In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we create the spider you see crawling about below this text. The first step in the process is to create two separate spider images (In Photoshop). Name them “spider one” and “spider two”, make sure the both images are the same size. When creating both spiders it’s important to have the spider’s leg position different in each image, this will help create the crawl effect when transformed to an animation.

Next, create a new project, making the canvas your desired height and width. Create a new layer and fill with your preferred background colour. Next create another layer, select the brush tool and draw a figure 8 or the preferred path in which you wish the spider to travel. Note: this is just a guide for you to follow.

Now create a new layer and import your first spider image, place at the place you wish the animation to begin. Again, create another layer and place spider two just after spider one. Go back to Spider One – select and right click – duplicate layer, this layer will pop into the middle (it needs to be on top) select and drag down spider two so the spider one copy ends up on top. Repeat this procedure until your brush guide is filled. The most important procedure is to make sure your layers pallet reads spider 1 – spider 2 – spider one copy – spider 2 copy.

Go back to Spider One – select and right click – duplicate layer, this layer will pop into the middle (it needs to be on top) select and drag down spider two so the spider one copy ends up on top. Repeat this procedure until your brush guide is filled. The most important procedure is to make sure your layers pallet reads spider 1 – spider 2 – spider one copy – spider 2 copy. Next select window – animation, your first frame should appear in the Photoshop timeline. Turn of all eye symbols in next to each layer, including the brush guide (which you can now delete). Turn on your first spider only. Select 0.2 seconds below the frame of your preferred time. Now create another frame by clicking on the small overturned page (same as you would layer). Turn on the second spider by clicking on the eyes symbol to the right of the layer and switch of the layer below. Repeat this step. When finished select forever on the bottom right of your time line for continues play, save a .gif file.