Zenith

Introduction

My Zenith Project is a short narrative animation that tells the story of a little green snake and his discovery of a flower. I got the idea to do this project after making one of my inktober drawings (below), and I wanted to expand on it. It has a simple, yet sweet concept, and I want to try animating in 2D again just like we had last year.

This project is a new challenge for me because when I worked on my narrative last year, my character’s movements were very robotic and the colors in the background were either too dull or didn’t fit well with the character. Doing this project will give me another chance to try that again, although now my skills have improved, and I’ve learned from my past mistakes. I hope to make a much better animation compared to my junior narrative.

For my Animation class, I will be utilizing all I’ve learned about the animation principles and color theory throughout the years, and also some things I learned myself about how to create more blended backgrounds (instead of just using one color).

Process

First, I took my Inktober drawing from the previous year and decided to redraw the character that I would be using in my story.

A black-and-white image of a cute snake staring down at a plant with a garden pot behind it.
The same cute snake from above, now named Chip, although now it’s colored in. The snake’s body is green and its eyes are brown.

Then, I focused on creating the storyboard so that I knew how my story would flow.

Storyboard images telling the story about what will happen in the video. Begins with title appearing in the sky. Then transitions to snake moving up to flower. The snake becomes confused and circles the flower angrily. The snake then sniffs the flower, only to pull back and sneeze. The wind blows onto the flower, the snake’s eyes light up, and then the snake goes to sleep beside the flower.

Then, I got started on designing the backgrounds. This was the best place to start since it would be a lot easier to animate the character(s) when knowing their exact proportions and location in relation to the backgrounds.

The digital image of a forest in Paint Tool Sai.
The digital image of a forest in Paint Tool Sai (different from the first image of the forest).

After that, I got to work in Animate CC. I started creating just the outlines for my snake and flower their main keyframes (basically similar to my storyboard). The in-between frames would come only after those were done.

A lined image of a snake moving close to flower in Animate CC.
A lined image of the snake circling the flower in Animate CC.
A lined image of the snake smiling at the flower while being curled around it in Animate CC.

Once the animation was complete, I began to add color. Starting with just basic colors, once those were done, I added some simple shading and lighting on the snake and flower to make them blend in a little better into the background.

A colored image of a snake moving close to flower in Animate CC.
A colored image of the snake circling the flower in Animate CC.
A colored image of the snake smiling at the flower while being curled around it in Animate CC.

Then, I export my animation frames and move into After Effects. I start by gathering the sounds and music together, making sure they matched up to what was happening in the animation. And lastly, I added any final effects and transitions because finally completing my work.

A colored image of a snake moving close to flower with a forest background in After Effects.
A colored image of the snake circling the flower with a forest background in After Effects.
A colored image of the snake smiling at the flower while being curled around it with a forest background in After Effects.

And ta-da! My Zenith project is complete.

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Here is the reflection of my Zenith project.