How I do clean up lines for 2D Animation 

Clean Up is truly an artform on its own, which takes disipline, patience and GOOD EYE for the details. People who say Clean Up is just tracing, really misses the point; as a clean up artist have to maintain the INTENTION, FEELING and EMOTION of the animation throughout the shot, which includes microexpressions and gestures. Clean Up Artists don't really get anywhere near the respect they deserve. They are in every way an extention of the animators hand.

I'm not one for cleanup because I def prefer sketching a lot more to a clean, polished appearance, so I appreciate this video 🎃🦝💜

This video is really helpful and broke down some tips ive heard before in an easily digeatable way! The one tip i didnt really understand was the negative space one-- is the negative space the shapes that were conceived in the rough sketch, and the tip is the try to conserve the integrity of those shapes?

i appreciate your videos so much! they rlly help in nearly every aspect and making animation clear and not so intimidating

Something to keep in mind is that you don't necessarily have to clean up at all! For a project that I'm working on I decided to make the first pass of animation the final pass. This is because I realized that cleaning up the animation for this free spirited project made it worse and wasted time. Plus all the "errors" get covered up during the compositing stage.

The tip about flipping is incredibly useful, Ive been studying 2d animation on paper and teachers made it very clear that flipping is important even in digital but not really why and this filled in that gap

i'm currently finishing my first personal project and found that my lines were very thick, straight, and no line weight. this helped because it reminded me that this isn't the only style for clean up. so yeah, next project i'll definitely be experimenting more :-) thank you!

Okay, can I just take a moment to say this video is amazing? I been wanting to see a video like this forever! You even explained how you do your lines can vary depending on what sort of style you're going for. I have been trying to animate in a comic book style, and it's definitely time-consuming, but I definitely feel like your helpful tips will make things a lot easier. Thanks so much!

Wow I heard of clean up but never understood what it meant thank you! This really opened my eyes on the importance of clean up.

Glad to see some appreciation for the xerography style that Disney has in the 60s and 70s! Although I do favor the clean style of the renaissance era, there’s a lot of charm and I love the old-timey feel of said style too!

I just started applying for cleanup positions so this is perfect timing for me XD . I always enjoy these videos!

Hey thanks so much. After almost 20 years I'm getting back into animation world somewhat so your videos are super helpful!

Thank you so much for this! I was just going to start cleanup, but I had no idea how to.

This video pop out on my algorythm at the moment I needed it the most. Thank you

This popped up in my recommendation the day I finished the rough animation of something for a college application. Perfect timing! This is super helpful.

great video! Shout out to all the cleanup artists out there! i have always thought that cleanup was one of the hardest things to do in animation and maybe one of the most under appreciated parts of the pipeline! I definitely struggle with keeping the accents or sharp angle changes consistent so great tips there.

Perfect timing! Working on lineart right now.

Your timing couldn’t be more perfect, God bless!

Thanks for the ideas for clean up

My Process. *Step 1:* Draw the background on paper *Step 2:* Draw each character on paper with a pencil Frame by frame. Draw the character standing or moving in place. You will drag them in place in Flash later ( do a messy version first then do the second version of each drawing where you trace the model sheet.) *Step 3:* Trace the very first head once on a different piece of paper. *Step 4:* Draw all the mouths for the lip sync. You will copy the mouths later and drag them into place. Make custom mouths with different lip syncs if you want a specific emotion. Remember to label them with the proper letters. *Step 5:* Open Clip studio paint. Convert brightness to opacity. Change the settings to multiply then duplicate the drawing 6 times. This will make the lines darker. 9 Flash prefers darker lines. *Step 6:* Make a smaller version of the same drawing. *Step 7:* Import that same smaller drawing into flash. *Step 8:* Press the convert to bitmap button. *Step 9:* Constantly Press delete anchor point so the lines don't look messy. Eventually, your lines will look smooth *Step 10:* Scale down your drawing. Do 7 step 8 and step 9 for all subsequent drawings. *Step 11:* Erase the heads. on every drawing *Step 12:* Put the one head you traced on every drawing of the person. Copy and paste the same one onto each body. ( The head must be exactly the same consistency in every drawing because most people will be looking mostly at the head. A little bit of line boiling can give the illusion of more movement) *Step 13:* Constantly drag the lipsync mouths onto the proper heads. You drew a mouth on the original head and you erase it each time. (These next steps are more about compositing) *Step 14:* Export the file as a png sequence. *Step 15:* Open up adobe premiere and add the PNG sequence. *Step 16:* Change to 24 frames per second. Click on the png sequence on your timeline and adjust the speed. ( The png sequence can be a bit faster than the flash version) *Step 17:* Mix audio *Step 18:* Export

Really precise video on how you do clean up lines. I once struggle with it, but not anymore. Thanks to this btw, keep it up

Hmm I can kinda see how your usual approach makes the keyframes pop. I might try it, seems interesting

I have watched this tutorial before , but returning to it again I want to thank you for this tutorial and discussing your approach to clean up animation. I appreciate your approach of actually drawing everything. I see many clean up tutorials on YT where it seems like the process is just pulling and pushing vector points around to manipulate the line. While manipulating vector points may be very precise, the process seems too mechanical to me. I can't see the appeal of pushing/pulling vector points. It just doesn't seem like drawing. I don't have anything against using a vector brush line as such, but if I were to use a vector brush I would want to be able to draw freely with the vector brush (and maybe I would do some very minor adjustments to the lines by pushing/pulling vector points, but overall I like to draw my lines in a freehand manner, as I would if drawing on paper.) TVPaint seems to be the best app for this classical approach to cleaning up the drawings.

You're an absolute god for this video. It's short and gives variation in what I can do. I have to clean up a 2:41 Animation due for two weeks time. Pray for me lads😭😭😭

This video really opened my eyes on this part of the animation process. Thank you so much.

This is so helpful!!!! Thanks a ton!!!😍😍😍

Packed with gold. I'll have to reqtch later. Timelapses of your process in the background are quite revealing.

Clean-up is my favorite part, because I use very loose lines and play a lot with lineweight. It's pretty therapeutic for me.

Thank you toniko! Very cool tips

Thank youuu for helping kipo I love it

This is such a helpful tutorial class. Ty so much.

A life saving video ! Thanks, master !)

The pen holding position is good advice that I always seem to forget as soon as I start drawing. Curse you, muscle memory!

I'm with you on the sketchy lines

🦊 This was very interesting and helpful of Course I'm planning on doing it when I go to an animation class in the future but I look forward to that alot anyways 💜🌺

keep it plz, your videos is soo good and cool, useful, thx for the your work of teaching my uneducated!!

Love you work 💖

thank you youtube for recommending me this video

Woah i just read that book about that girl and the clock house (i think it was) and now I see it animated :0 Very nice

My steps when i draw. Sketch Clean Ink sktech “Uh oh, this doesn’t look good” Liquify and adjust Back to looking like a sketch :/

And how you manage to color those linearts and avoiding frustrating parts to fill?

4:48 Yo! Alex was my professor for Animation Principles 2! That's wild dude!

Toonz (and OpenToonz) has the same capacity for changing line natures after they're drawn

Hey tonico awesome vid! Just curious if you have experience from your personal/indie projects (low budget projects) with outsourcing stages of the animation like clean up, inbetweening or color. If so what what is your take on that approach both budget wise and result wise. I remember you said in a previous video you were hiring a painter and Im wondering how the results are coming in terms of production efficiency? Sorry for all the questions 😅

very helpful video

Is Harmony the most used program among studios and freelancers? Asking as someone who is interested in spending big money on software and I’m not sure if Harmony monthly license or a TV Paint one time purchase would be more cohesive when working with other people.

What's the name of the pup? I gotta know, I wave back to him every time ^__^

please tell me the pun keypo/kipose appeard on your head at least once when recording this video

0:30, sorry but, where's this from

The first character looks like clyde donovan

What software do you use on 03:20 for animation and edit? thanks for the video!

Me watching this even though I go straight from a very basic sketch to clean line-art Edit: Also what version of toon boom do you use? (I use essentials). Cause I am wondering if the tools you mentioned are on the essential version, or if it is an upgraded one.

Heres my question; do you NEED line cleanup? I've always preferred the way thick rough lines look and I've never really been good at line clean up. is this ok?

Very helpful! I don't mean to be outa pocket but... How experienced should someone be to make money out of their art? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? I have 11 years of experience and I'm wondering if I should start since my mom has been getting low on money. Also if so, what would you recommend to sell the art? Sorry for the multiple questions. ❤

What kind of tablet is that? It looks like a Huion Kanvas, but I know they haven't made a pen with a eraser tip yet.

I can't believe you have not mentioned Blender grease pencil.

which animation degree I should do after 12 th BA animation or BFA in animation for 2D animation ????????????????????????????????

I think that doing all of this for your first animation looks daunting... SO PRO TIP DONT! it's your first or first few animations, I started with making terrible flat drawings with not even a FOUNDATION and well, the more I animated, the more I started using tips I learned long ago, because your will to get better in art, you will eventually WANT to do all of these, just take it step by step... hope this helps (Also check out revival: the animated series if you want to see my art progression... or if you wanna support my work) ru-vid.com/show-UCKOslULDkqDOPV9twGdNIrw

I just use the line tool for cleanup, it works but it depends on the animator.

I can do clean up digitally on my animated short films.

Keep some of those random lines, keep the line weight varied. Not every line needs to make sense or serve a purpose, other than making it look better for some reason.

NFT cartoon storyboard vs. final product, *write that down*

Holy shit you sound like sonic

when you use flipaclip: =‘)