Design, Rig, and Animate a character in Moho - Full Tutorial

In today's video we'll be looking at how to design, rig, and animate a character all inside of Moho! I wound up putting a lot of work into this video to make it as easy to follow along with as possible. Moho is an amazing tool for character animation, and I'm so excited to be able to share this process with you all.
All music on this channel is produced by RSKT
RSKT LINKS (Website, Store, Patreon, Channels & Socials):
linktr.ee/RSKT
My previous video:
• Making my Affinity art...
Victor Paredes webinar:
• Webinar - Are those re...
Alan Becker's 12 Principles of Animation video:
• 12 Principles of Anima...
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:27 Inspiration
02:24 Reference
03:02 Styles
05:10 Drawing tools
05:50 Drawing the character
06:47 Line boil
07:33 Basic rigging
08:33 Parenting
09:09 More rigging
10:43 Foot controls
12:39 Link bones
13:20 Angle constrains
13:37 Intermission
14:21 Smart actions
15:13 Body controls
16:34 Face controls
18:10 Head controls
19:58 Eye controls
20:19 Fly & shadow rig
21:40 Animation resources
24:01 Timeline features
25:53 Bone dynamics
26:21 Starting to animate
27:17 Switching the flies
28:20 More animation
29:15 Finishing touches
30:00 End result
30:50 Outro
31:16 Credits

[@Cringeroo]

Hey man. Thanks for this fantastic tutorial! I remember watching your first video when you animate your own character in Moho for the first time and from there I was inspired. I'm coming from Adobe Animate and I want to shift to Moho Pro. Thanks for sharing your experience with us!

[@RSKT_art]

Thanks so much for saying that. I'm really happy to hear this video was useful to someone. I'm kind of kicking myself for not coming back to it for so long, but I'm really glad I did. How's the transition from Adobe Animate going? I haven't animated in that for quite some time.

[@Cringeroo]

@@RSKT_art Im really glad that you're back on it. Well, my journey so far is pretty rough but I learn something new each day. Im going to familiarize myself to use styles in Moho like the one that you show on this video. You rock!

[@RSKT_art]

Sorry to hear than man, but glad to hear you're pushing on. Styles really are a great time saver, especially if you want to edit your whole character later on!

[@geoi88i]

I love Moho! I saw that Moho posted your work! PLEASE do more Moho tutorials! Its such a powerful, fun program, underrated especially in America

[@RSKT_art]

Thanks so much! I've been trying to find time to mess around with it more. Definately keen to keep going! Thanks for watching :)

[@senecanevraska5356]

ooooo! Good thing I saw this tutorial! Will definitely try this!

[@RSKT_art]

Have fun! Thanks for watching :)

[@rickevertsz]

Longtime dabbler in Moho. KZbin algorithm brought me here. Really great video! Thanks for putting this up.

[@RSKT_art]

No worries at all! So glad you enjoyed the video 😊

[@lukenool]

Russ THANKYOU SOOOO MUCH for making this incredibly detailed yet eloquently straight forward and easy to follow tutorial, and the Moho webinar too. I am a recent convert to Moho… my ratio of illustrator/animator is about 70/30, have always cobbled my Anim stuff together as kinda ‘illustrationPLUS’ in photoshop/flash/Aeplugins Frankenstein style. Moho really does look like a dream come true… but only because of your tutorial, and Victor Paredes! As you say, seeing styles animated that have never really been animated, and VECTORS?! Mind blown. The joke is (and I think you mentioned this too in the webinar) the thing that has slowed me down most is failing to understand the SHAPE/STYLES thing… I still don’t think it’s QUITE clicked 100%, but trial error and tutorials are unlocking doors, I’m basically operational. So far I’ve rigged a pretty janky flat ‘vector cliche looking’ dude, but this has really inspired me to have a crack at just staying ‘honest’ with something cartoony, scratchy. Really can’t thank you enough. If you did fancy doing a video titled ‘what the effing Jeff is that styles interface all about?’ then you’d have a cheerleader front and centre right here, haha No honestly, you’ll be my hero forever for this vid alone. All the best, Luke

[@RSKT_art]

Hey man - thankyou so much for the nice comment! I'm so glad you enjoyed this vid and the webinar. I'm pretty flat chat at the moment, but I think your idea of having a video that covered the drawing tos in detail is a great idea. I'll see what I can come up with. There's still a few things I'm unsure of myself, so it might take me a while to make it. I'll start digging through the manual and do some research for the things I'm not sure of. Either way, thanks again so much for watching. Hopefully I'm able to get this vid out for you someday soon. :)

[@ellen-kat]

thank you for making this! the tutorial was great and the animation at the end was delightful!

[@RSKT_art]

Thankyou so much for watching! Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@davidpikedesigns]

Excellent tutorial and teaching style! I've owned Moho for a while. This may be the tutorial that finally gets me to dive in. Thanks!

[@RSKT_art]

No worries! So glad it was helpful. I know the struggle - picked it up myself a couple of years back and haven't done enough with it. Really glad I took the plunge!

[@NealFox]

That was great. I'm in the process of animating a full-length musical so this is just what I needed. Thanks.

[@RSKT_art]

No worries! Thanks so much for watching :)

[@rickarroyo]

I loved seeing your process, man! The result were amazing

[@RSKT_art]

Thanks so much!

[@TonyQuackston]

You always undersell yourself. This was really great and the animation is really lively and expressive. And there even was a little storyline going on. Great video!

[@RSKT_art]

Thanks mate, I appreciate that. I find I get a lot out of critiquing my own artwork. Helps me try new things and do better next time. Haha, although my wife feels the same as you. Thanks for watching! :)

[@jozef_s]

Awesome mate! Not even an animator, or Illustrator but enjoyed your video!

[@RSKT_art]

So glad to hear that. You should definately jump on in. There's so many tools and workflows out there. You never know what you might come up with! 😊

[@bonifasiusdyas9360]

This is what i am looking for! Great video!

[@RSKT_art]

Awesome! Thanks for tuning in!

[@luanao7665]

Loved this! thank you :)

[@RSKT_art]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@rigandmoho]

great work, man!

[@RSKT_art]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@wheelharp]

Great tutorial! Thank you!

[@RSKT_art]

No worries! Thanks for watching! :)

[@owenabucheri]

Well in! 🙌🙌

[@RSKT_art]

Cheers!

[@tizooky]

Great tutorial, thank you for sharing! Cool to see the process for this one :)

[@RSKT_art]

Thank you! Cheers for watching! :)

[@freelance50]

Great tutorial, learned a lot of new and useful things. Thank you!

[@RSKT_art]

No problem! Really glad you were able to get something out of this :)

[@gugo6842]

Thank you so much for this vid 🫡

[@RSKT_art]

No worries! Thankyou for watching it :)

[@sadheeshkumar7302]

Great video Want more like this

[@RSKT_art]

Still a lot I want to experiment with, so hopefully I'll have more for you soon! :)

[@gcharb2d]

Moho is a fantastic piece of software, I am so glad that others are making tutorials for it, great video BTW! 👍

[@RSKT_art]

Couldn't agree more! I have so much fun using Moho. It's really great. Thanks for watching 😊

[@gcharb2d]

@@RSKT_art NP, I haven't done a Moho tutorial in years, I should have a look to see the new tools that were added since the last time I used it! 🙂

[@RSKT_art]

@@gcharb2d I actually watched a couple of your tutorials back in the day. Just revisited your channel and realised you made the famous western grease pencil example. I haven't tried grease pencil since it first came out. How are you finding it these days? I saw a blender user has now made a system to do cut out and smart bones in blender, and was heavily inspired by Moho. Wondering what your thoughts have been on the whole thing, as I really love blender, but also love the time I save animating in Moho.

[@gcharb2d]

@@RSKT_art You don't need special tools to rig grease pencil objects, as they are regular objects that can be rigged, I would not use GP for cut-outs though, Moho is much better at that, Toonboom is still the best at hand drawn animation, the strength of GP is its 2D/3D integration, but it's not the best 2D animation software, but they modified the GP masking system after seeing my facial rig tests done in Blender, now it works pretty much like Moho!

[@RSKT_art]

Ah nice, that's awesome to hear man. I'll definitely have to check it out again some day. Loving the stuff I'm seeing people make with it lately.

[@7anzalaanagy341]

Awesome thanks for your efforts

[@RSKT_art]

No problem at all! Thanks so much for watching!

[@smokeback]

just subbed thanks for this amazing tutorial breakdown for someone who loves bitmap art

[@RSKT_art]

No worries! Really glad you liked the video. 😊

[@akArtemova]

you are amazing thank you a lot

[@RSKT_art]

Thanks for watching! :)

[@akArtemova]

@@RSKT_art bro you saved my life literally!!,, lol yesterday I tried to understand how to work in Moho cause today I should have shown my works for the university Exam was cancelled but I totally found out how to do in Moho some things I tried to do in ClipStudio or Tv Paint so I can create a masterpiece in that time that I won because of the postponement

[@RSKT_art]

Haha that's great to hear man! I'm so glad this wound up working in your favour!

[@kobiianardo]

cute!

[@RSKT_art]

Thanks! :)

[@varamozhithulika5919]

Hi, brother, really great. job.

[@RSKT_art]

Many thanks! Stoked people are liking this :)

[@user-xr9je5dk1w]

Hey man, I am glad to see that the result is quite professional. However, I still notice the limitations of this software. When someone truly has extensive experience drawing, tools like Smart Bones become limited because their results are based on repeating patterns, whereas animation requires new movements at every moment, applying concepts such as Stretch, Squash, Smear effects, etc. Similarly, with facial expressions, seeing an expressive face of happiness or sadness repeatedly diminishes the character's emotional expressiveness. Therefore, in many cases, these types of tools require arduous work in complex setups to recreate almost any type of animation. This necessitates a significant workflow if we aim to create complex and varied animations over time. Nonetheless, I commend your work as it has been very good, and the result is highly satisfactory.

[@RSKT_art]

Hey, thanks for watching! I honestly completely agree with everything you're saying. Smart bones and even vertex groups & blend shapes aren't always the best practice when it comes to animating. A truly great 2D animation is done frame-by-frame in my opinion, and the best 3D rigs allow animators complete control over ever aspect without having to rely on things like blend shapes. However, I personally don't have the time. Animating this frame by frame would have looked so much better, but it's not practical for me, and I think that's where Moho really hits the sweet spot. Unless you have a team of people working in something like Toon Boom or Open Toonz, it's just not feasible for most people to go it alone. I think Moho provides people with the tools to be able to pull of decent 2D animations without having to spend years on a project, or hire a bunch of people to help you tell a story. Fortunately, it IS possible to do squash and stretch, and even smear effects in Moho. There's a lot of great tools in there to help you achieve believable results. While it might take time to set up a decent rig - once it's done you can reuse it over and over again. Perfect if you're making an animation short or a series by yourself (or within a small team). But yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying. Personally, I just feel Moho treads that fine line of being better than things like Adobe Animate/Character Animator, but less extensive than more complex software like Blender, Open Toonz, and Toon boom. It's the perfect sweet spot.

[@arthritic]

Can we see your work?

[@Zenzuke]

You can do any frame by frame animation on moho on top of the bones, as fully new drawings or even tweening the vectors

[@MattJordanAnimation]

Three bones for the antenna, Three bones for the abdomen, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the land of Moho where... Um... Sorry, got off track. What I meant to say was great tutorial!

[@RSKT_art]

Hahaha, love it. Thanks so much for watching.

[@CushionSapp]

So, are Link Bones the same as layer binding bones? Thanks for making this tutorial vid btw.

[@RSKT_art]

Sorry for the late reply - Yes, it's essentially the same as going to the bone menu and selecting bind to layer.

[@Kazarous]

Amazing tutorial! I have a question about how you coloured the character at 5:45, I cant seem to draw without creating vectors/connection points. I want to fill in a piece with a few solid colours without creating vectors where all my strokes were. Cheers!

[@RSKT_art]

Thanks! So I'm just using vector strokea to colour this guy in. If you wanted to fill a shape, you definately could. One way is to create a shape that has a fill and a stroke. Another way would be to create the strokes first (for the outline), and then create a separate vector shape as the fill. You could do this on a separate layer, but you can also do it on the same layer and move it backwards/forwards using the up & down arrow keys. It's very similar to how apps like Illustrator and Affinity work. Hope that helps answer your question :)

[@inknpaintCW]

Don't forget to turn off the auto weld when drawing if you don't want close points to close into a shape. (checkbox at the top of the UI)

[@karlapaolataverasalvarez9393]

Are you using the debut 14 or pro 14? Is just I’m not sure if I can afford the pro 14 so I wanted to know if you could animate in the debut version as well

[@RSKT_art]

I'm using Pro 14 for this. Honestly, after doing some reading I don't even think that Debut is worth it, not only because of the limitations within the app, but mainly because of the export options. In my opinion, you're better off saving up for and going with Pro. If 14 is looking too pricey, I know a lot of places sell version 12 at a discounted rate.

[@sequoia5934]

15:35 this is kinda similar to sdk on maya cool

[@RSKT_art]

Sure is! I find a lot of Moho be quite similar to Maya and Blender. Thankyou for watching!

[@sptv3723]

Thanks a lot. Please could you make a tutorial for a character cartoon boy or girl to be more famous for us. Thanks again

[@RSKT_art]

No problem! I definately wouldn't mind trying out a human character for my next rig. Will see how it goes!

[@sptv3723]

@@RSKT_art thank you 🙏

[@Amelia_PC]

I haven't watched the whole video yet. But as far as I can see, it's similar to Grease Pencil rigging and animating on Blender. Or am I wrong?

[@RSKT_art]

Hmm - a little. Moho is a lot more flexible for this sort of thing than Blender, due to the smart actions and smart bones. That said, a fantastic KZbinr out there made a plugin for Blender that basically lets you use smart bones and actions, so there's that. I'm not knocking Blender in any way, I love that app, but I tried pulling stuff like this off in Blender once upon a time and it just became a nightmare.

[@Amelia_PC]

@@RSKT_art " it just became a nightmare" That's the magic of Blender: it makes everything accessible but hard as hell XD Thanks for the explanation!

[@huntingyou5098]

Im having problem in moho I created the smart bones and set it action window but how to put the smart bone animation in timeline? i can't able to it 😔 its not rendering or adding in the normal timeline Moho is bullying me

[@RSKT_art]

Sorry to hear you're having issues. Definately watch through some of the tutorials for smart bones on moho's KZbin channel. I will say though that you can create a smart action (like a walk cycle for example) and then from the actions panel you can choose to drop it into the mainline, allowing you to recall the walk whenever you need it. Hope that's useful to you in some way.

[@user-de5ig5og9x]

Hi, RKST. I'm thinking of learning 2D animation using moho. and i'm kind of new to this field and i dont want to switch between softwares for at least quite time. however i havent found much of tutorial of moho in internet. However while researching i'm told moho is good for beginner with shorter learning curve. do you have any suggestion for me? i've found few in your channel. can you recommend some more channel or material? I'm absolute beginner!!.

[@RSKT_art]

Hi - Great to hear you're getting into 2D. Moho is GREAT for that. I think the key thing Moho offers is that it's a complete platform that allows single users to get high quality, professional results. Toon-Boom is the industry standard, however, it's harder to make and finish something on it if you're just working by yourself. Blender is a great option too, but again, Moho just makes the whole process easier. As far as other resources go, there's loads of great channels out there - including Moho's free course on their own channel (which I highly recommend). Alternatively, there's some great courses on the Bloop Animation website, and even on Udemy. Everyone's basically teaching the same thing, so I recommend just picking one and going with it (probably Moho's one as it's free :)

[@user-de5ig5og9x]

@@RSKT_art If so for now i'll go with moho. thank you so much for the information. You are doing wonderful job. Hope you'll grow more and more

[@RSKT_art]

@@user-de5ig5og9x Thank you. Good luck! :)

[@HusseinKhaled-zv1oo]

How he get the red arrow in 8:00

[@RSKT_art]

That's actually not an arrow, it's a bone. When you draw a bone, it highlights "red" so that you can see which bone you have selected. This bone is just pointing downwards. You WILL see arrows when you switch to the parent view though. They show which bones are parented to other bones.

[@samikhand5317]

Sir, How long did it take you to create this?

[@RSKT_art]

Hey, so I worked on this in a lot of my spare time around the rest of my work, so it's hard to say as I kept having to stop and start. In total, I think drawing and rigging the character probably took me a day, but I was researching a lot of the face and head rigging tools. Doing it from scratch again took me about an hour or two. The animation took me about 3 days on and off, spread over a couple of weeks. Probably would have taken a lot less time if I understood the timeline better, and if I had a clearer goal in mind when starting.

[@samikhand5317]

@@RSKT_art Thank you much Sir for the reply)

[@RSKT_music]

​@@samikhand5317 no worries! :)

[@akArtemova]

i decided to write a comment every time i go here for lil help with moho day 1

[@RSKT_art]

Haha nice. Be sure to check out the live webinar I did on Moho's channel to. It's more or less the same tutorial for the mantis, but done in real time, so it might be easier to follow👍

[@akArtemova]

@@RSKT_art thanks!!! I kinda found out the most difficult parts for me Still have problems with the expression of emotions

[@akArtemova]

@@RSKT_art sorry if English is bad it’s 2 am and I’m trying to end my work till deadline….

[@RSKT_art]

Keep at it! You'll get there :)

[@akArtemova]

@@RSKT_art day 3

[@akArtemova]

lol im on this page 7 days in week

[@RSKT_art]

Haha glad to hear it :)

[@bat3ch]

this is good

[@RSKT_art]

Thank you! Glad you think so :)

[@bat3ch]

@@RSKT_art please also do a character and how to set it up (the layers in affinity) and then in moho, I've shared your video with my WhatsApp friends

[@RSKT_art]

A couple of my older videos actually show that process! All of the work I've done in Moho up until this video had the artwork designed in Affinity Designer first. Hope that helps :)