The above video shows the end result of this tutorial. Today's tutorial is how to animate a zombie waking up from grave, you can find many tutorials of zombie drawings but not much about animating a zombie. No problem here it is.

Important note: Used Wacom bamboo series for animation and the drawings were done at 800% zooming (at this level images will be crispy). I have not tried this anim using mouse.

So lets get started.

Step 1: Creating Background

Here is a simple spooky background. In order to provide a clear explanation about the background sketch i did not color the background. If you would add colors do not forget to add smoke effects. In my point of view a spooky (Graveyard) BG requires a leafless tree, some cross signs, rocks and mainly a full moon. You can even add some broken pillars and grass.

I made this BG by creating two layers. In one layer i drew the small mountain, cross signs and house, in the other one moon and trees were drawn. In order to avoid overlapping of figures two layers were used. Try to add more and more details to your BG to make it more realistic and attractive.

Step 2: Zombie Hands

To make the zombie come out from the ground initially make a surface as shown in the pic. First we are going to make the hand to come out so that the zombie could balance and make its way out of the ground. The last two sequence in the pic has to be repeated to create an shaking effect.

Note: Make the surface in one layer and the hand in other layer. DO NOT DRAW IN SAME LAYER THEN IT WILL BE HARD TO DRAW THE WHOLE THING AGAIN.

Step 3: Zombie Head

Lets move on to the head part, since the hands have come out now its time to push the head out. If you dont get an idea of any zombie face there are lots of movies based on zombies try to refer some and get familiar with the anatomy. According to me a typical zombie face is with broken skull, brain flesh, broken jaw and missing eyes. There are many things to say whatever comes to your mind you can do it.

Note: Make the face and neck in separate layers. If you are going to animate eyes and mouth please draw those in separate layers. In this animation i did not animate the facial expressions.

Step 4: Ground Shatters

The particle or rock shatters are a bit tricky part because gravity concept plays the important role here. The particles has to be thrown with proper speed such that it suits the speed of the object coming out from the ground. Once the particle shatters it slows down slowly as it moves upward and gradually increases its speed while falling downwards. Draw the particle part in separate layer.

To make this animation i used totally 13 layers + 2 layers for BG.

Thank you for referring my instructable. See you all in the next tutorial.