My First Project

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 I started my first project in Animatic with a sketch to get my ideas on the frame. After deciding to animate a bouncing cube, I chose to incorporate simple facial expressions to enhance the effect of movement.

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When drawing each frame, it’s important to keep the object’s speed in mind. As an object’s speed increases, the distance between drawings should also increase. To animate the falling object, I started by drawing each frame close together.

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Then, I increased the distance between frames to make the box appear as if it was speeding up.

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When animating, small details are important in conveying your story. Some details I included were the stretching of the box as it falls, the movement of the eyes,

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and the deformation of the box upon impact.

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I also experimented with larger brush sizes for shadows and smaller sizes for light sketching.

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Taking a Step Further

If I wanted to take the project further and add a background, color, or more complex details, I can export the Animatic as an Adobe Photoshop file (PSD) and utilize the tools in Adobe Creative Suite to dig deeper into animation. 

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Best Feature

One of the best features Animatic has is the onion skin. An onion skin is a transparent layer on top of the previous frame that allows you to trace your strokes. After adding a new frame to your animation, Animatic automatically applies an onion skin. You can adjust the number of frames visible using the onion skin drop-down menu. This feature is incredibly useful and allows for the creation of smooth transitions between frames. 

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Conclusion 

Animatic has a wide range of applications, from creating storyboards for movies to producing short GIF animations. I am excited to continue exploring the software’s capabilities and to create more projects as I learn more about the complex art of animation.

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