What is a flipbook animation?

A flipbook is a stack of drawings, each a little different from the one before. Flip through them fast and the drawing seems to move. Hand drawn cartoons work the same way, and animators see the last drawing faintly through the paper so the next one lines up. That trick is called onion skinning.

Tool description

This tool gives you a white canvas, a pencil and an eraser. Draw the first frame, click "Add frame", and draw the next one. The previous frame shows faded under the new one, and the layers button ("Show previous frame") turns it off. Click Play to watch the animation in a loop, and Stop to go back to drawing. You can draw with a mouse, or with a finger on a phone or tablet.

The film strip under the canvas shows every frame. Click one to open it. New frames go right after the open frame, not at the end. The Frame menu has Add frame, Duplicate frame, Clear frame and Delete frame. Duplicate is useful when only part of the drawing moves, such as a waving arm.

The color button has six colors plus "Custom color", and picking a color switches back to the pencil. The Speed menu sets 4, 8 or 12 frames per second, or any whole number from 1 to 50. The full screen button makes the canvas fill the screen.

When the animation is ready, open File and click "Download GIF". The GIF is 960 by 540 pixels on a white background, loops forever and plays at the speed you set. The faded previous frame isn't part of it. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is saved, so download the GIF before you close the page.

Keyboard shortcuts

  • Undo: Ctrl+Z, or ⌘Z on a Mac
  • Redo: Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z, or ⇧⌘Z on a Mac

Features

  • Onion skin that shows the previous frame under the one you draw
  • Film strip to open, add, duplicate, clear and delete frames
  • Looping GIF download at 1 to 50 frames per second