Hook, Line, and Sinker
Skill Sets: 2D Character Animation and Riggin
Element:
In this project my goal was to tell a story using an element from the book Codex Seraphiniaus. I also wanted to create a rig of the fish swimming to make it more realistic. The first step was creating a shot list to figure out the story I was going to tell, along with supportive concept art of my version of the fish and the elements I was adding.
Shot List Eye Fish
The scene opens with a camera panning through the water while the title sequence appears and the first fish is swimming up to the boat and hits it with its fin.
The fisherman becomes excited at the prospect of finally getting a catch and readjusts himself. Then he cannot believe what he is seeing the fish look as if they are eyes.
The fish start doing a dance taunting the fisherman.
At the very end of the dance the fish jumps up and tackles him into the water only for his red hat to remain floating at the top.
After the pitch I was given notes on the design simplicity of the fish and how to make the fisherman less unsettling since he is not the enemy in this story. Only after the idea was approved did I go on and sketch a full storyboard first physically on paper and then on Adobe Illustrator.
When beginning to import the files into Adobe After Effects, I was met with a problem of losing the quality of the vector graphics. I looked at multiple videos but I was ultimately unsuccessful and tried importing into Adobe Animate where the quality was retained so I was stuck with that software. The downsides were that I knew very little about the program as did my lecturer counterparts. So my research began with YouTube videos explaining the functions within the program.
Intro to Adobe Animate 2021: THE FULL COURSE | Beginners Complete Tutorial
The Adobe Animate CC Crash Course (Beginner Friendly!) Adobe Animate | How to use classic tween in Adobe Animate
Master the Adobe Animate Camera Tool in 10 Minutes | Adobe CC Tutorial
When Aodan came in for the storyboard workshop, it gave me a lot to think about in terms of how will this mythical fish swim? One of the first things I did in Adobe Animate was create a rig for the fish. I did so with the puppet tool. I didn’t know how I was going to use the rig in the animation since the movement was so subtle in contrast to the fast pace of the story. But I would later circle back to it in the title sequence, where the fish is shown fastly approaching what the audience will soon see is the boat. I rigged the body to move from left to right with the tail moving simultaneously. Throughout the animation process I messed around with what on the fish should be animated when finishing the title sequence. After careful consideration, I settled on only animating the fins. Since the animation is only 27 seconds when I attempted to animate a bigger body part it was only a distraction to the overall story.
2D Animation Demo - A 180-Degree Full Body Turn for Your Fish Puppet
2 Hours of Beautiful Coral Reef Fish, Relaxing Ocean Fish, & Stunning Aquarium Relax Music
The animatic helped me in figuring out the rest of the elements to animate to make the story come to life. Animating the water would be the first order of business, which did indeed prove to be difficult and lead me to more tutorials about water and how it moves. Mimicking these tutorials and TV shows deception of water helped me greatly.
https://youtube.com/shorts/VLcaAMjdGD8?si=Zfbcd4elR910Z-Vd
Animate Sea Waves Using Shape Tween in adobe animate cc | adobe flash animation | adobe tutorials Aang using waterbending in avatar state
How to Create Simple Sea Waves in After Effects | Adobe After Effects Tutorial
Next to animate would be the poor fisherman. His two primary actions are dropping the fishing pole and falling backwards into the water. I used Classic Tween to make his actions life-like. The issue that I ran into with using this tool is that when I would shorten my timeline most every keyframe would have to be repositioned. When viewing the overall outcome of the project, I feel that the goals that I set out to accomplish were successfully completed within the constraints of the assignment.
