Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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In this short, I show a clean workflow for resizing the back arm in Adobe Animate while keeping your rig lined up using pivot guides.

What we do:

Lock the front arm so nothing shifts
Unlock the back arm group and select all back-arm layers
Rotate the arm downward (easier to scale cleanly)
Slightly squish/scale the arm to fit the character better
Rotate it back and reposition
Use pivot guides to line everything back up
If scaling throws pivots off: nudge/rebuild guides by hiding a layer to reveal the rounded joint edge, then re-place the pivot

Watch the full Chapter 5 here:

▶ Full Chapter 5: youtube.com/watch?v=X9BaOS684II

🎓 Full course on Udemy (all chapters + exercise files): udemy.com/course/designing-cartoon-characters-in-adobe-animate

Highlights:

Quick way to resize limbs without breaking the rig
Pivot guides make alignment painless after transforms
Easy method to re-establish pivots when guides drift