'Halloween' Animations Contest

The nights are getting darker and it’s getting colder every day, watch out for those ghosties and ghoulies. Halloween is nearly upon us and what fun it will be! A night of dressing up, trick or treating and pumpkin lanterns. For this Sketch Star contest, use your powers of imagination to create a scary Halloween animation!

End date: 26 October 2009
Winners Announced: 29 October 2009
Theme: Halloween

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Tag your Animations - Get more Views!

When you publish an animation, you can add a number of "tags" to describe it. For example, if your animation was about Sketchy playing tennis on the moon, your tags might be "Sketchy", "tennis", and "moon". Sketch Star uses these for search results, so adding relevant tags will help other users find your animations. You might even get some extra votes!

Hover Over an Object for a Description

If you're unsure about an object in the Animation Creator, hover over it and a description will pop up along with its name. This might even give you some ideas for using the object in an animation!

Zoom In For Perfect Details

Here's a special zooming technique to create detailed animations. When you're using the Animation Creator, hold 'Ctrl' ('Cmd' on a Mac) and push '+' a few times to zoom closer. While you're zoomed in, perfect the detailed parts of the animation. When you're finished (or you just want to check what you've done), hold 'Ctrl' ('Cmd' on a Mac) and push '-' to zoom out again, or 'Ctrl' ('Cmd' on a Mac) and '0' to go back to the normal view.

Animate your Drawings

Sketch Star allows you to make beautiful animations, so why limit yourself to a still image? Try using more frames and instill life and movement in your creations!

Save your Animations Regularly

Save your animation as an Active Project every 15-30 minutes, to avoid losing it in case of a power outage, Internet problem or computer crash.

Sketch your Animation on Paper First

Even the greatest artists usually plan their masterpieces carefully before they step up to a canvas. Well, the Animation Creator is your canvas, so try sketching out your ideas on paper before you reach for your mouse. This will give you the chance to quickly experiment with different ideas, until you know exactly what you want.

Puppets

Try using puppets to tell a story without having to draw each frame.

Show off your Storytelling Skills

If you're not a brilliant artist, you can still make exciting, popular animations. Forget beautiful graphics for a while, and flex your storytelling muscles by making a really funny/sad/happy/scary animation with a great plot. This is still great drawing practice, so your artistic skills will improve as well!

Changing Shapes' Color

Did you know that you can change the color of an existing shape object by clicking on it with the bucket tool?

Experiment with Realistic Light Effects

Are you finding some of your animations a little flat and unrealistic? Bring life to your animations by bringing in some interesting light and shadow effects. Where is the light coming from? Are there any reflections? What directions are shadows falling?

Stories

Looking for ideas for your animation? Try animating a well known story and put your own twist on it!

Challenge Yourself! Draw what's Difficult

Even skilled artists find it difficult to draw and paint certain things. For example, many people find it hard to draw realistic hands, or horses. However, drawing what's difficult for you is a great way to challenge yourself and improve your artistic abilities.

Foreground and Background Layers

Try using both foreground and background layers to improve your animation and make it stand out.

Ask your Friends and Family for Ideas

If you don't know what to draw and need inspiration, ask your brothers/sisters, friends or other members of the family - they might have just the right idea for your to create a killer animation!

Background Objects

Did you know that when you select a background object it is automatically placed on the Background Layer?

Start your Animating with an Outline

Before you start on the beautiful details of your animation, try drawing a simple outline. This way, you can get the overall composition looking great, and you can make sure everything's going to fit in the frame! Once you're filling in the details, you can start deleting your outline if you don't need it any more.

Transparency

Did you know that you can change the transparency of an object by using the Transparency slider in the Edit section?

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