For our 2 week animation workshop, we were asked to make a 15 second animated ident about the foundation course, the university or our uni experience. Below is my research, character concept, storyboards and animatic for my animation:

Research:

When looking into different short animations for inspiration, one that stood out to me was “Welcome to Hell”. What I really like about this animation is the unique storytelling, the character’s personalities and the simple, sketchy style of the animation and character design. What I’d like to draw from it in terms of inspiration is the simple animation style and character design as I feel I would benefit from keeping things simple.

In terms of 2d animation, the first one ever to be made was “Fantasmagorie”, a black and white animation made by Emile Cohl in 1908. It was made 20 years before Steamboat Willie was created, the first animation that featured Mickey Mouse. “Fantasmagorie” took roughly 700 frames to create and lasts about 75 seconds. The reason I decided to go with 2D animation is because it’s what I have some experience in. Although I will be hand drawing my animation in Procreate, I have some experience in 2D vector animation.

Character concept:

For my character, I decided to keep the design pretty simple and not overly complicated. I figured it was best to keep it simple as a simple character would be a lot easier to animate than a complicated or overly detailed character. I kept the colours relatively plain and made their outfit simple as well to avoid having too many moving parts to animate.

Storyboards:

For my storyboards, I kept them pretty loose and sketchy, I didn’t line or colour any of the scenes to keep the storyboards simple and not too detailed right off the bat. I figured it was best to keep it simple so it would be easier to understand. If any details need to be added to make a scene more interesting, I can add them in while I’m animating instead.

Animatic:

When putting my animatic together, after getting feedback on my storyboards, I decided to remove one of the initial scenes. It wasn’t a necessary scene as the storyboards still make sense without it. The animatic helped give me an idea of how long each scene should possibly be.

 

Animation:

I enjoyed putting it altogether even if it meant jumping between 4 different canvases on my iPad. It was interesting working out how many frames each scene needed to be to last long enough and trying to make the animation as smooth as possible. In the end, I think the animation turned out pretty well although some parts are a little faster than expected but it did turn out fairly smooth which I’m proud of.