Ultimate Beginner Guide to Spine 2D: Part 2 Art Prep

The second video in my Ultimate Beginner's Spine Tutorial series! This time it's all about art prep! Learn how to prepare your art for animating in Esoteric's Spine 2D animation software, whether you're starting from scratch or need to cut up your merged art.

Go to another video:
This is where I'd put my next video: … If I had one!!! I'm putting these videos out as I make them, so thanks for being patient as I work on them. Subscribe so you’ll know when the next one comes out!

Grab my FREE art files here and follow along!

Get the Photoshop to Spine script here:

Timestamps:
00:00 -- Intro
00:42 -- Think before you draw
01:53 -- How I cut up my character
03:02 -- Other tips for drawing from scratch
03:46 -- Cutting up a merged character
05:59 -- Name everything
06:43 -- Exporting
08:45 -- Recap

--------
Discord:

Follow me:
------------

[BMuR]

I just got a new job opportunity and need to learn Spine for it.
I'm so grateful to find these tutorials, thank you for all the effort you put into these- they are so well done. <3

[cjky]

These are honestly the best tutorials I've seen for any 2D rigging software, not just spine. You speak clearly and quickly and offer a recap section at the end and your visuals are at a perfect speed that I'm not jacking it up to x2.. but also able to follow along perfectly.

Thanks.

[SubWooferMan]

In Photoshop, Illustrator and other softwares. It's best practice to draw the parts in different layers, like head, arms, body etc. so you don't have to cut them again one by one after you finished your character.

[KVMII]

These tutorials are super indepth and much appreciated. Hope you find time to continue the series.

[cuongpham]

Wow such an insane amount of effort put in to this. Love the lip sync

[mort_belium]

I'm a traditional animator trying to get into spine and this is by far the best tutorial (series?) I've found... broken down so well ... i think I'll be able to follow along great... please keep them coming <3 <3

[shachartzin]

thank you for this!
there's another great tip for finding out pixel dust, in addition to the layer bounds.
Put all the layers in a group and in blending options give the group a stroke.
it will immediately show all those rogue pixels

[EvanComplex]

The art prep tutorial is the one I most need. I have no idea it takes so much effort to make 😅.
Also your GET TO THE ;%€£?*¥>€ part is amazing🎉

[merveydoug]

Oh gosh this is a diamond in the rough for spine tutorials. The quality of these videos is insane! Definitely subbed

[Erikari]

Oh, this actually had some great advice, I also learned something new! I had no idea of the content aware fill!

For the naming, I think you can avoid putting "witch" or "w" in the name in case you want to add skins to take advantage of automatic slot and skin placeholder population when importing new skins. Instead, I'd place "witch" as a skin folder name if it has to be specified.

I'm also surprised you didn't match the position of the various directions in the middle of your guides, but I guess we'll see that in the next video?

If you don't want to download all the other scripts, just clicking on the highlighted text at 6:52 will download the latest version of just that script!

Overall, great job! I'm looking forward to the next parts.

[btwitsneon]

you're awesome. i wish you receive the recognition you truly deserve and become even more popular.

[shreyasdas]

Wow, this tutorial is awesome! You covered all the tricks and tips perfectly. I've watched so many tutorials before, and some were boring or didn't cover everything. But your video is super engaging and goes into all the details. Can't wait for your next tutorials!

[ThePixelNurse]

Another great and super-helpful tutorial! Thank you!!!

[onebitterbit]

Thank you so much... most complete and simple guide for starting!!! really

[a.aspden]

FYI you can also just put the photoshop scripts in your Presets/Scripts folder e.g. - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2024\Presets\Scripts so it shows up under File > Scripts in Photoshop and you won't have to browse for it every time you need to export

[inverse]

These videos are excellently put together. I hope you will continue this series :D

[kkd]

This was such a fun ans informative walkthrough! Happy to have stumbled upon this!

[sebazizza]

Really good job with the video! I finally understood something :P Waiting for your next tutorial for rigs and animations 🙏

[stibaer]

Thanks a lot for this extremely well made Guide! :)

[adrianzak]

i love your tutorials!!!! its sooo cool!! thanks!