User Guide

Academic Courseware: Chapter 3
Joyce Ryan
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A rough key pose sketched in Corel Painter.
Inbetweening
Producing the drawings “in between” the key drawings is a skill unto
itself. Traditionally, one would place a key drawing onto a light box, the
next key drawing over it, and then another sheet of paper over that. On
the top sheet, the animator would figure out the position between the
two key drawings and sketch it. We can do something very similar in
Corel Painter using layers.
Once you have your key drawings, you can set them up as layers in a file
and draw the inbetweens. Insert a blank layer over the key drawings you
wish to inbetween, and draw the inbetween. By changing the opacity of
the layers it is easy to see the differences between the key drawings.
Changing the color of the lines also makes it easier to tell the difference
between the keys (you can select the lines using the Image Luminance
option and change the colors of the lines in each layer).
Practice inbetweening techniques using layers
1 Sketch your first key pose on a transparent layer.
2 Create a new layer and select a different contrasting color to sketch
with. Sketch the next key pose.
3 Create a new layer and, with another color, sketch the inbetween
using the key drawings as reference. Experiment with changing the
transparencies of the layers you are referencing.