Uploaded July 2018 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This video shows how to use the Plastic Tool to add animation to a static drawing in OpenToonz. I show how you can build a simplistic person animation and then duplicate him using a sub-xsheet and then duplicating that to create a small crowd.
Since making this video, the plastic tool efficiency has been improved massively. You can now duplicate many more plastic layers than I show in this vid.
I try to speed through my explanations as quickly as I can, speeding up the drawing where necessary, so you're not just watching me draw, but there's a lot to get through and I try to give out as many tips as possible along the way, but if you want to skip through the video, here's the list of topics I cover.
Contents:
00:18 Introduction
00:59 Drawing the character
01:10 Creating the mesh, with the plastic tool
02:54 Building the skeleton
04:21 Solving the problem of part of the drawing moving when you don't want it to - using the 'Paint rigid' option
05:35 Laying out the animation
09:00 Making the wave animation repeat
09:45 Moving the drawing, mesh level & animation keys into a sub-xsheet, then duplicating it to create a crowd
11:30 The final crowd animation with effects added
Full output: youtu.be/mWINTwx2cLY
-----------------------------------------------------------
I use the free software, OpenToonz, to animate. There are different versions that you might want to check out:
Opentoonz official version: github.com/opentoonz/opentoonz/releases
Opentoonz Morevna project: morevnaproject.org/opentoonz
FFMpeg to create MP4 videos: ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds
Other freeware tools I've used:
Image editing/painting - Krita: krita.org/en
Audio recording/editing - Audacity: audacityteam.org/home
Screen recording - OBS: obsproject.com
Video editing - Shotcut: shotcut.org
Intro/outro audio courtesy of Voltaire: youtube.com/user/VoltaireMusicPage
This video shows how to use the Plastic Tool to add animation to a static drawing in OpenToonz. I show how you can build a simplistic person animation and then duplicate him using a sub-xsheet and then duplicating that to create a small crowd.
Since making this video, the plastic tool efficiency has been improved massively. You can now duplicate many more plastic layers than I show in this vid.
I try to speed through my explanations as quickly as I can, speeding up the drawing where necessary, so you're not just watching me draw, but there's a lot to get through and I try to give out as many tips as possible along the way, but if you want to skip through the video, here's the list of topics I cover.
Contents:
00:18 Introduction
00:59 Drawing the character
01:10 Creating the mesh, with the plastic tool
02:54 Building the skeleton
04:21 Solving the problem of part of the drawing moving when you don't want it to - using the 'Paint rigid' option
05:35 Laying out the animation
09:00 Making the wave animation repeat
09:45 Moving the drawing, mesh level & animation keys into a sub-xsheet, then duplicating it to create a crowd
11:30 The final crowd animation with effects added
Full output: youtu.be/mWINTwx2cLY
-----------------------------------------------------------
I use the free software, OpenToonz, to animate. There are different versions that you might want to check out:
Opentoonz official version: github.com/opentoonz/opentoonz/releases
Opentoonz Morevna project: morevnaproject.org/opentoonz
FFMpeg to create MP4 videos: ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds
Other freeware tools I've used:
Image editing/painting - Krita: krita.org/en
Audio recording/editing - Audacity: audacityteam.org/home
Screen recording - OBS: obsproject.com
Video editing - Shotcut: shotcut.org
Intro/outro audio courtesy of Voltaire: youtube.com/user/VoltaireMusicPage
