Puppet Acting: Finished

Though I enjoyed this assignment, it was probably the most difficult one of the semester. The medium makes it hard to make a convincing motion. If I were to do it again, I'd make more puppet pieces to help make the transition between poses more convincing and I'd consider changing the puppet's style. I think it'd be easier without the outline.

I liked going through the process for this. More than any other assignments, I felt like the storyboarding and the animatic-ish planning with the sound clip was a really helpful and necessary part of the animation process. With frame-by-frame and other assignments, I made a lot of it spontaneously, but I think the extra planning for this made the work go by faster.

I've animated my character Aine before, but never to sound. It was really cool to see this side of her and
trying to think of what my character's voice sounded like.

Puppet Acting: Audio Clip

The dialogue used in my animation (the clip is from the movie Kiki's Delivery Service): 

Puppet Acting: Storyboard

My initial storyboard:

And the revised version:

Puppet Walk: Finished

Completed demo of my character Aine's puppet-animated walk. Though not as fun as frame-by-frame animation but more fun than kinetic typography, I enjoyed creating and animating a puppet for the first time in Flash. There's a lot of frustration to be had from trying to avoid breaking the seams of the characters limbs that I know could have been avoided with a character without the typical cartoon outline, but I like outlines too much to spare myself the hassle (and you don't learn from avoiding challenges!)

I've tried animating puppets in the past on After Effects, so I was glad for the chance to learn it in Flash. Naturally, I have to compare the two. The parenting and organization of AE was sorely missed. However, Flash's ability to alter drawn pieces and simultaneously create frame by frame animation alongside it is a fair trade off. I'm leaning towards Flash now but, for the moment, I can't really say if I have a preference. Guess it all depends on the project.

And as for the character herself, Aine's not terribly well-developed within her story, but I knew her personality and motivations going into the assignment. I wanted to create an eager and enthusiastic walk for her and, technically, combine puppeting and frame by frame, for me. There's something that seems too bouncy to me in her walk, but I forgive her shortcomings because of how cool tweening makes animating look.

Kinetic Typography: Finished

Final version of of my kinetic typography assignment. It is not as long as I would have liked, so I'm a little disappointed with it. Somehow animating text is a lot more challenging than animating shapes; it's not as fun, but I am decently satisfied with the result.

Puppet Walk: Character Design

Character design for my puppet project. I plan on animating my character, Aine, in Flash and using frame by frame animation on her hair ribbon (and possibly other place, if needed.)

This is a cutesier (or "chibi"-esque) style than how she is normally drawn because I'm interested in creating puppet animations in this style for my own entertainment and I'm kind of using her as a test run.

Kinetic Typography: Animatic

Animatic for "Helter Skelter." I've gone past the required time for the assignment, but I'm having a hard time letting go of any of the lyrics...