Sorry if this has been covered, I could not find it in search. I am new at this. I am trying to get started with animation. Is there a way to animate a sequence with a few drawings? What I mean is....is there a way to draw an image, then save that image so that I can edit it to simulate movement. For example, draw a face, save that image then reuse the same image in different frames with minor tweaks to them. That way I don't have to draw the entire face a million times with different changes in order to animiate it. What I am trying to do is to animate without making so many drawings. I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question.

Open the Timeline docker (if it's not already open) and right-click on the first frame for your selected layer, and choose "Create duplicate frame." This starts the timeline for that layer, keeping whatever was already drawn there. Then for each subsequent frame (that has the line through from the first frame) you just have to select the frame and start drawing or making changes, and those changes will only be on the selected frame and all following blank frames that have the line continuing from the frame you're working on (it does not affect later frames that were already created).

Also, you can copy and paste frames, so if you want to reuse any frames later, you can.

I would also recommend for any layer you animate, set the "Show in timeline" option on the layer, so it always shows in the timeline, even if it's not selected. That way you can do your layer selection from the timeline instead of just the layer docker. Another thing to be aware of is when you do something with the frames in a layer on the timeline, it doesn't automatically select that layer for drawing. So always make sure you have the correct layer actually selected when you start drawing. That's messed me up a number of times.

I get that part. Maybe I'm not explaining it correctly, or either I'm slow....could be both lol. Let's say I have a picture of a character facing(looking) forward in frame 1. In frame two, I want the same character except that character is looking to the left. Is there a way to edit the face without having to draw the character's entire body again only the head looking left.

Do you have the head on a separate layer? That would be the easiest way to do it. Keep objects that you want to animate separately on different layers. Then you just edit the layer you want to change (in this case, select frame 2 for the head layer, and do a flip transform on it). Does that help?

Maybe this will explain it better. How can I copy the entire character (body/face) that's in frame 1. In frame 2, paste that character's image (body/face) in then make changes only to the face. That way I am not drawing the entire body over again while making changes to the face.

I see what your saying. I will give that a try. Thanks so much for your help

I think I figured it out. In the first frame I create a blank frame. Draw my picture (character body/face). Then I move to the next frame. Create a duplicate frame which duplicates the entire previous frame. That way I can make changes to only the part of the picture that I want to change (i.e. select and transform one of the arms). Basically, I was trying to draw a character in frame 1 with his arms by his side. Then in frame 2 maybe he has one arm raised. Then frame 3 he lowers his arm. I wanted to do this without having to redraw the entire body all 3 times. I just wanted to move his arm up and down. It seems that the create a duplicate frame allows me to do this without having to redraw the entire body three different times. This is what I was trying to achieve. This method seems to be working for me. I tried the copy and paste, but that just kept adding layers which is not what I wanted to do. Obviously this is a basic animation, but redrawing characters with more detailed features over and over again would be very time consuming. That's why I was trying to learn this basic technique.

If you want to do copy/paste of animation frames, you have to use the Timeline frame right-click method. This will give you a choice of cut/copy/paste to/from clipboard. This only works within an animated layer. You can't copy/paste between animated and non-animated layers. You were probably pasting non-animated layers from previously copied non-animated content.

Voronwe13's suggestion of having separate parts on different layers is a good one. You could have body on layer 1, head on layer 2 and arms on layer 3, or whatever. That way, if you were doing some work on an arm, there would be no risk of changing the head or body.

I see what you're saying. Actually, I can think of practical applications for both methods. I just made a second animation of my stick figure flying through the air. I think the duplicate a frame worked better in this way. But I can definitely see what you mean and how I can apply the layered method as well. Thank you all for you help. Hopefully, I'll be animating major movies soon....Just kidding.

Yeah, the regular copy/paste function always pastes to a new layer, whether you're animating or not. It's just something to get used to in Krita. I wish there were an option at least to paste into a layer, but you can always just merge the layers after pasting.

Thankfully, like ahabgreybeard said, you can copy and paste frames without it creating new layers, you just have to do it from the timeline.

Also, once you have a frame created on the timeline, if you move to a different frame (in the same layer) and start drawing or making changes, it automatically creates a duplicate frame for you and makes the changes on the new frame. So you don't actually have to manually create the duplicate frame.

But if you haven't already created a blank frame somewhere on the timeline (or if you already started drawing before creating a frame on the timeline, you can make your drawing the frame by creating a "duplicate frame" instead), any drawing or changes are made universal, and it doesn't automatically make frames for you, even if a frame is selected.

Honestly, that is a change I would like to see in how animation works. Basically, every layer should automatically create a blank frame at the beginning of the timeline when the layer is created. I haven't looked into the animation code, but if it's done correctly, it wouldn't take more resources, and it would save some time and frustration for people new to animating in Krita.

An advantage of keeping all parts of your character on one layer is that you can use the Move tool to move the entire character or scene around if that is part of what you're doing.

I did not know this:
"Also, once you have a frame created on the timeline, if you move to a different frame (in the same layer) and start drawing or making changes, it automatically creates a duplicate frame for you and makes the changes on the new frame. So you don't actually have to manually create the duplicate frame."

And this is pretty much what I did which is exactly what I was initially looking for (until I learn more about the program). Essentially I did this while changing certain parts of the character movement. I used the move and the transform tool. I didn't have to redraw the entire character over and over. :
"An advantage of keeping all parts of your character on one layer is that you can use the Move tool to move the entire character or scene around if that is part of what you're doing.

Yeah, that brings up another wishlist item for animation, which is to be able to animate transforms of a parent layer. That way you can have different layers for the parts of your character (head, torso, arms, legs, etc), all in a layer group, and then be able to animate the parent of the group. Unfortunately, currently you can't animate a layer parent. I don't know if that's in the pipeline for future features, but I think I remember them mentioning before that they were working on enabling "transform layer" animation, which I think would be closely enough related that it would enable this too.

Transform animation could also allow automatic tweening, which would be pretty sweet too.

Oohhh...that's a little too advanced for me at this point. I don't even know what tweening means. I'm learning still how to crawl at this point.. Hopefully I'll be walking soon.

Haha, you'll be there in no time! Tweening is just taking two frames of animation, and drawing the in-between frame(s) for them, to make the motion smoother. If the difference between two frames is just created by transforming (i.e. moving, scaling, and/or rotating) objects, then the transformation can be calculated for any number of in-between frames to create them automatically. Most animation software can do this, but Krita wasn't originally created for animation, so it's still lacking in some areas.

But it's better for painting than any other animation software I've used, so I'm willing to deal with its limitations and quirks with animation, at least if I'm just creating something simple.