How to Create Stick Men Videos on Paint and Movie Maker

Aspiring animators can sink a fortune into animation and art software, as it's easy to think you need the best applications and animation classes to launch your career. But, save your money and start animating now with simple stick figures and the software that ships with Windows.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Develop a storyline. You don't need drawing talent, but you do need a basic story. Basic joke structure works well, a setup and an unexpected development for the climax or punch line.

2. Draw a frame. You can use any paint application, including Windows Paint. You need nothing more than a one-color stick figure. Save it as a JPEG, GIF or BMP file.

3. Save a copy of your file. Select and transform part of your character to create motion, or modify it with the paint or drawing tools. Continue until you finish all the frames in your story.

4. Import your frames into Movie Maker. Choose "Import Pictures" in the Movie Tasks panel. They will display in order in the Collections window. Click the "Show Timeline" button to work in Timeline mode.

5. Drag your images to the timeline. Click on the "Zoom Timeline In" button to enlarge the preview. Drag each image from the right edge to set the playback time to 0.13 second.

6. Save your animation. Movie Maker will allow you to save it to your drive, email it directly to friends or load it to the Internet.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep your first animations simple. Limit your story to one or two characters.
• Test playback after the first half dozen frames. If the movie plays back too quickly, stretch each frame longer. This will save you the time of readjusting each frame if you wait until every frame is in place before testing the playback speed.
• You can embellish your animation with simple background motion: a cloud or bird moving across the sky, the sun rising or a leaf falling from a tree.
• Don't think in black and white. You can paint a red stick figure on a blue background. Just make sure there is enough contrast between the two colors to make your stick figure stand out when it moves.
• Name your frames in a sequence to keep track of them. Start with "Frame 01" (or, if you intend to draw a hundred frames, "Frame 001").
• Make sure to work in Timeline mode or the movie will play back at the default speed of 5 seconds per frame (excruciatingly slow). If you see individual frames at the bottom of the window, click the "Show Timeline" button.