The Origins

The origins of this ‘cartoon wiggle’ comes from hand drawn art sequences in the form of flip books when each frame isn’t drawn exactly the same. These imperfections created a unique style of animation called a line boil animation. 

Creating the Line Boil Animation

Start by adding an Adjustment Layer by going to Layer > New > Adjustment Layer.

With your Adjustment Layer selected, search for Turbulent Displace in your Effects & Presets panel. Double click on Turbulent Displace to apply it to your layer.

I find great results with the Turbulent Displace Amount at 5 and the Size at 40.

Next, click on the Evolution Options drop down arrow and ALT/Option + Click on the stopwatch next to Random Seed.

In the text area that appears in your composition timeline, type posterizeTime(4);random(100).

If you’d like to increase the framerate speed of the line boil, simply change the number after posterizeTime to your preference.

If you’d like to make this a little easier, I’ve created a preset that you can download below. It includes a slider that makes it easy to configure.

Just drag and drop the file intro your User Presets folder.

Mac OS X – ~/Documents/Adobe/After Effects CC/User Presets
Windows – My Documents\Adobe\After Effects CC\User Presets