Pen Draw: Animated Hand-Drawn Arrows, Circles and Doodles

Pen Draw: marks that draw themselves

Some of the most useful things in a video are the smallest: an arrow pointing at the button, a circle around the price, a line under the one word that matters. On paper you would grab a marker. In a video, that marker can move. Pen Draw is a new set of animations in the Movidmo video editor that draws a hand-drawn mark on screen, stroke by stroke, holds it, then erases it, the way a pen would.

There are 55 ready-made marks, arranged in four groups: arrows that point, frames and highlights that wrap, small accents that decorate, and larger patterns that fill a space. If none of them is what you had in mind, Freehand Drawing lets you draw your own and have it play back the same way.

Why a drawn mark works

A viewer's eye goes to whatever is moving. That is why a mark that draws itself does more than the same mark sitting still: for the second it takes to appear, it is the most interesting thing on screen, and it leads the eye exactly where you want it to go. Teachers circle the answer on the board for the same reason. Then it stays put, so the point is still there for anyone who looks a moment later.

A drawn mark also changes the tone of a video. Clean type and photos can feel polished but distant; a loose, hand-drawn arrow next to them reads as a person talking to you. It is an easy way to make a promotion, a how-to or a class announcement feel friendlier without redesigning anything.

Pointers: arrows with personality

The first group is for pointing. Every arrow is drawn the way a person would draw it, shaft first and then the head, and many of them take a detour on the way: a loop, a row of curls, a few bounces or a spiral before they land. Lasso Callout rings a spot and trails a line out to your note, and Cycle Arrows chase each other around a circle, which suits anything that repeats.

Frames and highlights: point at words

The second group wraps around something: an oval, a scribbled circle, a doubled box, a pair of crossed corners, a highlighter swipe under a word, a double underline, brackets, a check mark, and a scribble that crosses something out. These marks stretch to whatever box you give them, so one Circle It can ring a single number or a whole line of text. Put a highlighter behind your words by setting its Layer below the text.

Accents and patterns: decoration that moves

The third group is the sparkle: twinkles, star trios, a sunburst, a rising sun, bubbles, a heart and a flourish, several of them in more than one arrangement so you can tuck them beside a headline or run them in a row. The fourth group is larger and more geometric: a knot, a rose, a spirograph, Lissajous curves, contour lines and waves. These are drawn with one continuous line that loops and crosses itself, so watching them come together is the point.

Freehand: draw your own

When the mark you want isn't in the list, choose Freehand Drawing. Its Draw button opens a drawing pad with four pens, plus undo, redo and clear. Draw with a mouse, a trackpad or a finger, click Use Drawing, and your drawing plays back stroke by stroke in the order you drew it, with the same timing and colors as any other Pen Draw mark. A logo sketch, a signature, a little coffee cup next to your opening hours: anything you can draw with a few lines.

How to add one

In the video editor, click the Animation button in the Add to your project row. Pen Draw heads the list in Select Animation: Freehand Drawing first, then every pattern as its own card, labeled by group. Hover over a card to watch it draw, then click to open its settings and Add it. Drag it into place and resize it like any other object. If you change your mind later, Replace swaps one mark for another without losing its position.

The settings are short:

• Draw, Show, Erase and Clear set how long the pen takes to draw the mark, how long it stays, how long it takes to erase, and the pause before it starts again. Each starts at one second, and Clear at zero. The pen covers the whole mark in the Draw time, however long the line.
• Colors. A mark made of several strokes can use up to four colors, one per stroke; a color appears in the panel only when the mark uses it. Every color can be changed.
• Width is the thickness of the line in project pixels, just like a shape's outline. With  Width on, the line stays the same thickness when you resize the mark; turn it off and the line grows and shrinks with the box.
•  Aspect keeps a figure like a heart or a star in proportion. Marks that wrap around something, like Circle It, are unlocked by default so they stretch to fit.
• Reverse runs the pen backwards, so an arrow can start at your note and end at the thing it points to.

Tip: Pen Draw loops by default. For a mark that draws once and stays, make Show longer than the part of the video it appears in. To time it, set the mark's Enter on second to the moment the caption it points to appears, and the pen starts drawing right then.

See it in a template

The Watercolor Class template is the first in the library built around Pen Draw: arrows point to each item in the class list, the price gets circled, and a swoosh underlines the web address. Like every template, it comes in wide, square, vertical and portrait, and each mark can be recolored, retimed or swapped.

You can also ask the AI video maker for marks in your description. Prompts like “hand-drawn arrows pointing at each item” or “circle the price” tell it to use Pen Draw marks, placed and sized for the words they point at, and you can adjust them in the editor like any you added yourself.

Ideas to try this week

• A sale post: strike through the old price, circle the new one and point an arrow at “Shop now.”
• A how-to: circle each step’s number and draw an arrow from the step to the part of the picture it describes.
• An announcement: sparkles beside the headline and a swoosh under the date.
• A thank-you: a heart, or your own Freehand signature at the end.

Pen Draw is available now in the video editor. In the image editor, where every animation holds still, the same marks work as hand-drawn graphics: pick the moment the mark is fully drawn and you have an arrow or a circle for your post. For the rest of the animation library, see Animations in the help center.