Art on the Mart

Adobe Illustrator Adobe After Effects

Animation for the Art on the Mart building that required the creation of a video that demostrated our own representation of Chicago. As a class, we decided on theme of the changing seasons - including our own individualize ideas. I decided to utilize the architecture of the buildings I found facinating - incoporating them into the video in a way that also utilize the design of the CTA pamplets.

In Lieu of the Sun

Adobe Animate

In Lieu of the Sun was a story idea that I had originally planned out to be a webcomic. I had just about four to three weeks to story board, voice act, and animate a sequence that ranged from one minute to one minute and thirty seconds. I thought it would be a fun challenge to attempt a trailer-like animation for this final, so that is what I did.

The character design process was easy – the majority of the characters had been previously developed from various stories. For me, a simple narrative for each would suffice since I had to think realistically about what could be done within a specific time frame. As much as I would have loved to be thorough in terms of details with character outfits and environments, of course I had to jump immediately into the storyboarding,

Storyboarding feels like it comes quite naturally to me. When I think about my animations, I see them as a film in my head before I draw them on paper. I think about camera position, timing, and small details within a scene that could bring the picture to life. With the time I had although, I found myself flowing towards the end of my storyboard. It felt like the story that I wanted to tell at that moment. I could hear the voices, emotions, and see the transition of each scene within my mind's eye.

The animation was the tedious, yet the most fulfilling part of the entire process. Understanding timing, why something worked while something else didn’t, and understanding how my workflow affected my progress were all intriguing to me. I was bringing emotions, environments, a story – to life! Some things were not animated in the way I envisioned, simply due to time constraints and skill level. I recycled animations from older projects within that class, and grew a great understanding and appreciation for the line art – coloring – and shading pipeline animation tends to follow. I wanted the animation to feel chopped up in parts, similar to a trailer, and indeed it did.

Personally, I would love to change the line and character style I used within the animation. This was my first time using adobe animate, so I was a bit heavy handed and rigid when it came to drawing. I also lacked the time required to refine wonky anatomy or even use a reference due to the deadline. There was originally an intro that would have made everything more coherent, but again, time restraints caused me to focus on more of the denser scenes. In hindsight, having a cohesive story would have been better, especially for a portfolio level project.

Its perhaps not a secret that my animation was heavily influenced by Japanese animation. My style was merely a poor mimicry of such. But something I wish I could have done more of, is utilize the beauty of establishing shots, and fluid animation through simple gestures. As much as I enjoy the loud and energetic animations western cartoons tend to lean on, there is something mesmerizing about the power of subtle camera angles that I would love to implement within future projects.

Nuclear Winter - 3D Animation

Maya Premiere Pro

A final 3D animation project using Maya shows the implementation of skills developed with my 3D modeling class. Although I was taught how to integrate fire simulations, I taught myself how to both rig and simulate wind chimes for a more dynamic environment. UV texturing as well as animation times had to also be considered when forming coherent scenes.