LOOPING ANIMATION CASE STUDY
The goal was to create a fun looping animation using Adobe Illustrator and After Effects. I wanted to make something that had multiple parts that would all move to enhance the reality of the illustration. I wanted them to be clever and original so I strayed away from looking up too many examples but there are things out there that have influenced me. My wife and I actually had an imaginary pet squirrel named "Chubby" in our early dating phase. She thought it would be cute if I made him come alive.
In the end I was very satisfied with the results.
In the end I was very satisfied with the results.
READY....SET...GO!
This project took more time in the thinking/sketching stage then some other projects. I went through dozens of ideas. I went had an idea of a super hero traveling around the globe and adding a sound track but I kept with my original idea to make it a looping animation. I thought of a sword in the stone and if when some one pulled it out it got stuck in a tree then back in the rock. There were many other ideas but they weren't even sketched because they weren't clever enough.
Like I mentioned above, I decided to create the squirrel and have it attempting to eat a huge acorn.
FIRST DRAFT
With the first draft was done in illustrator where I created all the limbs and body parts on separate layers so that I would be able to import them into After Effects to be able to animate them individually. I stuck with a orangish brown for the squirrels coat. The acorn was a fun edition to the illustration as I had to create a patter as well as some shadow dips.
Once that was done, I imported everything into After Effects and changed the anchor points to be where the limbs attach. I also parented the limbs to the connecting points on the body so that I could animate with ease.
SECOND DRAFT
Once I got some motion, I created background to make the illustration feel whole. I used the puppet tool to animate the tail and everything else I was able to move with key frames. I created a separate composition for the eyes to keep the squirrel blinking the entire time. As I came towards the end I knew that I wanted to create gif and a video. I decided to add some sound effects to make the animation come alive. I made most of my own sound except for the birds outside. I got some suggestions to add extra movements and I 
THE END
The animation turned out great and I owe it to the 20+ hours put in and all the constructive feedback I received from others.
I learned several new things about animation which was the overall objective. Parenting and the puppet tool made this project so much easier. It is always good to plan out the movements before had so that the animating goes quicker.
Defending the Objective:
The objective was to create the looping animation that would be fun to look at it loop more than once. With lots of time devoted to the planning and sketching phase, it made reaching the goal much easier. Every time I make a new design I like to try new elements to push my design a little bit further then the last. This was my first time animating my own illustration.
I learned several new things about animation which was the overall objective. Parenting and the puppet tool made this project so much easier. It is always good to plan out the movements before had so that the animating goes quicker.
Defending the Objective:
The objective was to create the looping animation that would be fun to look at it loop more than once. With lots of time devoted to the planning and sketching phase, it made reaching the goal much easier. Every time I make a new design I like to try new elements to push my design a little bit further then the last. This was my first time animating my own illustration.
