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March 15th, 2015

3/15/2015

Behind the Mind: Baby Elephant Animation Test.

I want to demonstrate my process on how I do my drawing, which can be a little confusing to people sometimes.
Keep in mind, I could have invented this process with great delusion. Then again, people have their own unique ways of working with animation. This process may not be for everyone.
AHEM! Whenever I draw digitally, I use Adobe Illustrator. For animation I use Adobe Photoshop.
It took 18 drawings (also known as cels in animation) to make 1 full cycle of the baby elephant walking. All the cels were drawn on Illustrator. One of the ways to draw on Illustrator is to use the pen tool, which can make curves and straight lines, which can be controlled however you want.
All the cells are subtly different from one another. When moving from cel to another, the changes between such features must be subtle to allow a convincing and fluid movement. Animation is quite a trick and treat for the human eye.
Since I worked digitally, this project is entirely paperless (Yeah how's that for the environment?). To save some time during development, I manipulated, stretched, distorted, and cut certain pieces of the elephant's outlines (examples: trunk, ears, legs). Though I've been working on and off with the project, I am assuming it has taken me many countless hours.
Once the cels were finished, I copied and pasted them from Illustrator to Photoshop, where I worked on the animation. Making the animation required much more layout than on Illustrator. Layouts required great placement as well as timing, which can be tricky.
Since I had 18 cels to make 1 full walking cycle, it took nearly 90 frames (89 to be specific) to make the elephant walk from one spot until he walked out of the shot. For example, in 1 frame it will take the baby elephant 0.08 seconds to move to the next frame, which will also take 0.08 seconds. Few of the frames take 0.1 second if the elephant has lifted any of its legs to the highest point it can.
Spacing also plays a key role, which must be subtle at best. When placing a cel apart from the other, the cel should not be too far away from the other. Making certain layers (particularly any 2 layers close to each other) visible can be useful if you want to make sure the transition between frames are fluid.
In the layers panel, I gave specific numbers ranging from 1 to 18 to indicate the cels in motion. There only needs to be one cel at a time selected to be seen, while all the others must be hidden, or else the animation will look glitchy and buggy. For example, I select Cel 5 to be seen and hide every other cel.
That was my process with drawing and animation. I hoped you enjoyed reading this piece.

The animation test itself, here is the link to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhNDAKZ7vPQ