How to Animate in Procreate for Beginners: Step by Step

Procreate is built for illustration, but hidden one toggle away is a simple frame-by-frame animation system. It will not replace dedicated animation software for long projects, yet for short loops, animated stickers, blinking characters and moving lettering, it is one of the easiest places to start.

This beginner guide explains how to animate in Procreate from a blank canvas to an exported file. It covers the Animation Assist settings, a first bouncing-ball project, a few classic beginner animations, and the mistakes that trip up most first-timers. Animation draws on the same observation and drawing basics as painting, so if you are new to art in general, our guide to getting started with painting as a beginner covers the foundations that make everything else easier.

How Animation in Procreate Works

Animation is a sequence of slightly different images shown quickly enough that your brain sees motion. In Procreate:

• Each layer is one frame. A layer group also counts as a single frame, which lets you keep line art and color separate within one frame.
• The timeline appears at the bottom of the screen when Animation Assist is on, showing frames from left to right in layer order (bottom layer first).
• Onion skinning shows faint versions of neighboring frames so you can see where the drawing was and where it is going.
• Frame rate controls how many frames play per second.

That is the whole system. Everything else is drawing.

Step 1: Set Up the Canvas

1. Tap the plus icon in the Gallery and choose a canvas. For a first animation, a square canvas around 1080 x 1080 pixels is a sensible size for social media and keeps the layer limit generous.
2. Bear in mind that larger canvases reduce the maximum number of layers, and therefore frames, your device can handle. Procreate shows the layer limit when you set up a custom canvas.
3. Open the canvas, tap Actions (wrench icon), then Canvas, and toggle Animation Assist on.

The timeline appears along the bottom with buttons for Play, Settings and Add Frame.

Step 2: Understand the Animation Settings

Tap Settings on the timeline. The options are few but important.

Choosing a frame rate

Film animation has traditionally been shown at 24 frames per second, often with each drawing held for two frames (12 unique drawings per second). For hand-drawn beginner loops, 8 to 12 fps gives a charming, readable result without needing dozens of drawings. You can change the frame rate at any time and replay to compare.

Plan Before You Draw Frames

Five minutes of planning saves an hour of redrawing. Before adding frames, answer three questions.

1. How long should it last? Time the action in real life with a stopwatch or by counting. A blink takes a fraction of a second; a ball bounce from shoulder height takes around a second. Multiply the seconds by your frame rate to estimate the number of drawings. At 12 fps, a one-second action needs about 12 frames.
2. What are the key poses? Sketch the start, the most extreme point of the action, and the end on a separate canvas or a single layer. These keyframes define the motion; everything else fills the gaps.
3. What stays still? Anything that never moves, such as a background, table or frame border, belongs on the Background or Foreground frame so you only draw it once.

Acting out a movement yourself, or filming a quick phone clip of an object moving, is a common animator’s trick. Stepping through the clip frame by frame shows exactly where the motion speeds up, pauses and changes direction, which is hard to imagine from scratch.

Step 3: Your First Animation, a Bouncing Ball

The bouncing ball is the traditional first exercise because it teaches timing, spacing and squash and stretch with almost no drawing difficulty.

1. Frame 1 (top): Draw a ground line on the first frame and a circle near the top of the canvas.
2. Turn the ground into a background. Tap the first frame in the timeline and toggle Background on. It will now stay visible on every frame, so you only draw it once.
3. Add Frame. Tap Add Frame. Using the onion skin, draw the ball slightly lower.
4. Accelerate as it falls. Continue adding frames, leaving bigger gaps between ball positions as it nears the ground. Falling objects speed up, so spacing widens.
5. Squash on impact. On the contact frame, draw the ball flattened and wider against the ground.
6. Stretch on the way up. On the next frame, draw it slightly elongated vertically as it leaves the ground.
7. Slow at the top. As the ball rises, bring positions closer together until it nearly stops at the peak.
8. Play. Tap Play to watch. Adjust spacing or add frames where the motion looks jumpy.

Around 10 to 14 frames is enough for a convincing bounce loop at 12 fps. Set playback to Loop and it will bounce forever.

Step 4: Use Hold Duration, Background and Foreground

Tap any frame in the timeline to open its options:

• Hold duration: keeps a frame on screen for extra frames without duplicating it. Useful for pauses, such as a character holding a pose before blinking.
• Duplicate: copies the frame so you can make small changes, ideal for animations where most of the drawing stays the same.
• Delete: removes the frame.
• Background: available on the first frame; keeps it visible behind all frames.
• Foreground: available on the last frame; keeps it visible on top of all frames, useful for a frame border or overlay text.

Step 5: Organize Frames With Groups

If you want line art and color on separate layers for each frame, group them. Select the layers in the Layers panel, tap Group, and Procreate treats the group as one frame. This lets you color each drawing on a layer under the line art without breaking the animation sequence.

Step 6: Export Your Animation

1. Tap Actions > Share.
2. Under the layer export options, choose an animated format:
   • Animated GIF: widely supported for web and messaging; limited color depth.
   • Animated PNG: higher quality with transparency support; not supported everywhere.
   • Animated MP4: best for social media video posts.
   • Animated HEVC: efficient video format that can preserve transparency on supported Apple devices.
3. Choose resolution and frame rate options if offered, then export.

For video platforms, a loop of a few seconds can feel short. Exporting as MP4 and repeating the clip in a video editor is a common approach.

Five Beginner Animation Ideas

1. Blinking eyes

Draw a face with open eyes on the background, then add three frames on top: half-closed, closed, half-closed. Set the open-eyes frame to hold for several frames so the blink feels natural.

2. Flickering candle

Draw the candle as a background frame, then three or four flame shapes that vary slightly in height and lean. Ping-Pong playback at around 8 fps works well.

3. Growing flower

Start with a sprout and add a new segment or leaf each frame until the bloom opens. If you need reference for simple, readable flower shapes, our list of easy flowers for beginner painters translates well to animation.

4. Wiggly lettering

Write a word on frame 1, then trace it slightly differently on two more frames. Playing three loose tracings in a loop produces the “boiling line” style seen in many hand-drawn animations.

5. Falling rain or snow

Draw drops or flakes at various positions, then move each slightly down on each new frame. Make sure the last frame flows back into the first for a seamless loop.

Basic Animation Principles for Beginners

Professional animators often refer to a set of principles described in classic animation literature. A few of them make an immediate difference even in short Procreate loops:

• Timing: the number of frames an action takes. More frames make actions slower and heavier; fewer frames make them snappier.
• Spacing (slow in and slow out): objects usually accelerate and decelerate; drawings bunch together at the start and end of a movement.
• Squash and stretch: flexible objects deform with motion, which adds weight and life.
• Anticipation: a small movement in the opposite direction before the main action, such as a crouch before a jump.
• Follow-through: parts like hair or a tail keep moving briefly after the main body stops.
• Arcs: most natural movements follow curved paths, not straight lines.

Common Mistakes When Animating in Procreate

• Drawing on the wrong layer. The selected frame in the timeline is where you draw. Double-check before each new drawing.
• Too many onion skins. Seeing too many ghosts at once makes it hard to read the motion. Use one to three.
• Even spacing everywhere. Motion looks robotic when every change is the same size. Vary spacing to show acceleration.
• Jumpy loops. The last frame should flow into the first. Compare them with onion skins before exporting.
• Running out of layers. Large canvases limit frames. Plan canvas size before starting, or merge line and color for finished frames.
• Redrawing static elements. Use the Background frame, the Foreground frame and Duplicate to avoid redrawing parts that do not move.
• Starting too ambitious. A walk cycle or full character scene is hard as a first project. Build skills with simple loops.

Tips to Animate Faster

1. Use keyframes first. Draw the most important poses, such as start, extreme and end, then fill in the in-between frames.
2. Duplicate and adjust. For small changes, duplicating a frame and editing part of it is quicker than redrawing everything.
3. Keep line work simple. Simple shapes are faster to redraw consistently. Detail multiplies work by the number of frames.
4. Lock your brush settings. Use the same brush and size for every frame to avoid flicker.
5. Color last. Finish the motion in rough lines first, and only clean up and color once timing feels right.

When to Move Beyond Procreate

Procreate’s Animation Assist is ideal for loops and short clips. For longer animations, sound syncing, camera movement or complex timelines, dedicated animation apps are more practical. Savage, the company behind Procreate, also makes a separate animation app called Procreate Dreams, aimed at more involved timeline-based animation. Many artists sketch ideas in Procreate and move to dedicated tools as projects grow.

FAQs

Is Procreate good for animation beginners?

Yes, for short frame-by-frame loops. Animation Assist is simple to learn, uses tools you already know from drawing, and exports directly to GIF or video formats.

How many frames can you have in Procreate?

Each frame is a layer, so the frame limit equals the layer limit, which depends on your canvas size and device memory. Smaller canvases allow more frames.

What frame rate should I use in Procreate?

Beginners often start between 8 and 12 frames per second. Lower rates look choppier and more hand-drawn; higher rates look smoother but require more drawings.

How do I make a frame stay longer in Procreate animation?

Tap the frame in the timeline and increase its Hold duration. The frame stays on screen longer without duplicating the layer.

Can I animate on the iPhone version of Procreate?

Procreate Pocket, the iPhone version, also offers Animation Assist with similar core features, though working on a smaller screen is more limiting.

How do I export a Procreate animation as a video?

Go to Actions > Share and choose Animated MP4 or Animated HEVC. Animated GIF and Animated PNG are available for web and messaging use.

Next Step

Start with the bouncing ball, then try a blink and a flickering candle. Those three short projects cover almost every Animation Assist feature you will use, and each takes well under an hour.

Strong animation always rests on observation, shapes and simple color sense. If you want to strengthen those basics alongside your animation practice, our beginner’s guide to painting fundamentals is a practical next read.