Advanced 2D - Week 5 - Line Tests and Research

I decided to look at different ways of drawing my trees by hand. They are both done with marker pen with a glossy accent on top for details, but the top one is done on acetate and the bottom one is done on paper. I wanted to try it out drawn but I prefer what the Photoshop one looks like. 

What I mainly focused on this week was line testing two sections of my animation to see if they worked the way i wanted them too.

The first scene was the tree growing.

https://vimeo.com/145618922 

This was first attempt at the line test, I liked how smooth the trunk growing was but then i felt it was too jumpy once the leaves were added.

https://vimeo.com/145618921

So I chose to change it so it was a similar smoothness to the trunk, which made it flow together better and i prefer this way.

https://vimeo.com/145618924

I then decided to do the outline in colour.

I did not want the tree just to grow the on the screen and the camera to be stationary as I thought that would be boring and the audience would not be entertained by this. I decided that the camera would move and the two line tests below show two ways of the camera moving. 

Zoom out- 

https://vimeo.com/146223419

I thought that maybe a zoom out from the base of the tree would be interesting as the tree grew and then you would see the final thing, but once i had done my other line test where i followed the tree, i decided that the zoom out was not what i wanted.

Follow - 

https://vimeo.com/146223414

I preferred the way I have done this camera action, although after discussing with Isaiah the zoom out at the end of the scene, I have decided to just have the camera the width of the full grown tree, so when the camera follows it you see the full tree without a zoom out.

The next scene I did a line test of was the storm scene. Again i did two different tests to see which would work best.

Storm cloud - 

https://vimeo.com/145618923

I like how the storm cloud appears but the colour and cloud itself is too solid and harsh and does not fit with the rest of the animation style.

Storm from either side -

https://vimeo.com/145618920

Similar to the one above the colour, texture and style is not right, but I prefer how the storm clouds come on and off the screen compared to the one above, make it feel more realistic. 

After speaking to Isaiah, he preferred the second one but will be showing me in after effects another way of doing the storm.