A single comic page can move. Right in the drawing studio, you turn on Animation Assist, treat the page's own layers as animation frames, and use onion skin and riffle to get the motion right. Then you tick Set as animated art and the page plays a short loop for your readers: a blinking eye, a flickering sign, a little rain. It is small on purpose, with clear limits. The authoring aids never change what a reader sees, and print (and covers) always show a single still, the last frame. This is animating one page inside a comic, which is a different thing from the standalone Animation asset. Learn the frames, the timing, and the one checkbox that makes it play.
Any comic page can be made to animate for your readers, and you build it right where you draw, in the drawing studio (the Creator Canvas page editor). The idea is small on purpose. You are not making a whole cartoon. You are giving one page a small movement: a blinking eye, a flickering sign, a little rain, a strand of hair that lifts and settles.
The model is simple. You draw a few versions of the page as frames, preview the motion, then mark the page as animated. Readers watch that short loop play. Everywhere else it stays an ordinary page.
One thing to keep straight. This is not the same as making an Animation, the standalone animation asset with its own studio. That is a full animated piece. This guide is only about a single comic page that moves.
Open a page in the drawing studio and find the film-strip button. Its tooltip reads Animation Assist: frames, onion skin, playback. Click it to turn Animation Assist on. The animation timeline appears along the bottom of the studio, and onion skin and riffle become available. Assist is your workbench. You flip it on when you want to animate, and flip it off to go back to drawing the page the ordinary way. It is a switch you hold down while you work, not a setting that stays on the finished page.
Turning Assist on changes nothing for your readers. The timeline, onion skin and riffle are there to help you see the motion as you build it. Readers see none of it until you mark the page as animated later.
On an animated page there is no separate frame stack to learn. The page's own top-level layers are your frames, and they play bottom to top: the bottom layer plays first, the top layer plays last. A group counts as one frame, exactly the way Procreate maps them. So drawing an animated page is really drawing a short flip-book. Draw your first frame, add a layer for the next pose, and keep stacking, top layer last. The timeline's Add frame button simply adds a layer.
Two frames can take a special role. Mark one background or foreground (you will see a BG or FG badge) and it renders under or over every other frame instead of taking a turn, ideal for a static backdrop behind a moving character.
Onion skin lays faint ghosts of the neighbouring frames under your hand as you draw, so you can line the motion up. It is on by default. The ghosts can be tinted, red for the frame before and green for the frame after, so at a glance you know which way the motion is travelling. This is how you keep a moving thing on model from frame to frame: trace the arc, hold the volume, and catch drift before it creeps in. Use the Onion range control to set the depth. Turn it up to see more of the run and read the whole sweep of an action, turn it down to focus on just the last frame. Need a clean look while you check your line? Flip Show onion skins to Hide onion skins.
Riffle flips the last few frames full-screen, fast, the way you thumb the corner of a flip-book. It plays at your set frame rate, so you feel the real timing, not a frozen pose. Set how many frames back to flip with the Riffle range control, hit the play button, and the full-screen preview reads "Riffle, tap to stop".
Work in a loop: draw a frame, riffle to check it reads, adjust, riffle again. Motion at speed exposes what a still hides, a pop, a stutter, a hold that runs a beat too long. Trust your eye here. If it feels wrong flipping, it will feel wrong to a reader. Riffle is your preview only; readers get the real playback once you set the page as animated.
Open the Assist Settings to shape the timing. Frames per second is a slider (1 to 60, default 12). Twelve frames a second is the sweet spot for hand-drawn motion. Slow it down for a lazy, drifting loop, or push it up for a nervous flicker.
Pick how it repeats: Loop plays over and over, Ping-pong runs forward then backward, and One shot plays once and stops. Reach for Ping-pong on any motion that reverses, a bob or a sway, and you only draw half the frames.
To give a pose weight, raise its Hold duration. The control shows a frame's length as a multiple (1x, 2x), so a key drawing lingers without you redrawing it. The onion options are in these same Settings.
Everything up to now has been you working. Onion skin, riffle, all of it stayed in the editor. This is the one action that makes the page actually play for a reader.
When the motion feels right, open the canvas menu and tick Set as animated art. Its tooltip reads "Mark this page as animated for readers". It stays disabled until you have Animation Assist on and at least two frames (you'll see a hint like "Enable Animation Assist first" or "Need at least 2 frames"). Ticking it flattens each frame into a picture on the spot and saves the sequence with your speed, loop, and holds. One page can hold up to 120 frames.
On a published page, the reader stays in control of the animation. It autoplays the moment the page scrolls into view, in the vertical reader and the page light box, looping the way you set it, with Play and Pause always within reach. Nothing moves before it is actually on screen. In the inline gallery grid of an issue it stays a still with a play button, so a wall of pages never flickers at once. Readers can turn it off: a Settings toggle, Auto-animate pages, turns autoplay off, and anyone whose device asks for reduced motion has that honored automatically. With autoplay off they see your last frame as a still with a play button.
Motion here is an extra, not a demand. It stays out of the way and readers can opt out.
Here is the one thing to plan around. The animation is reader-only. Everywhere the page is not being watched inside the reader, it collapses to a single still: the printed page, the PDF, the cover, and every thumbnail all show one frame, and that frame is the last one in your sequence. The motion never reaches print.
So your final frame is doing double duty. It is both the end of the loop and the picture that stands in for the whole page in print and in previews. Compose it to hold on its own: a complete, readable drawing with a settled pose, not a mid-blink in-between caught between two keys. Land the loop somewhere deliberate, and the same page reads perfectly whether it moves or sits still.
Two tools share the idea of frames, so pick by what the finished thing is. An animated page (what this guide teaches) is one page inside a comic that plays a short loop for readers. You build it from the page's own layers in the drawing studio, and it stays a comic page. It sits in your issue and it prints as a still. A standalone Animation is its own asset kind, made in the Animation studio, a whole animated piece with scenes and a full timeline that exists on its own.
Use an animated page when a moment should move (a flame, a wave, a wink) but the page is still fundamentally a comic page. Use an Animation when the animation is the work.
The loop, start to finish. Turn on Animation Assist. Build your frames as top-level layers, working bottom to top, so the earliest pose sits underneath and time reads upward. Flip on Onion to see the layer before and after, which keeps you on model, and hold Riffle to feel the motion at speed. Dial in your Frames per second, choose a loop mode, and add holds where a pose should linger. When it looks right, tick Set as animated art and the page plays for readers.
Keep it small and it works well. Overdo it and the page fights itself. A single moving detail on the right page is one of the best things a digital comic can do, and it is a few layers and a checkbox away.
No. The animation is reader-only. Print, the PDF, covers and thumbnails all show a single still, and that still is the LAST frame of your sequence. So compose your final frame to stand on its own as a complete drawing, because it is what a print reader, a cover, and a thumbnail will show.
Your page's own top-level layers are the frames, bottom to top (a group counts as one). There is no separate frame stack: adding a frame adds a layer. Two frames can be marked background or foreground (BG / FG) to sit under or over every other frame instead of taking a turn, handy for a static backdrop.
Never. Animation Assist, onion skin and riffle are editor-only authoring aids that help you build and preview the motion. Only ticking Set as animated art bakes the frames into something a reader watches. You can turn the aids on and off freely while you work.
An animated page is one page inside a comic that plays a short loop and otherwise stays a comic page (it prints as a still, it sits in your issue). A standalone Animation is its own asset kind with a full studio and timeline. Use an animated page for a moving moment in a comic; use an Animation when the animation is the whole work.
In the Assist Settings: Frames per second (1 to 60, default 12), and a loop mode of Loop, Ping-pong, or One shot. Each frame can also get a Hold duration (shown as a multiple like 2x) so a key pose lingers without redrawing it.
It autoplays only when the page scrolls into view, and it respects a reader who has asked their device to reduce motion, and their Auto-animate pages setting. There is always a Play and Pause button. So it stays unobtrusive by default, and it should still read fine as a still.
You need at least two frames to set a page animated, and a page can hold up to 120 baked frames. Keep it small: a handful of frames for one looping detail usually reads better than a long sequence, and it is kinder on the reader.
Assist on, frames as layers, onion to stay on model, riffle to feel the timing, then Set as animated art. A single moving detail on the right page is one of the best things a digital comic can do, and it is a few layers and a checkbox away.
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