. Anything I think will be used on many shapes that I want to change quickly.

All of these styles are filled with white and stroked black or maybe I use grayscale just for temp values. These are just temporary shape styles to get the character filled in quickly to preview it. Afterwards I can go in and change my styles to colors I have from a palette for the character.

By using the named styles it saves a TON of effort later. I use the same default stroke named style for all the shapes, but I uncheck everything accept the stroke width in the style editor. I can override this with other named styles.

For example there could be a shirt style, pants style, shoe style. They all have different fill and stroke colors but I want the width to be the same for all of them. Without using a single named style for stroke width, if I wanted to change the width of the stroke for ALL shapes I would have to go to each one and change it.

By using a named style applied to ALL the shapes that controls only the stroke width I can change the whole thing in one spot.

Just a few things I do.

Thank Heyvern
such a detailed reply
I xpress my sincere gratitude for spending time for me and other members it is really valuable...
sir one doubt...some times we cant fill shapes with colors
thanks again

aji wrote:...some times we cant fill shapes with colors

That can be true sometimes. It can depend on how you select the points, how the points are attached. Do a search on the forum for that. I posted another detailed explanation in another topic.

What I didn't mention in that other topic is that the tool you use to create shapes can also be a factor. If you use the Paint Bucket tool, it is fast and simple, but there is no control. The program "decides" which points to select based on continuous splines or how the splines cross each other and create closed shapes. In my opinion it is best to select the exact points for a fill shape with the create shape tool.

thanks sir once again for the reply
it will help us
aji