How to Animate with Illustrator and Photoshop

In this tutorial I would like to show you how Animate with Illustrator and Photoshop. We’ll create a vector animation of a spinning isometric windmill using Illustrator and Photoshop. We’ll take vector shapes created in Illustrator and use frame animation in Photoshop to make the windmill spin. It’s quick and easy and in the end you’ll have your own animated gif to power the world!

In case you want to create your own little isometric windmill, check out my tutorial Create an Isometric Grid Pattern in Adobe Illustrator.

I have been interested in how to animate with Illustrator and Photoshop for a while. I prefer small animations, especially combined with illustrations or vectors such as SVG. You can use Adobe AfterEffects or simply work with Photoshop and Illustrator to animate your artwork.

In this tutorial, I want to show you how to animate with Illustrator and Photoshop using an isometric windmill and making the sails spin.

In order to animate with Illustrator and Photoshop, we have to think in steps, or frames. Each frame needs its own piece and when it’s played together, we get the illusion on a moving part.

For our isometric windmill, we need at least two separate frames for the sails.

Then we are going to set it all up in Photoshop with layers and use Frame Animation.

Watch the video tutorial now to see how you can create a simple animation with Illustrator and Photoshop.

Happy animating 🙂

Tips on Frame Animation:

Create sketches for the parts you want to animate
The shorter the time between frame, the faster the animation
Try to think of slow motion in order to find the frame by frame image you need to create
Create you assets in Adobe Illustrator so you’ll have scalable shapes and objects
Either add your vector shapes via copy/paste into Photoshop for the frame animation
or save your Illustrator file with layers for Photoshop