Zenith

Introduction

The Zenith Project is a celebration of students’ cumulative experience and growth during their time at Freestyle. We are given complete creative freedom to pursue a project of our choice, something that represents our curiosity and passion as artists. Then, the entire Senior class gathers to showcase each student’s project. Zenith is the ultimate creative exploration for each and every Freestyle student.

For my Zenith Project, I decided to create a manga edit using Procreate Dreams. Over the past several years, I have developed a deep admiration for editors who produce content with thoughtfully crafted, custom animations of the visuals they’re editing. While the average edit simply showcases clips from a show or anime with transitions in between and some effects, an animated manga edit has hours upon hours of artistry poured into it. Elements of each panel are carefully separated and tediously keyframed one by one, resulting in a dynamic and beautifully unique video product. I felt that the Zenith Project was the perfect opportunity to explore this art form for myself, in addition to learning an animation program that I had been interested in for quite a while.

Here are some examples of manga edits I love:

The final product I set out to produce was a video with four custom keyframe animations of different manga panels, with animated transitions between them and additional flourishes (an intro, fade out, loop, border animation). I also decided that the subject of my edit would be Qifrey from the manga Witch Hat Atelier, as I’m currently very invested in the series, and he’s my favorite character.

This project is a new challenge for me because not only will it be my first time using Procreate Dreams, but it will also be my first attempt at 2D keyframe animation, otherwise known as “tweening.” Tweening and frame-by-frame animation are notably distinct art forms, and while many of the techniques overlap, tweening still requires its own unique set of skills that can take a very long time to master. Exploring this new art form at the same time as I’m learning a new animation program will challenge me as both an artist and as a student.

My production class, Animation, has taught me many skills over the past two years that will greatly inform my approach to this project. In particular, the strength I’ve gained in employing the 12 principles of animation in my work will help me animate movement that feels natural and pleasing to the eye. Animation class has also helped me practice animation of multiple elements of a character at a time, ensuring that segments like the arms, head, and legs all have separate but coherent movements.