Make a flipbook animation in your browser
Remember drawing a little stick figure in the corner of a notebook and flicking the pages to make it move? Thisonline flipbook maker does the same thing on screen. Draw a picture, add a new frame, draw it again slightly moved, and press play. Onion skin shows a faint ghost of the previous frame, so lining up each drawing is easy, and when you are happy you can save the result as an animated GIF to share with friends.
How to animate a flipbook
- Draw frame 1 with the pen. Use the fill bucket to colour in closed shapes.
- Add a frame. Press ＋ Frame for a blank page or ⧉ Copy to copy the current drawing and change only what moves.
- Follow the ghost. The red onion skin shows where things were; draw them a little further along.
- Repeat until the movement is complete. Tap any frame in the timeline to fix it, and use ◀ ▶ to reorder frames.
- Press play and adjust the speed slider until it feels right.
- Save a GIF in one of three sizes, or download all frames as a PNG spritesheet.
Animation tips for great results
- Small steps, smooth motion. The less something moves between frames, the smoother it looks. Big jumps feel fast and snappy.
- Squash and stretch. Squash a bouncing ball flat when it hits the ground and stretch it while it falls. The demo animation shows how.
- Copy, then change. For a character that waves, copy the frame and redraw only the arm. Backgrounds then stay perfectly still.
- Make it loop. End on a drawing that leads back into frame 1 and the GIF will play forever without a jump.
- Hold key poses. Duplicate an important frame two or three times to make the animation pause on it.
- Use the keyboard. N adds a frame, D copies, arrow keys step through frames, Space plays and O toggles onion skin.
From paper flipbooks to GIFs
Flipbooks are one of the oldest forms of animation: a stack of drawings shown quickly one after another tricks the eye into seeing movement. Traditional animators still use the same idea, drawing on light tables so they can see the previous drawing through the paper. That is exactly what onion skin recreates here. Most hand-drawn cartoons run at 12 drawings per second, so try 12 fps for a classic cartoon feel or 6 to 8 fps for a scrappy, home-made look.
Your animation is encoded into a GIF entirely on your own device by a small built-in encoder, so nothing is uploaded. Need a still drawing instead? Use our free drawing board, colour in one of ourcoloring pages, or see whether an AI recognises your doodles inQuick Draw.
Flipbook Animator FAQ
How do I make a flipbook animation online?
Draw your first picture, press "+ Frame" (or "Copy" to start from a copy of the current frame), and draw the next position. The faint red drawing behind is the previous frame, so you can move things a little each time. Press play to watch it move, then save it as a GIF.
What is onion skin?
Onion skin shows the previous frames as faint red ghosts (and the next frame in faint blue) behind the frame you are drawing. It is how animators keep movement smooth. Switch it on or off with the onion button or the O key.
Can I save my animation as a GIF?
Yes. Press "GIF" and your flipbook is encoded right in your browser into an animated GIF that loops forever, at the speed you chose. You can also download all frames as a single PNG spritesheet.
Is my animation saved if I close the page?
Your flipbook autosaves in this browser after every change, so it will be there next time on the same device. Very long animations can be too big for browser storage; the status line tells you if that happens, so export a GIF to keep it.
How many frames can I draw and how fast does it play?
Up to 60 frames per flipbook, played from 1 to 24 frames per second. Around 8 to 12 fps gives a classic hand-drawn look; 2 to 4 fps makes a slideshow.
Does it work on a phone or tablet?
Yes. Draw with your finger or a stylus (pressure changes the line width), tap the frames in the timeline to jump between them and use the play button to watch. Everything runs in the browser with no app to install.