Bringing Your Art to Life: Easy Animation in Procreate for Instagram
Ever wanted to add a little magic to your Procreate drawings? Let's dive into the exciting world of simple animation! I'll guide you step-by-step through the process of animating your art and sharing it on Instagram.
Prep Your Artwork
Make a Copy: First things first, duplicate your finished drawing. This keeps your original safe while you play around with the animation.
Flatten Most Layers: Keep only the layer you want to animate separate. Merge all the other layers into one background layer.
Turn on Animation Assist: Find this handy tool in the Actions menu under the Video tab. It'll give you a timeline at the bottom of your screen to work with.
Set the Background: Tap on the thumbnail of your background layer and tell Procreate it's the background. Slide it to the left if it's not already there.
Turn on Animation Assist, located in the Actions menu
Let's Animate!
Choose Your Key Frame: Select the layer with the part you want to animate. This is your starting point and where the animation will loop back to.
Duplicate and Move: Duplicate the key frame layer. In the new copy, move the object a tiny bit.
Repeat: Keep duplicating and moving the object slightly in each new frame. The more frames, the smoother the animation!
Reverse It: Once you've got a few frames going one way, copy them in reverse order and place them at the end of your timeline. This creates a smooth loop.
Check out the image below to see how my layers looked when I was done.
Share it on Instagram
Export: Go to the Actions menu under the Share tab and export your animation as an MP4 video file.
Make it Longer (if needed): Instagram likes videos to be at least 3 seconds long. If your animation is shorter, use a simple video editing app like Adobe Rush to extend it and create a seamless loop. (Adobe Rush is free with Creative Cloud and super easy to use!)
That's it! You're ready to share your awesome animation with the world.
P.S. If you found this helpful, sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Instagram @meglinkdesign for more art tips and inspiration!