What It Does
drAEw lets you draw and animate directly inside After Effects using vector brushes. Instead of switching between illustration apps and AE, you sketch on a dockable canvas panel and push your artwork straight to the timeline as editable shape layers. It’s built for frame-by-frame animation, storyboarding, and motion sketching without leaving your comp.
The plugin captures your current comp view as a drawing reference, supports onion skinning for consistent motion, and exports drawings as either separate shape layers or a single keyframed layer. You can control frame duration, customize stroke and fill properties live, and use keyboard shortcuts to speed up the entire process.
Key Features
Grab comp view. Pull the current frame into the drAEw canvas as a reference layer. You can trace over footage, previous animation, or use it as a guide for your next drawing.
Vector drawing tools. Draw paths with multiple brush types, including a pressure-sensitive calligraphy brush. All strokes convert to After Effects shape layers, so they stay fully editable after export.
Onion skinning. View previous and next frames as transparent overlays while drawing. The opacity slider lets you adjust visibility for cleaner tracing.
Frame duration control. Set how many frames each drawing holds in the timeline. This determines pacing when you export multiple canvases.
Automatic and Manual modes. In Automatic Mode, drawings push to the timeline as you work. Manual Mode lets you build up multiple frames before exporting. Both modes respect your frame duration settings.
Simplify and smooth tools. Clean up rough strokes by reducing points or smoothing curves. Useful when you want tighter paths without redrawing.
Export options. Choose between a stack of separate shape layers (one per frame) or a single keyframed layer. Stack mode gives granular control for custom styling. Single layer mode keeps the timeline cleaner.
Smart Jump & Grab. Click the arrow button to advance in time based on your frame duration and grab the next comp view automatically. Good for straight-ahead animation workflows.
Keyboard shortcuts. Cmd/Ctrl+Tab grabs the current frame, Alt/Option+Shift creates a new canvas layer, Alt/Option+Enter sends drawings to the timeline. Designed for artists who don’t want to interrupt drawing to click menus.
Eraser tool. Delete portions of strokes without clearing the entire canvas.
Straight lines. Hold Shift while drawing to constrain paths to straight lines.
Who It’s For
Motion designers who sketch storyboards or rough animation passes inside their comps. Frame-by-frame animators who want editable vector output instead of raster paint tools. Anyone who needs to annotate comps visually or trace over footage for rotoscoping prep.
Compared to After Effects’ built-in Paint tool, drAEw outputs reusable vector shapes instead of baked raster frames. You get undo/redo, non-destructive editing, and native onion skinning without duplicating layers manually.
Pricing
drAEw uses a pay-what-you-want model. The suggested price is $60 for a single-user license, but you can set your own amount. There’s also an upgrade discount available for existing customers of the developer’s other tools. A trial version is available to test the workflow before purchasing.