Motion Designer Emanuele Colombo shares a look at how to recreate the popular hand animated look to a paint stroke or paint splash effect using After Effects.

how to recreate the popular hand animated style paint stroke/splash effect you see in a lot of 2D animations using After Effects

Emanuele uses Trapcode 3D Stroke along side Trapcode Particular to create the final paint stroke effect. The technique is really a mix of a simple 2D animated stroke using the Ae trim paths. Then a 3D Stroke, the After Effects Roughen Edges effect, and Turbulent displace which all add some fluidity and organics to the stroke.

Finally, Trapcode Particular adds the small detail splashes that really help sell the hand animated look to the final piece.

Emanuele notes that this workflow is super flexible and applicable to achieving a bunch of different cool 2D paint stroke looks for revealing an object, writing on text, or painting on screen.