For this animation, I realised that to meet the deadline I would need to use different programs to complete this short animation. I used a combination of Krita, Adobe After Effects, and Premiere Pro.
I used Krita for the first part of the animation. It was a lengthy process of drawing each individual frame to have the main movement (no secondary animated parts or clothing yet). In the animatic, I wasn’t happy that the gun simply appears in the left hand so I made two frames of him tossing the gun to his other hand. In the one-to-one tutorials, the tutor gave advice on adding motion blur to the quick swap of gun hands and extending to the final pose. He also mentioned that the right hand in the end pose looks off and suggested referencing the pose from real life eg. a photo of me.
I added the background and blurred it, also gave it some movement along with the character. The clothing is fully done and the linework needs to be cleaned up. Secondary animation in the hair and cape are now present and the villain’s limbs are moving as well. To have a look of entering into slow-motion, I had the character move swiftly and in the last pose, every moving object is only slightly moved in each frame. I referenced my arm and fixed up the linework for that and believe it looks a lot better.
For the slow-motion middle scene, I decided I will use Adobe After Effects to save time as Krita would be difficult and the effect wouldn’t be as intended. I drew the assets of the characters in photoshop and imported all the layers into After Effects. There is movement and rotation in the petal tiger and the tail separately. The camera is zooming out to show the full scene and so the characters are also getting smaller and to show the depth of field, I lessened the gaussian blur in each zoom out. The end result for this part turned out well.
This is an idea of how the whole animation is going to look like when done. A compilation of the first two animated parts and the animatic.
The colours were added, some glow and shadows from the lighting of the forest. The linework was also cleaned up. This proved to be an immensely time-consuming section.
This scene was also done in Adobe After Effects to gain the same effect as the middle scene and save time. Again, I drew the different layers of the character and the background shot. The hair and cloak are rotating smoothly and this adds extra interest. I referenced gunfire and added that as an effect when shooting, as well as a trail of smoke from the gun afterward.
This last scene was made back in Krita. I looked at how crocodiles close their eyes as they have a third lid, which I believe adds an extra creepy alien vibe to the villain and overall extra life and believable biology.
The petal tiger is blurred and flying across the screen and past the alien to create a transition to the loop of the whole scene from my group. I love how the tail flails across the screen as this happens.
This is the second last combination of the different scenes. I think it looks mostly how I imagined it when storyboarding. However, I am not happy with the sounds anymore and will change them as well as the gunshot.