Draw in the Viewport with Blue Pencil

The Blue Pencil tool lets you draw 2D sketches on top of your scene. You can use it to sketch poses, movement arcs, comment, and annotate work in a clean and nondestructive way. Create a sketch to mark up a shot, or make a whole sequence of images and playblast to produce a short hand-drawn movie.

You can add one Blue Pencil sketch per frame in any perspective or orthographic camera, but you can have multiple frames on layers. You can save and export your sketches in a .zip file using the Export Blue Pencil Frames button () in the Blue Pencil Toolbar.

Draw in the Viewport with Blue Pencil:

1. Open the Blue Pencil tool by doing one of the following:
   • Click the Blue Pencil icon in the Panel toolbar.
   • Select Visualize > Blue Pencil from the Animation menu set (F4).
   The Blue Pencil Toolbar displays above the Panel toolbar, under the Shelf.
   
2. Choose a tool from the Blue Pencil Toolbar and start drawing in the Viewport.
   A Blue Pencil frame automatically appears at the position of the Time Slider Current Time Indicator. This frame is considered the Active Blue Pencil frame.

   
   Tip:

   View Blue Pencil drawings of up to ten preceding or following frames with the Blue Pencil Ghost tool. See Preview Blue Pencil frames with Ghosting.

3. To draw a frame at another point in time, move the current Time Indicator on the Time Slider to a new position and click the Add Frame icon on the Blue Pencil Toolbar. (If you start drawing at a time where no Blue Pencil frame exists, a frame is created.)

   You can Shift + drag to reorganize the order of Blue Pencil frames on the Time Slider. See Work with Blue Pencil frames for more.

Adjust Blue Pencil Tool attributes:

Right-click the icons on the Blue Pencil Toolbar to access Tool options, for example, Brush Size or Opacity or B or M - drag in the Viewport to change these settings quickly. See Adjust Blue Pencil tools.


You can also access Blue Pencil Tool attributes in the Blue Pencil Tool Settings.

Note: Blue Pencil supports the use of a pressure-sensitive tablet. See Use a tablet with Blue Pencil for more.

Modify Blue Pencil drawings:

You can edit Blue Pencil drawing in Blue Pencil Transform mode

1. Right-click your drawing and select Transform from the contextual menu
2. Drag in the Viewport to select the region you want to change.
   Note: If you enter Transform mode and do not select an area, Blue Pencil considers the entire image to be selected.
   
3. Once you select an area of the drawing, press Enter to confirm it. You can also right-click the selection to bring up the context menu and select Transform.
4. Drag, Shift-drag, or middle-drag to translate, rotate, or scale the selected area. See Modify the selection, below for how to transform the selected area.
   
5. Press Enter to apply the transformation (or right-click the drawing and select Apply Transformation).
6. Press Escape to cancel or Backspace to restore the transformation.
   

See Modify drawings with Blue Pencil Transform mode for more information on how to edit Blue Pencil drawings.

7. You can save and export your Blue Pencil sketches using Export Blue Pencil Frames on the Blue Pencil Toolbar. See Import or Export Blue Pencil Frames.
   Note: If you reference Blue Pencil drawings into another scene using File Referencing, they do not appear. They are meant to be added to the final scene.

Add a Blue Pencil frame

Open the Blue Pencil tool and start drawing in the Viewport: a Blue Pencil frame automatically appears at the position of the Time Slider Current Time Indicator. This frame is considered the Active Blue Pencil frame.

You can also click Add Frame in the Blue Pencil Toolbar, or right-click the Time Slider and select Blue Pencil > Insert Frame(s) from the Animation Controls menu.

Tip: To add more than one frame at a time, Shift-select a range on the Time Slider, right-click and select Blue Pencil > Insert Frame(s). A Blue Pencil frame is created for each frame in the selected range.

See Work with Blue Pencil Frames for more.

Save and export Blue Pencil sketches

Using Export Blue Pencil Frames option on the Blue Pencil Toolbar. See Import or Export Blue Pencil Frames.

Erase Blue Pencil drawings:

• To erase parts of your drawing, click the Eraser tool on the Blue Pencil Toolbar. You can specify a size for the eraser in the Tool options. See To adjust Blue Pencil Tool attributes, above.
  Note: You can only erase one frame at a time.
• To remove all drawings from the Active frame without deleting it, click Clear Frame .
• To remove the frame and drawings from the Time Slider, click Delete Frame .

See Clean up Blue Pencil sketches for more.

Related Topics

• Preview Blue Pencil frames with ghosting
• Modify drawings with Blue Pencil Transform mode
• Manage Blue Pencil layers
• Clean up Blue Pencil sketches