Using Brush Ninja for Storytelling and Storyboards
Brush Ninja is an online animation tool that can be used for a variety of purposes, including creating storyboards and telling stories through animation. Storyboarding allows you to plan out your shots and visualize your story before you start animating (or filming). In this article, we’ll explore how Brush Ninja can be used to make the storyboarding process easier.
Storyboarding with Brush Ninja
Storyboarding is a process of creating a visual representation of a story. It typically involves drawing sketches or illustrations that represent the key moments in the story, along with notes on the dialogue, camera angle, and other details. All of these things can be done with the Brush Ninja Animated Gif Maker.
Sketching out storyboard frames
Using the brush and pencil tools in Brush Ninja, you can sketch out your storyboard frames. You can use the frame duration properties and frame rate control to set how long each frame is displayed for. For storyboards the frame rate will probably be quite low, and then each frame can be overriden individually so that you can get the timing right for that portion of the scene.
Adding text and notes
In addition to sketching out your storyboard frames, you can also add text and notes to your storyboard. This can be done either with the text tool, or with the Captions tool. This text can include dialogue, camera angles, and other details that are important for visualizing your story.
The captions tool is hidden whilst editing the frame images, but you can display the Captions when you export your animation.
Exporting the Storyboard
Brush Ninja includes a variety of export types. Brush Ninja is an animated gif maker, but you can also export the images as individual image frames, a single image (laid out a bit like a comic) or as a pdf. Premium users can also export as a video file.
These exports can include the frame captions mentioned above, which will make the exported content a lot more useful when using Brush Ninja for storyboarding.
Creating animated storyboards
Animated storyboards are a great way to test out your story before you start animating the full project. With Brush Ninja, you can easily create animated storyboards by animating your storyboard frames. This can help you get a better sense of the pacing and timing of your story, and make adjustments as needed.
Creating animated shorts
Once you’ve created your storyboard, you can use Brush Ninja to create animated shorts that bring your story to life. Brush Ninja provides a range of tools for animating your story, including a timeline feature that allows you to adjust the timing of your frames, and a range of brush and pencil tools that allow you to create detailed animations.
Creating Comics
Brush Ninja animated gif maker has an export type that lets you export your animations in a comic format. If you use the Comic frame size you can create a short story (8 frames), export the images as an image sequence, and then import them into the Comic Maker.
Tips & Tricks
- Frame Size - Brush Ninja is not limited to square animations. If you press the ‘New’ button you will see that you can select different frame sizes including proportions that are suitable for wide screen tvs.
- Move Frames Around - Frames in the timeline can be dragged and dropped, or duplicated. This makes it really easy to rearrange the frames to make the story work for you.
- Add Frame Notes - Brush Ninja allows you to add notes to each frame. These are hidden from the animated gifs, but can be displayed in other export formats allowing you to add stage directions and other information. You can set these using the Captions tool found to the side of the Play button.
- Exporting Storyboards - Brush Ninja allows you to export your animations in a variety of ways. Animated gifs are the default but you can also export all frames as a single image, or a collection of images, so you can print them as you like.
- Adding sound and music - In addition to animating your story, you can also add sound effects to your animations using Brush Ninja. This can help to punctuate important moments.
Conclusion
Whilst superficially simple, Brush Ninja has a lot of features that make it a powerful tool for storyboarding and storytelling. Whether you’re a professional animator or a beginner looking to explore the world of animation, Brush Ninja provides a range of tools and features that can help you bring your stories to life.
