Silas Zee: ANNAmating

ANNAmating

2016.02.05

It's been a looooooong time since I've seriously played with animation and last year the bug bit me so hard I couldn't ignore the urge anymore. I actually had a much bigger and more ambitious thing I was working on before this which I ultimately dumped, but not before sticking with it for two months longer than I should have. XD

I was content to just let it be until this image of Anna shadowboxing came to me while driving for whatever reason and I couldn't shake it. When break this down in pencils and actually animating it I quickly remembered how much fun animating was, even in the really really really rough early stages. It's not just drawing, but a lot of problem-solving too. How many frames should certain motions be? Should I add some frames here or maybe trash some over there? I've included all the stages that I went through so you can see all the trial and error stuff. It's probably a lot more errors than wins, but I'm really happy with it.

Up until the inks, that is. The inks are fine, but they weren't fun. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I HATE INKING. The pencils were actually ready to be inked months ago, I was just super scared to ink this many frames. XD After about a week of inking it was time to color and I hit my stride (especially after I put some 80's hair on my playlist. It's crazy how fast work gets done with some epic pop ballads going :D). I've also included the color guide I put together, which has pretty much been burned into my brain now since I've lived with it for so long. Useless Trivia: I had to dump Anna's blush because the final animation was playing havoc with gradients. I kinda think it's better for it though. ^_^

I should say that after all this work I will never EVER animate again but I would be lying. Evil inks aside, this was a ton of fun and I already have my next project in the works...