How to Create a Living Snow Man in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects

One of the symbolic images of winter is the snowman. For every big snowfall, people can view or create their own snowman using a variety of sources. If you do not get snow, or cannot wait for the big storm to arrive, you can easily create your own digital snowman using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. This snowman is much more than a drawing, though, because you can actually make it come to life using animation skills in After Effects.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Adobe Photoshop

1. Open a new file by going to File>New. Make a custom sized file that measures 500 pixels by 900 pixels. This will give you some room to work with and enough space to create you snowman. Make sure that the background is transparent underneath the “Background Contents” option.

2. Click on the “Eclipse” tool so you can start making the body of the snowman. Each section of the snowman should have a separate layer.

3. Create the base of the snowman using the “Eclipse” tool. Hold the “Shift” key while creating the shape to make a perfect circle. Use the “Move” tool to adjust and center the position.

4. Go to Layer>New>Layer… to create a new layer. Draw a smaller circle that will represent the center of the snowman. Use a black “eclipse” tool to create small coal buttons for the snowman’s center.

5. Create a new layer, and use a brown paint brush and the “Line” tool to create an arm for the snowman. Placement does not matter at this point, because everything will be adjusted in Adobe After Effects. Repeat this process for the second arm.

6. Add another new layer, and create the head of the snowman. Draw on the face using a mix of colors and orange for the nose if you wish that it would look like a carrot. Create another layer to make the snowman’s hat.

7. Save the file as a Photoshop image so that After Effects can read every layer.

Adobe After Effects

8. Open up Adobe After Effects and import the Snowman Photoshop file. Do this by right-clicking in the “Project” window and pressing Import. Choose the option that says “Composition” so the project will work correctly.

9. Right-click on the composition window and select the option that says “Compostion Settings”. Change the size to “NTSC DV” and press “OK.”

10. Press the small arrow next to the folder that contains your snowman project. Highlight and drag all of the layers down into the “Timeline” section.

11. Click and drag each of the layers until they are scattered across the bottom of the screen. To make it look more lifelike, you can actually import a snowy background for the snowman to be a part of.

12. Click on the first layer of the snowman. Press the arrow to the left of the layer in the project window and then press the arrow next to the “Transform” option. Press the small clock button next to the position arrow. This will turn on the key frames that adjust the animation. Drag the timeline bar over to the five-second mark. Click and drag the center of the snowman until it is in the center of the screen. This will set its animation.

13. Move the timeline navigation and the arrow to different positions to make it move around longer. Just make sure that the final key frame is set for the final position.

14. Repeat this process for all of the other pieces so that they fall into place. Use the rotation key frames to set rotation points so that every thing lines up as well.

Tips & Warnings

• Learning how to use key frames is the most important step in making animations work. Practice using them and then you will be able to easily create more advanced animations.

Who Can Help Sponsored

• Surprise Friends Near and Far with Fresh Teleflora Flowers. Save 15% & Same-Day Delivery Available.