Production

When animating i have a process:

Create backgrounds-----Rough animation-----Clean up animation-----Colour-----Lighting-----Editing

Backgrounds

- done in Medibang Paint Pro

For me, i always start with creating all my backgrounds first because at uni they told us how many students would leave them until last or spend too much time on them and would end up with an incomplete animation. So completed them all in my mid year break before animation was due to begin, which freed me up to focus on the animation and had the stage all set so that i knew where my characters would be placed within the scene.

I have thin lines for these backgrounds and wanted the characters to fit in with their environment. So i create the lines, block out the colours and then add shading and shadows. Once i'm happy with the shading, i add highlights after identifying a light source. I also take a look at my colour palette and storyboard so that i know whether to de-saturate/ saturate or make a background lighter depending on what emotion is being displayed by the characters.

Rough animation

- done in Toon Boom Harmony

My rough animations can vary, i use circles and lines that make up a skeleton when characters are doing more complex things like dancing, or i just draw the character roughly if they are doing something simple.

During the process of rough animation i need to establish most things before going onto the clean up animation, such as; facial expression, body movement, speed of movement and how many elements there are on a character (hair, clothes, wings, etc.). Rough animation is the most fun step and yet the most important. I also had to gather many clips of ballet dancers and mesh them together to create my own choreographed dance and then create a skeleton on top of that , and then draw my character on top of that.

Clean up and colour

- done in Toon Boom Harmony

Over all the rough animations, i draw my characters with cleaner lines and better flow, fixing any mistakes i see along the way.

I used a hard shading brush instead of a pencil tool because i wanted nice soft lines. When i had posted a sample clip of mine on social media for feedback i got some comments about how nice and soft the lines were, so that solidified that i had made the right decision.

But because i used soft lines, i couldn't used the bucket tool straight off to colour my animation. I created a colour layer so that the bucket fill would not be pix elated. So instead of bucket filling the real lines, i was doing it on a separate layer with invisible blue lines. And it all came together into one PNG sequence which i then import into After Effects ready for the composition and lighting.

Lighting/ shading

- done in Adobe After Effects

This step means i can help my characters fit in with the setting they are in and make them look like they are really effected by any light sources. I would use masks, colour tinting and brightness and contrast until i was satisfied that everything looked consistent.

I would also use After Effects for duplicating multiple characters into one scene, for example multiple ballerinas on screen.

After all the lighting and shading is complete is top some shots off with particle effects, i was going to create a particle trail but then decided that would be too distracting fro my main character, but i included some particles in the background because i love particles!

After COVID hit, things weren't the same, we had our course extended by 3 months so i ended up with more time to complete my animation, but in isolation. I worked harder than i did in year 12, i stayed up over night to make sure i was happy with this animation. I put it together from Toon Boom Harmony to After Effects to Premiere Pro, all from the comfort of my own home. The visuals for my animation are now completed and i would like to thank my professional online editor, Declan Loughran, and sound mixer, Dale Warren (who has worked with Disney by the way) for making my film more professional.

And this film couldn't have had the same impact without my brother's music and incidental music from my father as well. I shall link their YouTube channels here:

Jamie Rorke:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL4_OSHalQBMGtV9zf7fSoQ

John Rorke:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1sya36B79vDnn20gpAfyw

My mother also got involved by assisting me in colouring some of my shots to help me out, she learnt how to use the program and spent time on my film and was happy to help, and i will always thank her for that.

Overall i'm proud of what i have achieved, i am now going to enter it in festivals to get my work out there. Until the festivals are over i unfortunately can't release my animation to the public, but i can show you the trailer which i shall upload soon!

Thank for checking out my animation process!