illustration future - gallery animation

I have been working on animating John's portfolio. I know the picture above doesn't make a lot of sense, but if you can imaging the frame appears and then the images inside it gradually change. I got the idea of the frame from a huge Frida Kahlo book I got out of the library. I was looking for inspiration and trying to understand John better. Frida Kahlo is a favoutie of John's and in this particaulr book there were the most amazing frames, thus the frame. I am afraid it is all rather cheesy and amateur but hopefully if the whole thing ties together ok it'll be ok.

illustration futures - contact details appear

contact details appear, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.


This is my favourite bit of the animation so far. Basically the contact label disappears and the contact information cloud above appears. I know it sounds simple but it took a lot of work to make two separate stop-frame animations then put them into the main animation and get the timings right.
I can't believe how long it is taking to do this animation. I thought I had it really well planned, but it just takes so much time. Also it is slightly frustrating is how easy it is to accidentally change the timings or move something, and how long it takes to put it all back!

illustration futures - labels

I forgot to post my final selection of labels. I wanted the Facebook one to have the same cutout look as the others but still be recognisable. Did it work?
I have been really busy planning the animation. I discovered that it is possible to do slightly more complicated animations as stop-frame animations in Photoshop. Basically you copy and change layers and then convert the layers to frames. You then amend the timings (you can also reverse the order of frames) and then you export the animation as a png file. Having done that with some leaves, some of the labels and a butterfly I was then ready to get help with the next stage.
The plan was that Nick in IT would then help me imbed them. Nick showed me how to do the rendering and then thought it would be best to move everything into Final Cut Pro. Unfortunately this began to get epically complicated. Time was flying by and I wasn't going to be able to continue in Final Cut Pro at home.
So we went for plan B (the Keep-It-Simple-Stupid option), Nick showed me how to import the video as a new layer. Once I had done that I could change the start and finish point, (though not the duration) and the opacity. I have since discovered that it is possible to resize them but it changes the format (still trying to understand that bit!) Also if i want the last frame to effectively "freeze" then I need it as a separate layer.
It was slightly frustrating how long it took and although I learnt a lot I am no further forward with the actual animation. 

pinterest

Heaven help me I have been suckered in to Pinterest. I can't help it, there are SOOO many pretty pictures. I decided the one above sums up the beautiful, warm, sunny, tranquil day that is going on outside perfectly. Have a good one!

punch and judy

punch and judy coloured, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

Digitally coloured version, but I don't like it. :-(

illustration futures - screen grabs

etsy page, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

So today I learnt about screen grabs as I want the animation to look like someone is following links to John's Facebook page and blog. I also thought it would be good in terms of self promotion if it looked like John sold his work, so I mocked up the Etsy page you can see above. Does it look convincing?

illustration futures - big leaves

animating leaves 4, a photo by only lucy on Flickr.

Today was a good day! I finally got to grips with getting things to move between points at certain times. In my head I had grand plans, but in the timeline animation you can't rotate or change the size of things, only move and fade them. The leaves above are at the beginning of the animation, they move out the way and smaller ones move into place on the tree.