Full Moon

     I was tasked with taking all I have learned in Adobe Illustrator, and turning it into an 30 second animation in After Effects. My audience was fellow students and those who are learning Adobe's animation program to inspire them and show them that it can be done! My biggest challenge was learning the program in two weeks, and turning an illustration into a believable scene.

                                 Click on this link to see it in action!

                                  https://youtu.be/SeNRBOMx0Tw

     I knew that with learning a new program, I was going to have to simplify whatever I chose to design. But I still wanted to challenge myself! I decided to do a werewolf transformation. Complete with a rolling cloud, twinkling stars, campfire, and a moving werewolf. I sketched my initial idea, and put everything together in a storyboard. 

     

     Knowing that a fluid transformation is beyond my skill level and available hours, I decided to do a campfire scene. The silhouette of trees helps hide the change from a human to a wolf. And to show that there is a person in front of the fire, I decided to use glasses instead of designing the whole guy.

     This was my initial mockup in Illustrator. I knew I would want the fire to be more fluid, so I just put a place holder until I designed and animated the shapes in After Effects. From this first draft, there were several things I knew had to change. The tree shapes needed to be more organic. My stars were too heavy and too big. They looked like snow instead of a night sky. Finally, I knew my glasses weren't detailed enough to read as glasses at first sight. Instead, they almost look like owl eyes or some other ambiguous thing.

     I went back to my sketchbook and drew rough ideas of the glasses and the trees. They feel much more apparent to me as to what I wanted them to be. From there, I began working on the wolf. My first upper left design definitely came out more like a bear, but a couple more sketches later and I was happy with the shapes and ideas I was going to take into Illustrator. 

     These were the final elements I would take into After Effects. I'm really happy with how the trees came out, and with the new shape of the glasses. I liked the idea of adding a crack to the glass, so once the cloud moves away from the moon, you know something is happening! I separated the wolf's eyes from the rest of him, so that I could have a big dramatic moment where they open at the end of the animation.

     I have to say, while After Effects took me a long time to figure out and by far was the biggest challenge in all of this, I can't believe how much quicker I had become in Illustrator. I'm really pleased with the efficiency I've gained in the program. I knew how to copy elements and reflect them, or use a gaussian blur to give the intended effect I wanted in the highlight. It was beyond satisfying to see three months of work culminate in a quick and easy use of Adobe Illustrator.

      Wow. Making the fire was a feat in of itself. I first created a red shape, then applied wave warp to the height on each side. After that, I tapered the top so that it was waving in a triangular shape, resulting in the fire look. I made sure the height and depth of each side of the fire was different so that they weren't mirror copies. Once I was happy with the red fire, I copied the layer and shrunk it down to be the yellow center of the flames. To finish it off, I added a slant effect to make the fire look like the wind is blowing before the fire completely goes out.

     I was also happy with the reflection I got in the glasses. At this point, I also had the wolf's shoulders moving up and down, but you can see through his body into the trees. Feedback I received was separating the highlights from the body, so that I can raise the opacity and make it appear like the wolf is rising out of the shadows. I received advice on how to make the wolf rise up from tree layer in a more fluid way that made sense. 

     These are the first and last shots of my final animation, called Full Moon. I'm really pleased with the way that it came out! Tackling the fire and the wolf's movements were definitely the most challenging. But I love what it all culminated to. If you would have asked me how to do any of this three months ago, I don't think I could have even managed to make the stars without pulling my hair out. Adding sound design to my animation was the  Pièce de résistance.