2D Animation
“The Sword in the Aspen”
What if the Tale of the Sword and the Stone had a twist? That’s the question I explored with this short film. I had done research prior about The Quaking Aspen, and found the mythology behind it to be fascinating. Some folklore suggests that aspens are the door to the spirit world, while others suggest that a single leaf under the tongue can make one more eloquent. Now, whether that’s true or not, I thought it would be a waste to not explore the more fantastical aspects of this mighty tree.
This animated short was an exploration using a mixed media format. All of the “still” assets, like the trees and leaves, are scanned in water color paintings. All of the moving assets, like the eyes and the character, are made using both Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator in tandem. Then, I pieced it all together in After Effects, rendered the animation, then applied the audio in Premiere Pro.
“P4TCH-7: The Desert Drifter”
Little P4TCH-7, living in his robotic world.
Heavily inspired by WALL-E, this walk cycle began to take shape the moment I saw a photo of binoculars peeking out of a suitcase. I wanted a makeshift, patchy robot to exist in a world that looked just as friendly as him, while still having clean lines and simple gradients.
This was accomplished using Adobe Illustrator to create all my assets, and After Effects to piece them together and create the animation. Add some smoke, a wire tumbleweed, and a parallax, and you’ve got P4TCH-7’s world!
“Visual Music”
When I discovered that Adobe After Effects could do “2.5D”, I had to explore that visually. Using 2D squares on a 3D plane, I created a rectangular prism, animating its anchor points and rotating it to flop around in this faux 3D room. I used 3D lighting and animated its intensity to align with the music, then I explored overlays and different effects available in After Effects to create the water and blood stains.The intent was to embody the foreboding nature of the song, making the prism seemed trapped and in a level of distress.