Procreate Dreams: Complete Animation Masterclass

Explore the Procreate Dreams interface from theater to stage and timeline, mastering drawing tools, colors, brushes, layers, and onionskin for planning animation.

Master the gestures in Procreate Dreams to navigate the stage and timeline with pan, pinch zoom, scrub the timeline, and undo/redo, plus tilt and full-screen playback.

Explore the 12 principles of animation as a framework to give characters the illusion of life, with emphasis on timing, spacing, squash and stretch, and arcs.

Master timing and spacing in Procreate Dreams by creating keyframes on a 24 fps timeline and controlling easing to shape motion.

Master timing and spacing by understanding persistence of vision at 24 frames per second, using onion skin to study frame positions, and create keyframes with easing for efficient motion.

Apply easing and careful spacing to craft a natural bounce on a ground plane, loop frames for seamless motion, and prepare for squash and stretch in Procreate.

apply squash and stretch to a ball bounce to add life while preserving volume. examine timing and spacing across three animations—spacing, easing, and squash and stretch—keeping the same timing.

Master timing and spacing in a bouncing ball, apply squash and stretch with pose-to-pose animation, do a rough pass, then complete with a clean-up phase at 24 fps.

Master the bouncing ball cleanup: match timing from rough to final, draw clean line art and color, and apply squash and stretch with a centered pivot at 24 fps.

Master the 2D walk cycle by detailing contact positions and the down, passing, and up poses within a two-step sequence. Copy and loop this two-step cycle to build longer animations.

Learn to create a looping walk cycle in Procreate using a stick figure, ground plane, and key poses: contact, down, passing, and up, with in-between frames for a seamless loop.

Create a robot walk cycle in a 24 fps document by roughing poses, separating legs and upper body on two tracks, using onion skin to loop frame-by-frame animation.

Paint and cleanup a robot walk cycle in Procreate Dreams, using clean line work, a base layer with painterly texture, clipping masks, and color swatches for shadows and highlights.

Animate the robot’s arm swing by using a frame-by-frame approach with a pivot-based rotation, then copy frames in flipbook mode to maintain consistency and a hand-drawn look.

Add a background to your animation, then use a layer mask to reveal the character behind foreground elements, while tidying the timeline with groups and color-coded tracks.

Break down a run cycle into key poses—contact, down, kick off, and air—and loop them seamlessly, then explore minor tweaks to tailor speed or character for a ninja.

Animate a ninja running through a snowy forest by starting with rough poses and silhouettes, then develop the five poses—two contact, down, kick off, air—and refine lines, color, background.

Clean up the run cycle by refining line work and adding details like a masked head and laced boots, keeping the head on a separate track for consistency. Then proceed to the color phase and a snowy forest background pan.

Add a color pass beneath the linework to produce a toned background and a hand-drawn look, keeping the ninja run cycle two frames long.

Prepare a multi-layer background and overlay in Procreate Dreams, convert layers to tracks, and animate move and scale for a cinematic camera pan with Gaussian blur.

Congratulations on completing this 2D animation course in Procreate, celebrate your dedication, and post your work in the Projects and Resources tab while asking questions and pursuing your animation career.