How to Deform Character Line Art and Color Art Together in Harmony

Harmony distinguishes between art layers inside a drawing and drawing layers in the Timeline. Line Art and Colour Art can hold separate artwork within one drawing. Selecting a Timeline layer therefore does not necessarily mean every internal art layer is available for editing. Harmony manual: About Art Layers

Inspect the character part you want to reshape. Switch between Line Art and Colour Art to establish where the outline and fill actually live. If both are inside the same drawing, the shared-art-layer workflow below applies. If they occupy separate Timeline drawing layers, you also need to select the relevant drawing layers; the art-layer setting alone does not expand the operation to every drawing element. Toon Boom’s guide to editing across art layers, drawing layers, and frames

Keeping the outline and fill separate is compatible with editing them together. You do not need to merge them just to make this adjustment. The practical requirement is to include both in the same operation.

Before experimenting, save the scene and make an independent duplicate if you need to preserve the original design. Check that you are creating a duplicate rather than a clone: Harmony clones can share drawings with the original, while duplicates are independent apart from their palette connection. Toon Boom’s explanation of copies, clones, and duplicates

Select the intended drawing layer and frame in the Timeline. For a simple first pass, use an isolated character part with a solid fill and a readable outline. This makes it easier to distinguish a selection problem from a complicated contour.

You can work in either Camera view or Drawing view. Camera view displays all art layers by default. In Drawing view, enable Preview All Art Layers so you can see the combined artwork. Preview controls visibility; you still need the editing setting described in the next section. Toon Boom’s multiple-art-layer instructions

Choose Envelope from the Contour Editor tool’s drop-down menu in the Tools toolbar. In Tool Properties, enable Apply to Line Art and Colour Art. Depending on the documentation or interface, the label may include “Line Art” rather than simply “Line.” The Envelope tool supports this shared editing option. Harmony manual: Warping a Drawing with the Envelope Tool, Envelope Tool Properties

Then make a fresh selection around the complete region you want to reshape. Use a lasso, or choose Marquee in Tool Properties for a rectangular selection. Hold Shift while selecting to add strokes. For a whole-drawing adjustment, Edit > Select All is available; keep focus in the artwork view when using it. Harmony’s Envelope selection procedure

Make one small test movement before doing detailed work. Observe whether the fill boundary and outline move together, then undo the test. If only one moves, recheck the active drawing, the shared-art-layer button, and your selection.

The button also includes Overlay and Underlay when those art layers are enabled. Inspect their contents before proceeding, especially if they contain sketches or annotations you want to keep in place. Envelope Tool Properties

After selection, Harmony displays a rectangular envelope with corner points and Bézier handles. Drag the points to change the selected artwork’s shape; adjust the handles to curve the envelope’s sides. Enable Show Advanced Controls when you need access to interior warp points. Increasing Width and Height adds columns and rows to the grid. Harmony’s Envelope warping procedure

Start with broad adjustments and add grid divisions only when a specific area needs more control. This is a practical editing strategy: fewer initial controls make it easier to judge the overall silhouette before refining smaller curves.

For an illustrative exercise, select a rounded character body whose outline is on Line Art and whose solid fill is on Colour Art. Move the upper envelope points slightly outward to broaden the top, then adjust the side handles to retain a smooth contour. Check the combined result after each change. The exercise is useful because the same selection contains both the visible outline and the fill being reshaped.

If the bottom should stay nearly unchanged, leave its controls in place while adjusting the top. Add interior controls only if the broad envelope cannot produce the intended transition. Avoid reshaping the line and fill separately and trying to match them afterward; a shared selection gives you a more direct way to maintain their relationship.

When artwork separates, use the following sequence before redrawing or repainting. It distinguishes which artwork is eligible for the edit from which artwork you actually selected.

What you observe	What to check next
Both layers are visible, but only one changes	Enable Apply to Line Art and Colour Art, then reselect the artwork.
Some details stay behind	Check whether those details were included in the selection.
The fill belongs to another Timeline layer	Select the relevant drawing layers as well as enabling shared art-layer editing.
Sketches or highlights move unexpectedly	Inspect Overlay and Underlay contents.
An operation reaches more drawings than intended	Check any enabled frame-range or multiple-drawing options on the active tool.

These checks follow Harmony’s separate controls for art-layer scope, drawing-layer scope, and frame scope. Their availability depends on the active tool; an option listed for Select or Paint should not be assumed to exist for Envelope. Toon Boom’s cross-layer and frame editing reference

If line and fill were already misaligned before the edit, including them in one envelope does not repair the original mismatch. Undo the deformation, inspect each art layer, and correct the starting artwork before trying again.

Once the shape works, inspect it both close up and at its intended display size. Look for uneven curves, distorted small details, and fill boundaries that become visible around the outline. These are practical review points rather than a prescribed numerical tolerance.

Use the Envelope tool’s Smooth setting carefully. The manual explains that increasing it produces smoother deformed lines with fewer control points, while also reducing details and curves. Increase it only as far as the particular contour needs. Envelope Tool Properties

Textured brush strokes need an additional check. Envelope deformation resamples their texture to fit the changed shape, which can reduce texture quality. Compare the result with the original before committing to a large warp. Harmony manual: About the Envelope Tool

If a thin seam appears only in Render view or an export, investigate the compositing setup before changing the deformation. Toon Boom documents anti-aliasing seams where certain cutting techniques place shapes exactly against each other. For brush-based fills used in an inverted-cutter setup, its guidance is to generate Colour Art strokes with Create Colour Art from Line Art, then fill Colour Art, rather than moving an edge-fitting fill from Line Art. That diagnosis applies to the documented cutting setup, not every visible gap. Toon Boom’s rendered-edge troubleshooting guide

Turn off Apply to Line Art and Colour Art when you return to edits intended for just one art layer. Toon Boom explicitly recommends deactivating it after the shared operation. Then inspect Line Art and Colour Art individually once more and save the completed drawing. Toon Boom’s multiple-art-layer instructions

For this task, the essential sequence is to identify the drawing’s internal art layers, enable shared editing, select the complete artwork, and reshape it with one envelope. A small test movement at the start and a combined-view check at the end make the workflow easier to verify before you move on to finer character details.

• Harmony 24 Premium Documentation: About Art Layers
• How do I edit multiple art layers at the same time? — Toon Boom Help Centre
• How do I edit artwork across all art layers, drawing layers and frames? — Toon Boom Help Centre
• What is the difference between a copy, a clone and a duplicate? — Toon Boom Help Centre
• Harmony 25 Essentials Documentation: Warping a Drawing with the Envelope Tool
• Harmony 25 Paint Documentation: Envelope Tool Properties
• Harmony 24 Premium Documentation: About the Envelope Tool
• Why is there a thin line between my layers in the Render view? — Toon Boom Help Centre