WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:05.200 Don’t Starve has a fantastic horror-inspired art style, and in this tutorial I’m going 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:10.790 to show you how to design and animate your own 2D character in that style. 00:00:10.790 --> 00:00:15.280 We’re going to make a playable character, but I will also give tips on what to do for 00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:16.610 original creatures. 00:00:16.610 --> 00:00:21.609 I have a version of this tutorial that is easier to browse through on Amino: you’ll 00:00:21.609 --> 00:00:25.910 be able to tap the left or right side of your screen to skip to the next important point. 00:00:25.910 --> 00:00:31.170 I started uploading to Amino because they launched a Creator Program that pays you when 00:00:31.170 --> 00:00:33.800 followers watch your videos. 00:00:33.800 --> 00:00:38.670 Unlike YouTube, anyone can join, and it favors short stuff less than 3 minutes. 00:00:38.670 --> 00:00:40.980 It’s like an animator’s dream. 00:00:40.980 --> 00:00:46.160 If you don’t have Amino, use the referral link below to download the app, and then search 00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:51.630 for CrownePrince to follow me for new video stories (or just use the second link below). 00:00:51.630 --> 00:00:56.140 If you sign up for the Amino Creator Program to start making money use referral code ACP10 00:00:56.140 --> 00:00:59.580 to get $10 in your Amino account upon joining. 00:00:59.580 --> 00:01:01.600 Let’s start with sketching a character design. 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:05.730 Don’t worry about the lineart style yet: just focus on getting the shapes how you want 00:01:05.730 --> 00:01:06.730 them. 00:01:06.730 --> 00:01:09.440 Here are the design rules. 00:01:09.440 --> 00:01:13.620 Overly large head; every character has a unique head shape. 00:01:13.620 --> 00:01:20.150 Eyes can be black dots, black lines, or white-filled. 00:01:20.150 --> 00:01:22.570 Shadows around eyes are common. 00:01:22.570 --> 00:01:26.350 Most characters have black hair, but color is definitely allowed. 00:01:26.350 --> 00:01:29.390 Don’t forget ears, if visible. 00:01:29.390 --> 00:01:31.500 Rectangular body. 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:37.159 Arms are sticks with top sleeve and meaty hand. 00:01:37.159 --> 00:01:39.750 Legs are sticks with shoes. 00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:47.640 Some Don’t Starve characters break a style rule or two, so if you need to for your design 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:49.040 go ahead. 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:54.990 Your design will also look more believable if the character isn’t happy, though a crazed 00:01:54.990 --> 00:01:56.740 expression works pretty well too. 00:01:56.740 --> 00:02:02.140 “I’ve been harvesting Pokemon for 20 years and I still can’t win a league.” 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:07.600 Every major body part has a closed outline: heads, legs, bodies, hands, and so on. 00:02:07.600 --> 00:02:12.170 For creature designs this is also true most of the time, common exceptions being where 00:02:12.170 --> 00:02:13.760 arms join the body. 00:02:13.760 --> 00:02:19.250 The bigger a monster gets the more complicated its body parts and more often you’ll have 00:02:19.250 --> 00:02:22.300 an incomplete outline for animation reasons. 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:26.350 Overall, if you can keep a body part contained in its own outline, it’ll make animation 00:02:26.350 --> 00:02:27.350 easier. 00:02:27.350 --> 00:02:30.310 That’s why muzzles usually have a closed outline. 00:02:30.310 --> 00:02:33.510 Next step is to draw the pieces for your animation rig. 00:02:33.510 --> 00:02:38.940 I’m using Toon Boom today, but you can use any animation program with layers and tweens. 00:02:38.940 --> 00:02:42.900 Take your sketch and draw the outlines for each piece. 00:02:42.900 --> 00:02:49.890 Very important: the face must get its own layer so it can float around on the skull. 00:02:49.890 --> 00:02:52.550 In the end you’ll have pieces like this. 00:02:52.550 --> 00:02:57.190 To get the outline style, use a thin round brush with no texture. 00:02:57.190 --> 00:03:02.360 Rather than draw the perfect thickness right off the bat, take your thin brush and build 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.200 up the line with one or two more strokes. 00:03:05.200 --> 00:03:08.250 As you do this, imperfections will happen naturally. 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:10.300 Leave all that in. 00:03:10.300 --> 00:03:14.090 You might want to clean it up a bit, but that is how you get the style. 00:03:14.090 --> 00:03:17.930 You can put a game character piece on the canvas to make sure your lines are the right 00:03:17.930 --> 00:03:19.730 thickness. 00:03:19.730 --> 00:03:21.300 Important outlines are thicker. 00:03:21.300 --> 00:03:23.500 Details are thinner and sketchier. 00:03:23.500 --> 00:03:28.290 If a character part has multiple different colors, a black line usually separates the 00:03:28.290 --> 00:03:29.290 colors. 00:03:29.290 --> 00:03:31.030 Draw those in now. 00:03:31.030 --> 00:03:32.349 Next is coloring. 00:03:32.349 --> 00:03:38.340 To fill in any black areas, take your brush and scribble over the area, then erase everything 00:03:38.340 --> 00:03:39.770 outside the outline. 00:03:39.770 --> 00:03:44.440 Your scribble should be straight lines that follow the grain of the area. 00:03:44.440 --> 00:03:47.780 Make this a different color so you can actually see to erase. 00:03:47.780 --> 00:03:51.260 Back fill the scribble with your color of choice. 00:03:51.260 --> 00:03:55.050 Fill in your other parts with dull versions of the original colors. 00:03:55.050 --> 00:03:57.410 Your end result should be like this. 00:03:57.410 --> 00:03:58.410 Not this. 00:03:58.410 --> 00:04:02.580 Normally for a white character you would use pure white for the skin, but I’d like to 00:04:02.580 --> 00:04:07.650 get a bit of a darker skin tone, so I’m going to try this. 00:04:07.650 --> 00:04:12.160 Set the control points for your pieces, duplicate and flip the arm and leg. 00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:13.879 Your character is ready to animate! 00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:19.090 I’m going to show you how to animate an idle cycle and a run cycle for this front 00:04:19.090 --> 00:04:20.299 perspective. 00:04:20.299 --> 00:04:25.580 What to pay attention to for the Don’t Starve animation style: 1) The face often moves out 00:04:25.580 --> 00:04:31.610 of sync from the head, and sometimes on its own for things like nods or head shakes. 00:04:31.610 --> 00:04:36.849 2) Make every animated action with as few pieces as possible. 00:04:36.849 --> 00:04:42.089 There are a lot of sudden snaps from one piece to another - no frame by frame drawn transitions. 00:04:42.089 --> 00:04:45.259 Animate movement with tweens, lots of squash and stretch. 00:04:45.259 --> 00:04:49.330 For idle, create two keyframes. 00:04:49.330 --> 00:04:53.150 One at the top of the cycle, stretched up, arms together. 00:04:53.150 --> 00:04:56.569 One at the bottom, squashed down, arms out. 00:04:56.569 --> 00:04:58.160 Do not move the legs. 00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:03.729 Repeat the first keyframe at the end of the cycle. 00:05:03.729 --> 00:05:06.949 Apply ease in, ease out to the keyframes. 00:05:06.949 --> 00:05:09.999 Move the keyframes for the arms so they are delayed. 00:05:09.999 --> 00:05:16.050 To make the delay loop you have to create keyframes where the cycle ends, copy them. 00:05:16.050 --> 00:05:22.259 Then push back the keyframes on frame 1, and paste the copied keyframe on frame 1. 00:05:22.259 --> 00:05:27.520 This is a really useful thing to know how to do in any animation, really. 00:05:27.520 --> 00:05:32.210 Add some keyframes in the middle of the hands and rotate them to make them swing. 00:05:32.210 --> 00:05:35.009 Delay the face a few frames. 00:05:35.009 --> 00:05:38.639 Delay hair, and add some squash and stretch to it. 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:39.639 Finished. 00:05:39.639 --> 00:05:44.539 To animate a run, start with the first keyframe - I’m choosing to do the top of the run 00:05:44.539 --> 00:05:54.389 cycle. 00:05:54.389 --> 00:05:57.930 You will need to draw a front facing hand and a bent leg. 00:05:57.930 --> 00:06:02.580 I also drew a U-shaped leg for the back pose. 00:06:02.580 --> 00:06:05.689 Pose your pieces in this general shape. 00:06:05.689 --> 00:06:07.960 Second keyframe: the contact position. 00:06:07.960 --> 00:06:10.969 The lead foot is just touching the ground. 00:06:10.969 --> 00:06:13.080 Body is traveling down. 00:06:13.080 --> 00:06:16.620 Next keyframe - the bottom of the run cycle, bent knee. 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:19.180 This happens right after the foot hits the ground. 00:06:19.180 --> 00:06:22.999 The body is the most squashed and lowered here. 00:06:22.999 --> 00:06:27.370 Fourth keyframe is when the leg is straight up and down, pushing the body up again. 00:06:27.370 --> 00:06:33.220 Just by playing these four keyframes you should see how the animation will look. 00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:37.240 Check to make sure things are flowing okay. 00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:41.789 Then, copy the animation for the left arm and paste it to the end of the right arm. 00:06:41.789 --> 00:06:46.509 Do the same for the leg and all opposing limbs. 00:06:46.509 --> 00:06:49.780 Copy and paste the four frame cycle for the body and head. 00:06:49.780 --> 00:06:53.270 This will give you the 8 base frames for a run. 00:06:53.270 --> 00:06:57.199 Theoretically you can tween these and it’ll be 16 frame run. 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:03.199 However, the Don’t Starve run is very poppy, so there are no inbetween frames between keys 00:07:03.199 --> 00:07:05.689 2,3,4 and 6,7,8. 00:07:05.689 --> 00:07:08.909 The feet only touch the ground for 2 frames each side. 00:07:08.909 --> 00:07:15.530 All of the inbetweens are crammed between 8 and 2 and 4 and 6. 00:07:15.530 --> 00:07:21.939 To make your animation true to the mood add a filter that yellows out the whites and vignette 00:07:21.939 --> 00:07:24.860 lighting to shadow the corners of the screen. 00:07:24.860 --> 00:07:29.599 You might be wondering: can you mod your character into the game? 00:07:29.599 --> 00:07:30.599 Yes. 00:07:30.599 --> 00:07:34.789 However, it’s a hellish mess to figure out. 00:07:34.789 --> 00:07:37.580 It was faster for me to animate all of this on my own. 00:07:37.580 --> 00:07:42.639 If you can get a mod to work, all of the animations are done for you. 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:48.089 But it takes many hours to mod unless you reskin an existing character (even then it’s 00:07:48.089 --> 00:07:49.569 a lot of hours). 00:07:49.569 --> 00:07:58.389 That’s the end of this tutorial: the next one is how to animate the Paper Mario style. 00:07:58.389 --> 00:08:02.379 My inspiration for these comes from your suggestions, so comment below! 00:08:02.379 --> 00:08:11.689 You can get tutorials and animations early by joining my Patreon.