You simply connect the top of a node to the bottom of another, but it is important to follow the down to top procedure i.e.

To parent the assets similar to an IK rig. You might think this is a bit weird, but as the character is facing us his right arm is on the left for the viewer. On the left side of the node view i had all of the right parts of the knight such as his leg and arm. To make finding a part of the knights body easily i re-organised the node view so that elements that were close or related to each other where put together away from unrelated elements. I chose to spread mine out in ascending order. Separated Layers since there are over a dozen layers in the PSD and straight crops the psd to the outline of the drawing removing any unnecessary space.Īs we are working from the node view its important to organize all of the nodes to make assets clearer to see and to establish the hierarchy, everyone has their own methods of organizing the node viewer. I chose Bitmap to keep things straightforward and simple. It’s a good idea to convert simple flat designs into vectors and more detailed designs as bitmaps to ensure best quality. It is important to create layers based on filenames as the psd file contains many layers and assets and we need to be able to access them individually. Importing the PSD file into ToonBoom using File-Import-Image. After finishing all the assets I placed all of the assets into their own folders.

Putting them into layers is important for importing it into toon boom. This allows you to transform and alter them to fit the design. I drew each ‘segment’ like the limbs or parts of the armor in separate layers. I did the initial sketch using Paint Tool Sai because of the fluidity then imported that into photoshop. I wanted a simple cartoony design that would be easy to animate later on. At first i had trouble coming up with character designs till i took influence and inspiration from Castle Crashers. We were given the task to design a Character that would later be used for 2D character rigging.

Toon boom rigging