To familiarise myself with the Adobe After Effects I was tasked to create a puppet that can be animated. To do this I had to create a piece of graphics in Illustrator with consideration of joints and limbs. Each joint should be considered a seperate aspect of a characters body and therefore created on a seperate layer. This is done so that I am able to import this character and its seperate limbs into the Adobe After Effects with no issues.
This was the first time I attempted to use Adobe Illustrator so I made sure to make a sketch of the character to work as lineart for my final image. The character design was vaguely inspired by the artwork featured in a videogame "Don't Starve".
In this sketch I pinpointed which aspects of my character I wished to make moveable so that I knew ahead of time what I was going to do for a smoother process.
left: Finished mode Right: Deconstructed puppet
When it came to creating my puppet animation I felt compelled to have the character enter the 'stage' for a more fluid story to the animation. This animation is short so I felt it best to impliment as much movement as I could in the ammount of time given. Keeping note of smaller details such as hair and eyebrow movement. Adding hair motion is a simple and very effective way to show speed and movement in a 2D animation.
In animating my puppet I came across an issue; I initially intended to draw a walk cycle however deemed this task a little too great for my first attempt of this method so I worked with what I had. I wish to attempt to create a walking cycle at a later point when more comfortable with the software.
Overall I deem this a fluid first piece of animated puppet work and would love to expand and add more characters at a later date.
ginger puppet girl from Sophie Wales on Vimeo.
