Creating a Handmade Look in After Effects: 2 Design and Animation

Learn how to replicate the DIY aesthetic of low-budget cel animation in After Effects, and create hand-drawn, scribbled, and painted motion graphics.

Learn how to create a hand-drawn look without all the hand drawing. This course shows how to replicate the DIY aesthetic of low-budget cel animation in After Effects. Mograph artist Owen Lowery shows how to use shape layers to create, texture, and animate the "hand-drawn" elements, and replicate the look of handwritten fonts and street graffiti. The tutorials demonstrate how versatile the After Effects tools can be when you stretch them beyond their traditional uses and employ some creative problem solving.

Want to create another lo-fi mograph effect? Check out Creating a Handmade Look in After Effects 01: Paper Cutout and Stop Motion Styles.

Introduction

• Welcome
• What you should know and the exercise files

1. The DIY Hand-Drawn Look

• Characteristics of hand-drawn animation

2. Designing Hand-Drawn Shapes

• Drawing lines using shape layer strokes
• Labeling and organizing shape contents

3. Making Lines Look Like Ink and Paint

• Using blending modes on lines
• Roughen edges and other effects on lines

4. Animation with Shape Attributes

• Using wiggle paths to create wiggly lines
• Using trim paths for draw-on animation
• Adding ink bleed and stain
• Shape attributes throw-down challenge

5. Using the Paintbrush Tool/Effect

• Paintbrush tool overview
• Mimicking a spray-paint stencil

6. Hand-Drawn Text

• Customizing handwritten font
• Using a stroke effect to draw-on text
• Combining drawing techniques

Conclusion

• Next steps and additional uses of techniques