Step-by-Step: Animating Cut-Out Style

Cut-out is a style of animation that is like puppetry, only the workshop and stage is Toon Boom Studio.

Like a puppet, a cut-out character is made from many independent parts, such as hands, arms, a head, legs and feet. In Toon Boom Studio, these parts are linked together at the joints and are then animated using pegs, which are like the strings that move puppets.

Cut-out animation allows you to reduce the amount of drawings you do. Instead of re-drawing your entire character each time it moves, you can isolate changes to specific body parts - for example, the arm. Instead of redrawing the entire character when the position of the arm changes, you create the arm in a separate layer and change only the arm when it moves.

Cut-out animation will reduce the amount of work you do. However, it does require some planning and work before you begin animating. Following is a summary of the tasks you must complete to animate a cut-out character.

To animate a cut-out character:

1. Build a model of your character and all its parts. Ink and paint your character as you would normally.

2. Using the Cutter or Scissor tool, cut out all of the pieces of your character and paste them in new element layers. Be sure to name your elements so that they identify the character as well as its part.

The number of pieces you create from your character depends on its complexity and the complexity of the animation you want to create.

For example, you may place all of these parts of your character in a different element: hair, eyes, head, eyebrows, mouth, body, upper arm, forearm, hand, hips, thigh, calf and foot.

3. In each element layer, draw all the variations of your body part.

For example, you may draw a number of drawings for the hand, such as a fist or open palm, or the head from multiple angles.

4. Next you attach each element layer to a peg. Then you should group the pegs and their child elements that will move together on master pegs. Your whole character should also have one master peg that contains all the pegs and elements for the whole character.

For example, the left hand, left forearm and left upper arm are on their own pegs and are grouped together on one peg named “Left Arm”. The “Left Arm” is one of many parent pegs on the character’s master peg, named “Girl - Peg”.

5. Use the Rotate tool to position pivot points for all the joints. Pivot points are the spot on which your joints, like the shoulder, elbow or wrist, rotate.

You may need to create a joint in the bottom drawing that overlaps the top, rotating drawing so that a continuous line appears as the joint is rotated. This is something you will have to try with your character.

6. If you will be reusing, you may want to create templates of your character and its parts and store them in the Library. The level of reuse you use depends on your need. You may create templates of entire characters, just their parts, animated sequences (like walk-cycles) or all three.

7. Use the Cells tab in the Properties dialog box to select which drawing you want to appear at each frame and expose the drawing to determine the length of time it will appear on your screen.

8. Animate your character using the Transform tool. Advance the red frame slider in the Timeline window to the frame where you want to add a keyframe and then use the Transform tool to animate the selected part or parts of your character at that frame.