WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:03.090 --> 00:00:08.849 WA WA Welcome to the Paper Mario tutorial! After you finish this video, you’ll be able 00:00:08.849 --> 00:00:14.809 to design, draw, and animate any character you want in the Paper Mario style. The art 00:00:14.809 --> 00:00:21.590 style between games is significantly different, so I’m focusing on The Thousand Year Door. 00:00:21.590 --> 00:00:26.460 By the way, promotional art for the games doesn’t match the actual style, so be careful 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:30.949 if you use those as reference. Even though it would be amazing to get a Paper Mario game 00:00:30.949 --> 00:00:31.949 like this. 00:00:31.949 --> 00:00:37.050 We’ll be doing everything in 2D. Use your programs of choice - this tutorial isn’t 00:00:37.050 --> 00:00:42.079 specific to any one program. I’m drawing in Illustrator and After Effects today. 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:47.490 Let’s start by sketching a character design. The game has tons of unique creatures, so 00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:51.080 there are really only a few guidelines to follow. 00:00:51.080 --> 00:00:56.770 Eyes. Most are some type of plain dot, dot inside a circle, or accessory that covers 00:00:56.770 --> 00:01:00.370 eyes. Mouths. Some characters have one, some don’t, 00:01:00.370 --> 00:01:06.270 and some only have a visible one when talking. Arms tend to be stubby - an upper part and 00:01:06.270 --> 00:01:13.570 a hand. Legs are very rare. Most characters have floating 00:01:13.570 --> 00:01:18.450 shoe feet, partially or fully covered feet, or no feet at all. 00:01:18.450 --> 00:01:23.600 Due to the variety of species in Mario, it helps if there’s something in game that 00:01:23.600 --> 00:01:28.409 looks even a little like what you want. For instance humans will be similar to Mario, 00:01:28.409 --> 00:01:33.279 Luigi, Peach, or one of the other humanoid characters. A mouse could be this or this 00:01:33.279 --> 00:01:39.249 or this. So if you wanted to do a tiny wolf and used Ms. Mowz as inspiration - bam. Then 00:01:39.249 --> 00:01:42.599 you also have an idea of what its animations would look like. 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:49.789 Waluigi’s mouth is inspired by Flavio. When he talks it’d be animated like this. 00:01:49.789 --> 00:01:55.369 As we move to the next step, I’d like to thank this tutorial’s sponsor Skillshare. 00:01:55.369 --> 00:01:59.659 Since you’re here on YouTube I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of tutorials 00:01:59.659 --> 00:02:13.739 like the following: Here is the Skillshare version: 00:02:13.739 --> 00:02:18.959 Skillshare has thousands of classes, many of them specifically for artists and animators 00:02:18.959 --> 00:02:23.590 PLUS all of the business stuff you need to know if you want to make art for money. I’m 00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:27.689 already freaking out seeing the classes in Skillshare that are so important for beginners 00:02:27.689 --> 00:02:32.959 but are hard to find anywhere else because they get buried in the usual deluge of internet 00:02:32.959 --> 00:02:37.810 garbage. And if you’re not a beginner, then you’re like me getting excited because Skillshare 00:02:37.810 --> 00:02:41.709 has advanced courses and workshops - stuff you’d normally pay a ton of money to get 00:02:41.709 --> 00:02:45.379 in college or direct from a famous artist. 00:02:45.379 --> 00:02:49.939 So if you’re tired of wading through crummy tutorials, use the link in the description 00:02:49.939 --> 00:02:56.170 to get 2 free months of as many high quality classes and workshops as you can handle on 00:02:56.170 --> 00:02:57.170 Skillshare! 00:02:57.170 --> 00:03:01.799 It’s time to draw the Paper Mario puppet pieces. I’m vectoring each piece to have 00:03:01.799 --> 00:03:04.299 better control over lines. 00:03:04.299 --> 00:03:09.499 Outlines are not black. Except for eye pupils, every character part has a colored outline 00:03:09.499 --> 00:03:14.730 that is a darker shade of the main fill color. This applies to things inside the body line 00:03:14.730 --> 00:03:20.510 too, so accessories get their own line. Line ends are sharp at the tips. 00:03:20.510 --> 00:03:26.150 Line thickness varies a lot. In some places Luigi has thicker outlines than Mario. Bowser 00:03:26.150 --> 00:03:31.569 has pressure sensitive lines, but the Punies have even, thin lines. The general rule is 00:03:31.569 --> 00:03:36.389 the bigger the character, the thicker their lines. So characters of the same size have 00:03:36.389 --> 00:03:40.469 about the same type of lines. Details are thinner. 00:03:40.469 --> 00:03:45.920 There are rare no-outlline exceptions. Mario and Luigi’s overalls, hat emblem, white 00:03:45.920 --> 00:03:52.060 pattern on Yoshis. So if an outline is causing too much clutter, try removing it. 00:03:52.060 --> 00:03:53.920 Color your pieces. 00:03:53.920 --> 00:03:59.310 Probably the hardest thing about Paper Mario style is pieces have soft shading. On the 00:03:59.310 --> 00:04:03.370 edges of a piece you have a hard highlight, but it’s not a lighter color, the shadow 00:04:03.370 --> 00:04:10.420 is simply erased. Use gradient fills and an inner-facing stroke color to get this effect, 00:04:10.420 --> 00:04:18.049 or brush the shadow on and erase or transform. 00:04:18.049 --> 00:04:24.060 Rig your character. Set the pivot points. Duplicate arms and feet. 00:04:24.060 --> 00:04:28.560 The first animation I’ll show you how to do is a turn because it is affected by how 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:35.030 you rig your character. When Paper Mario characters turn around, they are NOT flat art. This would 00:04:35.030 --> 00:04:36.230 be wrong. 00:04:36.230 --> 00:04:41.250 If your program doesn’t have 3D space, you can make a turn by squishing and skewing your 00:04:41.250 --> 00:04:45.800 art. The art will be flat but honestly only people who’ve watched this tutorial are 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:49.830 likely to know *this* is what a style accurate turn looks like. 00:04:49.830 --> 00:04:55.521 The fastest way to properly set up a turn is to slightly space out key pieces on the 00:04:55.521 --> 00:05:01.940 Z axis. Too much and limbs will fly off. Most professional 2D animation programs have a 00:05:01.940 --> 00:05:08.450 3D multiplane feature you can do this in. Free ones generally do not. 00:05:08.450 --> 00:05:12.840 In order to make sure your pieces don’t end up like this on the flip side, only rotate 00:05:12.840 --> 00:05:20.060 the puppet halfway. Then flip the puppet on the X axis and rotate back to 0 degrees. Adjust 00:05:20.060 --> 00:05:24.889 the starting angle of the rotation’s second half. Add easing. 00:05:24.889 --> 00:05:31.639 To flip the other way, reverse keyframes. Every character has a unique idle animation. 00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:39.410 Most characters with feet rock up on their toes. Set your down keyframe. Set your up 00:05:39.410 --> 00:05:45.810 keyframe. Copy and paste the first keyframe to the end. Add easing. You can give your 00:05:45.810 --> 00:05:53.720 character personality by changing the timing of individual puppet parts and the cycle itself. 00:05:53.720 --> 00:06:00.210 Run animations with feet are incredibly easy. The feet swing around the body the same as 00:06:00.210 --> 00:06:06.710 a pendulum. Arms move barely, if at all. The body moves up and down, so you may add some 00:06:06.710 --> 00:06:09.060 bounciness to accessories and hair. 00:06:09.060 --> 00:06:14.000 In the end you’ll have three keyframes with your character up in the air and two keyframes 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:16.470 touching the ground. 00:06:16.470 --> 00:06:22.069 Mario has a back facing run, but his partners stay the same perspective. If you want to 00:06:22.069 --> 00:06:29.750 be fancy like Mario, you need to frame-frame animate shoes. Regular shoe, bent shoe, unbending 00:06:29.750 --> 00:06:32.750 ¾ shoe, and ¾ shoe. 00:06:32.750 --> 00:06:37.930 Now you have a Paper Mario character with basic animations. You’re free to experiment 00:06:37.930 --> 00:06:54.270 with other actions, poses, and animations you want to add to them. 00:06:54.270 --> 00:07:00.360 Visit my channel for other tutorials on how to copy various popular 2D animation styles, 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:04.789 plus lessons about animation in general. If you love Scribble Kibble, I have official 00:07:04.789 --> 00:07:10.560 merchandise at my Redbubble store. And you can help create original animations by joining 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:14.380 my Patreon. 00:07:14.380 --> 00:07:15.380 --- 00:07:15.380 --> 00:07:24.330 Oh. Ohhh. That’s horrifying. It’s like pink teeth.