Create Your First AI Video in 5 Minutes

Welcome to Paintbrush! This guide will walk you through creating your very first AI-generated video — from character creation to final render. By the end, you'll have a short video clip with a consistent character in a custom environment.

Step 1: Create a project

After signing in, you'll land on the dashboard. Click "New Project" to get started. Give your project a name — something descriptive like "Forest Adventure" or "Sci-Fi Short" helps when you have multiple projects later.

Next, pick your aspect ratio. 16:9 is standard widescreen, great for YouTube or cinematic content. 9:16 is vertical, ideal for TikTok, Reels, or Shorts. You can also use 4:3 for a more classic framing or 3:4 for portrait-oriented content.

Finally, choose an art style. This sets the visual tone for your entire project. Anime produces bold, colorful results with strong character consistency. Realistic aims for photographic quality. Watercolor, pixel art, and other styles offer more experimental looks. Don't overthink it — you can always change the style later or use a custom style prompt.

Step 2: Create a character

In the left panel, you'll see two tabs: "Characters" and "Settings". Start with Characters. Click the + button to open the character creation dialog.

The most important field is the prompt. Be specific about your character's appearance — describe their hair color and style, eye color, skin tone, clothing, and any accessories or distinguishing features. The more detail you provide, the more consistent your character will look across scenes.

For example: "A young woman with long silver hair, bright green eyes, wearing a dark red hooded cloak over a white tunic, leather boots, and a silver pendant necklace" will produce far better results than "A girl in a cloak".

Hit "Generate" and Paintbrush will create a multi-angle reference sheet showing your character from four angles. This reference sheet is the foundation of character consistency — it's attached to every scene generation that mentions this character.

Step 3: Create a setting

Switch to the "Settings" tab and click + to create a background environment. Settings work similarly to characters: describe the environment in the prompt field, and Paintbrush generates a wide reference image.

Good setting prompts describe the atmosphere and key visual elements: "A dense enchanted forest at golden hour, shafts of sunlight filtering through the canopy, moss-covered ancient trees, a narrow dirt path winding into the distance, fireflies glowing softly".

Settings serve two purposes. First, they provide visual consistency — every scene that references @Forest will use the same environment. Second, they save you from re-describing the background in every scene prompt.

Step 4: Write your first scene

Click "New Scene" in the timeline panel. This is where the magic happens. In the scene description, use @mentions to pull in your character and setting:

@Aria walks slowly through the @Enchanted Forest, looking around in wonder at the glowing fireflies

The @mention system is what ties everything together. When you type @, Paintbrush shows a dropdown of your characters and settings. Selecting one attaches their reference images to the generation — the AI doesn't just read a name, it sees what they look like.

Set your duration. For a first scene, 5 seconds is a good starting point — long enough to show meaningful action, short enough to generate quickly. You can always make it longer later.

Hit Generate. Paintbrush will first create a key frame (a still image of the scene), then animate it into video. This two-step process gives you a checkpoint: if the key frame doesn't look right, you can regenerate it before spending credits on animation.

Step 5: Preview and iterate

Once generation is complete, preview your clip in the right panel. Watch it a few times and assess whether the character looks right, the setting matches your vision, and the motion feels natural.

If you want to adjust, you have several options:

• Trim — Remove unwanted frames from the beginning or end of the clip. Useful for cutting out awkward starts or motion blur at the end
• Regenerate — Generate a completely new version using the same inputs. Each attempt produces different results, so regenerating is a good way to explore variations
• Tweak — Apply targeted edits using a text prompt. For example, "make the character smile" or "add more wind to the hair". This modifies the existing clip rather than starting from scratch

That's it — you've created your first AI video!

Step 6: Add more scenes

One clip is a start, but stories are built from sequences. Click "New Scene" again to add your next shot. This time, notice that Paintbrush automatically chains from your first scene — the last frame becomes the starting reference for the next generation, creating smooth visual continuity.

Try introducing action or a camera change in your prompt: "@Aria turns and sees a mysterious glowing light deeper in the @Enchanted Forest". The @mentions ensure your character and setting stay consistent while the new prompt drives the narrative forward.

You can reorder scenes by dragging them in the timeline panel. Paintbrush will re-chain the scenes based on their new order when you regenerate.

Tips for better results

After working with thousands of user-generated videos, here are the patterns that consistently produce the best output:

• Be specific in character prompts. "A knight" gives the model too much freedom. "A tall woman in dented steel plate armor, short brown hair, green eyes, carrying a worn wooden shield" gives it an anchor
• Keep scenes short. 3–5 second clips tend to have better motion quality and consistency than 10-second clips. You can always stitch shorter clips together for longer sequences
• Use settings. A well-defined setting does half the work of a scene prompt. Instead of describing the background in every scene, create a setting once and @mention it
• Iterate, don't agonize. Generation is cheap. If the first result isn't right, regenerate. Most users get a result they like within 2–3 attempts
• Trim aggressively. AI-generated clips often have a strong start that weakens toward the end. Trimming the last second or two often produces a much tighter result

Understanding credits

Every generation in Paintbrush costs credits. Character and setting generation use a small amount (around 3–15 credits depending on the model). Video generation is more expensive, scaled by duration and model quality — Standard is cheaper, Pro produces better results at a higher cost.

You can see your credit balance in the header at all times, and the account page shows a full breakdown of your usage history. New accounts start with free credits to get you experimenting right away.

Next steps

Now that you've made your first video, explore the features that make longer projects possible: create multiple characters and have them interact in the same scene, build out several settings for different locations, and use scene chaining to create flowing sequences. Check out our other guides for deep dives into character consistency and scene chaining techniques.