A Writing Hand in Flash

A Writing Hand in Flash

1st Phase
Take an image of a writing hand in .png (hand.png) format for your PC. It will serve as a base for your animation.

2nd Phase
Create a new flash document of 300 x 150 pixels.

3rd Phase
Change the name of layer 1  to  hand by double-clicking on it in Timeline tab

4th Phase
Open File > Import and choose the image (hand.png)

5th Phase
In Timeline tab create a new layer and change its name to text.

6th Phase
Using a font that is similar to handwriting, input some text (e.g 'asd') into the first frame of the text layer.

7th Phase
Place the hand layer above the text layer so that the layer list would look like the following:

8th Phase
Create a layer above the text layer and name it mask . Choose the Mask option from the dropdown menu by rightclicking on this layer.

9th Phase
Take the Paint Brush Tool and mark the points that form the further way of the pencil matching the text shape in each key frame of the mask layer. It's not a fast process, but try to make it simillar to this:

10th Phase
Insert a frame at frame 36 in text layer. In the mask layer insert a keyframe at frame 2:

11th Phase
Using the  Artbrush put the points to match the font shape beginning from another place, as it is shown on the picture:

12th Phase
Return to Phases 10 and 11 to get something like this:

13th Phase
In the first frame of the hand layer lead the pen to first point on the mask:

14th Phase
Insert a new key frame on the frame 2 of the hand layer and place the pen over the next point of the mask layer.

15th Phase
Return to 14th Phase with a new key frame and push the pen on and on till the last point of  the hand mask:

Mission complete! The hand is moving  up and down like it's alive.

Enjoy the result!