So you’re an artist, and you have all these stunning illustrations and images you’ve created, but then the thought popped into your head, “What if I could animate my work?” Look no further, in this article we will give you some easy steps and insights into how you can create some short animations to bring your creations to life.
Step 1: Write your story first
This one is easy, but often overlooked. Dream up an idea (keep it simple) and do some research. Start with basic movements like walking or running and sketch your poses pulling from videos or storyboards. Be sure to pay attention to details like slight nuances in movement. Once you’ve dialed in your references and main poses, start bringing your idea to life by developing a storyboard of your animation so it all makes sense. If you’re animating your art with a tool like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, make sure you have all of your poses or movements organized in individual layers (trust us on this one).
Artwork by Talenthouse Artist Jocelyn Charles
Step 2: Plan it out
By now, you should have a solid idea for your animation with a series of poses or movements dialed in. Get excited because you’re getting closer to making this a reality. Start connecting each movement within each pose, one-by-one. This is also a great time to add more of those little nuances that can make your animation more authentic. Be sure to use this time to focus on poses that will connect to the next major pose in your storyboard (or next layer). The more time you spend on those connections, the smoother the animation.
Artwork by Talenthouse Artist Jocelyn Charles
Step 3: Bring it to life!
Alright, there’s no turning back; it’s time to show-off your computer skills. If you’re animating your art in Adobe Illustrator, this is about the time where you’ll begin to translate those poses into a frame-by-frame animation. Set a timeline for the first frame, then duplicate the layer and deselect the first frame. Repeat this as you move through each layer remembering to deselect the previous frame. While you begin to animate each frame, make sure each layer’s changes in poses or movement makes sense and your set timelines are consistent.
Artwork by Talenthouse Artist Jocelyn Charles
Step 4: Tidy up
Once you’ve got all of your developed frames in your animated storyboard completed with detailed connections included, take a final look and clean it all up. Remove anything that isn’t authentic to the animation or, you know, anything that doesn’t make sense.
Artwork by Talenthouse Artist Jocelyn Charles
Step 5: Loop & Enjoy
You’ve made it to the finish line. It’s time to loop it all together. Switch the loop setting for your animation to “forever” on Adobe. Clarify any “small imperfections” while playing close attention to the final frames and sync it all up. Sit back, relax, and press play.
Artwork by Talenthouse Artist Jocelyn Charles
Now that you have the know-how, and the tools to create a short animation, test out your skills by submitting a short animation to the Bombay Sapphire Creative Brief. Don’t miss out, you have until January 17th at 5pm London Local Time.
