Fox animation

I watched a few YouTube videos on how to animate using Procreate, I thought this would be the easiest programme to use since I’ve already used it before, and I’ve seen animations by a fellow student which were done using Procreate, and I wanted to do a similar thing. In the first version (the top video) I used the sketches drawn in my sketchbook. The animation is created using the different layers. I made the first drawing, duplicated the layer, made that into an onion skin, erased the part of the fox I wanted to move, and repeated that. I wasn’t very happy with how it turned out because the tail movement looked unnatural and the way I’d drawn the tail didn’t look like a tail. I also thought the it looked weird with just the tail moving.

I went back to the YouTube videos I’d watched and watched one girl make an animation of a character waving. She also moved the characters ears a little bit, and this made the animation look better because the whole image moved. If one part of the character moves it looks disjointed.

I returned to my animation and redid it with the ears moving slightly. I also used a technique of tracing over the previous layer, rather than duplicating it. This meant that all the lines move slightly, so the whole image is moving. I am much happier with this animation, as none of the fox is static, the animation flows better. I think the end result looks a bit like the fox is somewhere that is windy. I want to try making a longer animation, perhaps the cherry blossoms in the background could also move, as if blowing in the wind. I also want to try animating different characters, just to see if they work better, or to try to come up with a story line. The animation I made looks nice but I ask myself, what’s the point in it? What am I trying to say?

In both the animations I used the cherry blossoms I’d drawn as a background, just so the background wasn’t just plain. The brush I used in Procreate made the fox slightly transparent, so you can see the background through it. I didn’t fix this as I didn’t want to spend a long time on the animation initially, as it was just an experiment. I actually like the fox being transparent, it makes an interesting texture. Also it makes the fox seem spirit-like, which ties into the meaning that I wanted to convey of the fox being a spirit that guards the nature.