Windmills

Windmills is a short CGI animation created by The Windmill Team (a team of graduates of Georges Méliès School). I found this animation on YouTube whilst trying to found short animations based on the elements and I thought that the style of this animation was quite beautiful, in particular I really love the environmental aesthetics of the animation (not saying I don't like the story line of the animation because I do, I think it's great).

This has influenced me to look at experimenting texture in my environmental work for my animation. It has also made me think about colour pallets and the kind of textures I want within my animation. This animation has very rich, detailed environments, which I feel only helps to tell the story better. This is something I want to explore within my work and I should definitely figured out whether detailed, busy backgrounds will work for me or whether I should create very detailed characters instead. 

Another small detail of this animation I like is the colours used for the water, especially the bubbles. Again this has influenced me to experiment with different colour pallets for my own water within my animation. 

Overall. this animation has made me realise that I don't have to forfeit texture and detail just because I'm working digitally and I will explore and experiment with many different techniques throughout my work. 

Alight by Jason Keyser

Alight is a short animated story of two elements who are in love but can't touch due to their nature. When i stumbled across this animation I was really pleased that I found an animation that contained the elements as characters and that were part of a fictional storyline, as other videos I had researched were all about the cycle of life or water but in a factual sense, which were offering me no kind of inspiration at all.

So, inspirational wise...

To begin with I really love the aesthetic of this little animation, in particular the aesthetic of the characters. If I'm going to get even more specific it's the way that Keyser has managed to create the texture on the water character. After my Interim Crit, this was something that was suggested I try to do and at first I was worried about how and if that was possible but now I know it is and that it can be achieved well, it has made me more determined to try it out.

Another thing that appealed to me about this animation is the simple design of the characters. After seeing this animation I have realised that my water character is quite similar to this one. It has made me think about ways in which I can make my water character posses the attribute of water a little more by thinking carefully about how water moves, and whether or not I should have my water character constantly morphing, similar to the water character in Alight. 

ALSO, I really like the tones achieved using digital paint within this animation, which has inspired me to experiment more with my own digital work.

Visual Language: Sketchbook Update

For this brief we were given the task of keeping a sketchbook. This is so we can keep a general bank of visual inspiration. It is to be used as a visual diary to feed our future ideas and to also improve our general drawing skills and experiment with new materials and techniques. I really like the fact that we are being made to keep a sketchbook (or sketchbooks), as I feel it will help me to keep up with my drawing practice, particularly with me working on computers. A lot. 

A lot of the drawings I have done so far have been observational, as I tend to draw mostly when commuting from uni to home (yes I am the creepy girl who sits there staring at you on your journey home). Although it takes me way out of my comfort zone to sit and watch people and then draw them without them noticing (which is difficult when your staring by the way) I'm really glad that I have to force myself into this situation, as it means I am limited to the amount of time I have to draw the person I have chosen. Whilst it is really frustrating that none of my drawings ever seem to really get finished, I feel that I am very slowly getting quicker at drawing and my line work is getting stronger, as I am becoming more confident in my own skill. 

So far I've done a few pages and here they are. I'll keep you updated every now and then on my progress.

The Classical Elements: Interim Crit

Today's interim crit went really well, despite the fact that I was extremely nervous to the point where it kept me up for the majority of last night. I have always been terrible at public speaking and I made a major effort to push myself out of and beyond my comfort zone in order to do this presentation and I am very pleased with myself, as I felt I did a good job (if I say so myself).

In terms of feedback I feel that I received some really helpful constructive feedback that will help me to improve my overall story and animation. The feedback revolved around experimentation with combining animation methods such as drawn and digital and experimenting with combining media, in particular, watercolour and digital. I am pleased that my storyline was seen as a good idea and my character design was also good, however, the digital character was preferred over the other experiments, which I didn't feel was the strongest. Having said this, the points they made, made me realise that I could experiment with adding textures to the characters in Photoshop in order to create the desired look I want. I was really grateful for this advice, as I feel that this will make it easier to create if I like the style of it. My peers also approved of my audio choice and think that having natural sounds will work well with my animation.

I have taken a lot on from this feedback and I feel that the points made were very valid and were good suggestions for improvement. I will definitely experiment with more digital drawings and adding different textures to my drawings to see how this looks and how it affects the style of my animation. I will also experiment with combing both digital and watercolour to see how this also affects the animation.

Overall, I feel that it was a really successful discussion and I am pleased with the feedback I received for my work.

The Classical Elements: Environment Concepts

Now that I have my very initial character designs down, I wanted to move on to experimenting with materials for environmental designs. Because I favour the watercolour character designs I naturally went in this direction for my first experiment. Although I really like the texture of the watercolours I wasn't sure whether this material was good for the background, as it seemed a little bold, however, this could be solved by using more diluted colours. I also experimented with coloured pencil, as I really liked the texture of the pencil when used for my character design.

Watercolour

Coloured Pencil

Despite having only experimented with two different materials I don't feel as though I have any good ideas as to where to go with my environmental designs. Hopefully, tomorrow's interim crit will help to kick start some idea generation.

The Classical Elements: Character Design - Earth

Again I experimented with the same materials but with slightly different outcomes in mind. Because Earth is a solid material I wanted the colours to be quite solid and so focused on trying to achieve this with the materials I had.

Watercolour

Surprisingly, I really like the effect of the watercolour and the texture it creates. I also feel that I managed to create quite a solid colour without it being too bold and bright, which is a good thing, as it will work in synchrony with the water character and not draw too much attention away from the other character. Another plus is that the material is really quick and easy to use, which will save me time when animating.

Chalk Pastels

Again, I'm not a lover of the chalk pastels, as the colours are very strong and bold and they're very messy to use. However, again I love the texture, as I did with the last character and this material is something I will keep in the back of my mind and mention in my interim crit tomorrow.

Coloured Pencil

The coloured pencil is another favourite of mine, as I really love the texture and the tones that I can create with them. Overall I can create much more tone and variation with the coloured pencils but this takes a lot more time. Because the animation is only going to be 20 seconds long, I will have to decide whether or not this much tone and detail is needed or whether I should tone down on the tonal detail to focuc on making a good background to match the tone of the characters.

Hmm, decisions, decisions...

The Classical Elements: Character Design - Water

For my characters I wanted their appearance to reflect the appearance of the element they represented, as I feel that this would help to portray the story more coherently to an audience. Based on the brainstorms I did on colour themes and materials that would best portray the elements I decided to experiment with different materials as I drew the character out. However, I decided that I didn't want to try tissue paper, as I thought that this would take too long to create every single time. So I chose three materials and a digital method.

Watercolour

I really like the watercolour example, as it was very quick and simple to create. I also like the link between the material and the element. I also feel that the washed out colour and the texture of water colour helps to strengthen the idea that this character represents water. This is definitely a material I will keep in the back of my mind for my final character.

Chalk Pastel

 Although I really like the texture of chalk pastels and the way the colours blend (you can't see it too well because of the image, Sorry.), the chalks themselves are very messy and it takes quite a long time to draw it out in chalk. Whilst I could use the method of rubbing out certain parts and redrawing it as I went along I'm not sure if this would work well with my story, plus it's very messy. I will consider experimenting with it to see how it appears.

Coloured Pencil

Coloured pencil is also another medium I like to use and I feel that it works really well to add colour to my character. The method is very simple and only a little slower than the water colour. However, I feel that it is something I would get bored of doing and I feel that the detail would slowly decrease as my animation went on, which is something I want to avoid as much as possible. Having said this, I'll keep it in mind for my final character, as it might work well for the background.

I like creating digital animation however, I feel that this just doesn't create the same effect as the watercolour does or any of the other materials for that matter therefore, digital doesn't seem like it will be an option for me this time round.

The Classical Elements: Mood Boards

Now that I have my idea down and I know which element(s) I want to focus on, I can start to design my characters. Although it seems pretty obvious what the element(s) I've chosen look like, I still thought it would be beneficial to create a mood board for them, as it will allow me to also look at texture, movement properties, etc. I feel that this will allow me to create a more accurate representation of the element(s) so it coneys the meaning more coherently to an audience.

Water Mood Board

Earth Mood Board

I started off with water, as this is my main element of my animation and the main element behind my idea, as water is the source of life. I looked for images that would best depict the movement of water, as well as, its colours. But most importantly I really wanted to gather visual research for the different movements of water and how water looked whilst falling, rippling, rising, etc. I went over each image and wrote a few words to help trigger my memory on which aspect of the image I liked and found useful. I then did the same for Earth and again found some really useful images that I feel will really help to design an accurate character.

Visual Language: Choosing a Sketchbook

For this project we are encouraged to use a wide range of media and materials including different sizes of sketchbooks. Having done a foundation course last year I have already worked in a wide range of sketchbooks and paper from A1 to A5 so I feel that I am confident drawing at different scales.

Really sorry for my bed being the backdrop...

However, although I comfortable with drawing at all these scales, like anyone I do have particular sizes that I am fond of and that I will choose every time over other sized sketchbooks.

I really like the size and shape of these three sketchbooks in particular I love the small square sketchbook simply because once you've filled the sketchbook it's really fat and makes you feel like you've done a tonne of work. However, because I'll be carrying this sketchbook around with me everywhere and doing observational drawings I might want to think about how I am going to conceal the book and how having a very fat or large sketchbook is going to draw attention. Therefore, I have decided that for my observational and 'out and about' sketchbook I think the best book to use would be the A5-ish sized Moleskin, as it is easy to carry around and it's quite discrete. I also like it because it isn't too small so I should be able to get some nice line work in my drawings too.

The Classical Elements: Storyboarding Part 1

With this being my 4th storyboard, I knew that I needed to concentrate on using various camera angles and shots, which I tried to do but I still feel there's room for improvement. I feel that my initial storyboard portrays my idea quite well however, it could possibly use a few more drawings in the middle to really portray the idea of the movement of the water, but I will need to research water movement before I can draw this accurately.

Looking from a production pint of view, I feel that there is sufficient content to fill the 20 second time frame not including titles and credits. I also feel that there is plenty of demonstration of the 12 principles of animation within the animation. In order to estimate how long my animation was going to be and how long certain events will take within my animation I had to create an animatic from my initial storyboard. Having never made one of these before I didn't really know how to go about it so I simply loaded my thumbnails into Photoshop and created a timeline of my storyboard. From here I adjusted the amount of time I suspected each event to last in my animation in order to get an idea of how long I had for each event and to see how long my animation was expected to be. I'm pretty sure this isn't exactly how an animatic is made and when I research how to do them properly I'll conduct another one. But for now I feel that my animation is okay and the length of the story seems to be appropriate. 

Now that I have got this basic animatic done I refined my storyboard and created a more refined animatic.

The Classical Elements: Generating Story Ideas

Before moving on to character design I feel that it is a good idea to come up with my story first, as it will reduce the amount of designing I have to do, as I can focus purely on the element I have chosen. At first I really struggled to come up with an suitable idea, they were all either too ambitious or no where near ambitious enough. It was frustrating. However, after sticking to it for a VERY LONG TIME, I did manage to come up with a few ideas that I felt had potential and then the tricky part came along of picking one and sticking to it.

After a lot of thinking (and a lot of tea) I finally managed to find an idea that I felt had plenty of potential and could possibly be developed upon if the story ended up being too short. So I decided to go for the base element of Water, linking it to the idea that water gives life and is a source of life to practically all living things. From here I wanted to introduce earth to represent Mother Nature, again as this is linked to life and creation, I thought it fit nicely. My idea is that these two elements come together to create a new life, my line of thinking here went to a little mud character (water + earth = mud. Right?). Now, at this point I wasn't really thinking about the time restriction, so I went off on a bit of tangent and began to think of how I could then carry the story on with this character. However, I did realise in the end and added those thoughts as possible developments.

Now that I have a basic idea I can begin the initial storyboards and animatics.

The Classical Elements: Idea Generation Part 2

After researching each of the elements and thinking of possible character behaviours, I decided to think about character appearance, not particularly character design, but more to do with colours, possible materials and the best drawing style that would represent my chosen element the best, as this would play a big part in how the story is told and I brain stormed all the possible colour themes I could think of for each element.

This has given me a really good base to begin working from when I move onto my character design and development. When designing my characters I will experiment with different materials in order o find the right material to most effectively portray the behaviour, texture and movement of my chosen element. 

Animation Skills: Reflection

Overall I really enjoyed this module and it has taught me a lot about animation and the basics of how to become a successful animator. It has also challenged me and pushed me out of my comfort zone and put me under a lot of pressure, which I liked, as it has given me an insight into how I react to pressure and tight deadlines. Throughout this module I have learnt a lot about myself as an animator including both my strengths and things I need to improve on.

Reflecting upon each of the tasks I have completed throughout this module I feel confident that I can effectively generate multiple ideas, from which I can then refine and develop upon one particular idea. I also feel that I can effectively produce and refine a storyboard that coherently portrays my ideas to people.

Another strength I have found through this module is the capability to express anticipation really well in my work. I feel my strongest example of this is the pose-to-pose experiment I conducted in which I added character to my short animation. I also feel that another principle of animation I have developed strongly over this module is my use of arcs.

Finally, this module has also shown me that I can cope quite well under pressure and tight deadlines. I have found that I can plan my time effectively once I have an idea and I know what I want to achieve for the given task.

Although this module has shown that I have developed greatly as an animator over the short period of time I’ve been doing it, there are still many things I need to improve on. For instance, regarding the 12 principles of animation, I need to work on overlapping, timing and spacing, and easing in and easing out. Whilst I have developed in these areas, I feel that these could be improved on greatly and I will push myself to stress these principles in Animation: Process and Production.

Time management is another thing I could improve on. Although I am good at managing my time once I have an idea to run with, I am quite bad at limiting the amount time I actually spend on coming up with ideas. For the next projects I will be working on I will create a time management sheet in which I can follow and I will push myself to finish certain tasks within a particular time frame. Particularly I feel that Visual Language will help me with this, as I have to focus on producing quick responses.

As a result of this module, I feel that I should continue to improve on drawing skills. Despite the fact that I feel as though I can draw it is important that I keep in practice with it in order to keep my level of quality and to improve it. Again Visual Language will be really helpful here.

Overall, I feel that I have made some great progress throughout this module and I have learnt a lot about myself as a person and animator. 

Apply: Result

After finally finishing off the details in my animation and drawing the whole thing out digitally, I have created a piece that I feel went quite well. However, I do feel that there could be a lot of improvement in my overlapping and in some places my timing and spacing. Having said this, I am really proud of the result.

I found the task quite challenging in terms of time management and I feel that this is something I need to improve on in future projects. In terms of creating the animation I found it really fun despite the pressure I was under. I feel that the overall result clearly portrays a sense of a surprise and happiness clearly and I am confident that people will understand what is it happening (that to me is success and a job well done).

Apply: Storyboards

After coming up with a solid idea to generate my storyboards from I began to draw up my initial thoughts of how I wanted my animation to look. Keeping in mind that I am doing a drawn animation, I kept the characters simple and the backgrounds simple too. I wanted to focus more on the 12 principles of animation rather than making the scene of my animation look amazing.

For my initial storyboard I felt that the story worked well and that it was quite clear to follow. However, I felt that I needed to experiment with camera angles and shots a little more to make it more effective. I also felt that a few extra frames needed to be added here and there before I began animating. So I added a few extra frames to improve the coherence of my story and to make it more interesting with some different camera angles.

After I had done this I reflected upon my storyboard once more to review my story. When looking through my plan I began to become concerned with the amount that my animation contained and I was slightly worried that it would end up being too long for the 5-10 second window that I had. Therefore, I decided to go back through my post-it notes once more and remove any frames I felt weren't necessary to the story in any way and wouldn't affect the way the message was portrayed if they were removed. This reduced my storyboard down a little and I felt more comfortable with what I had.

I then drew out a final storyboard to work from before I began animating.

HOWEVER, because of the very short time frame I was debating whether or not my initial thoughts of drawing my animation by hand were a good choice, as this process tends to be quite slow. I attempted to animate the first 2 seconds of my animation and found that the process went quite quickly, so I carried on drawing out the animation but only where the characters would be rather than adding lots of detail (this would be added digitally)

The Last of Us

The Last of Us is an adult game that follows the life of two characters after an infectious breakout of fungi that destroys the world as they know it.

I feel that the purpose of this game is to entertain its audience, but also to create a strong sense of fear, tension and suspense because of the realism of the characters and the quality of the animation. Personally, for me, it does this extremely well because the realism of the game makes you believe that this could actually become a part of reality when in fact it is entirely make believe. In terms of process, I also feel that this is a very successful form of animation that is a growing part of the game industry.

Avatar

Avatar is, in my opinion, a great film in terms of technical process and beautiful aesthetics. Because the film is quite long I don't really get the story line, as I focus more on the beauty of the production and the visuals throughout the whole film. Whilst I'm unsure whether performance capture is a form of animation or not, I do know that the creatures and the creatures within the film where made with animation. I feel in terms of process this film was extremely successful in stretching the boundaries of animated film, however, I am unsure of what message this film is trying to portray other than 'look how good animation can be'. 

Despite this I feel that this is an amazing example of the potentials of animation and what amazing things can be created with it.  

Lloyd's TSB

Lloyd's TSB released an advert that has become very well known for its charming little characters and sentimental stories. 

The purpose of these adverts is to obviously draw people in for more custom. However, I also feel that they want to portray a message of caring, that they care about their customers and are there to take care of their financial needs. That is why, I feel, they have these little sentimental stories that make up their adverts. If this is the case then they portray that message very clearly and very well. However, having said this, personally, I don't feel the need to switch banks at all, which suggests to me that it isn't very successful in drawing a younger audience in, which with the charming characters, I would assume would be part of the target audience. 

Overall, I feel that these adverts are aesthetically beautiful little animations that portray a message of care and loyalty very well.

Brave

Okay, so I know I've spoke about this before and I know I'm biased in whatever I say about this film because I'm obsessed with it, but honestly I feel that it is a really successful film.

It's aimed at a child audience (obviously that says a lot about me) and I feel that it meets its target audience extremely well. The best thing about Brave is that it doesn't have a soppy love story that will draw the audience in, but rather a strong female character that is disobedient and just down right lovable. In my opinion this makes for a better, more original film that children could possible relate to, in terms of their parents always telling them to do things they don't want to. It also has a very strong sense of 'learning a lesson' throughout the film as the character realises why her parents ask her to do what they do, which I feel children would generally understand.

Overall, I feel that this is a very good example of a successful film that is slightly more original than other Disney films. In terms of animation process, I feel that is it a very beautifully made film that uses 3D animation technology very well and to its advantage.

Photoshop Induction Two

So in my second Photoshop induction we were taught how to create a frame by frame animation. However, I already knew how to do this, as I'd created all my animations using this process in my foundation year, but it was nice to go over the process again, as I was out of practice. Also, although I am very familiar with the process, I did actually learn a thing or two, which will turn out to be extremely handy. 

The first thing I learnt was how to quickly sort out/ fix the background of any scanned in images so they were clear. This was something that would have been highly beneficial to me for my previous animations, however I lacked the knowledge. It is as simple as changing the levels of the image and then touching up any little smudges or marks with the healing tool or the brush tool (I was actually really surprised at how easy it was). 

Okay...

So the second thing I learnt was how to manipulate the ratio of the crop tool in order to crop all my frames to the same ratio so there was less hassle when it came to lining them all up for the animation, as the frame size was consistent. 

Third thing was that when creating the frame by frame animation you can either click the option that makes the frames from all your layers automatically for you, or you could create the frames one by one and add them in the order you chose to have them. I feel that this technique would be extremely useful if I was creating straight ahead frames, as it means that I could make the frames as I went along. 

Original drawings turned into a GIF using frame by frame animation
in Photoshop.

After creating my first GIF using frame by frame animation in Photoshop, we were given the task to digitally render them in Photoshop. To do this I simply added colour to my bouncing ball and defined the shadow of the ball when it hits the ground. However, just by defining the shading and adding colour I feel it made my bouncing ball animation a lot better. This has made me realise that in order to make a piece of animation look better, you don't have to do anything big or dramatic it could simply be something as subtle as adding a little more shading.

Coloured GIF created using frame by frame animation in Photoshop.

Overall, I feel that this induction has given me a lot of insight into how to improve my animations and also how to use the program effectively and efficiently in order to create my desired animation.

Creature Comforts

Creature Comforts is an animated by TV series created by Nick Park and Aardman Studios, that tells the everyday routines of the British public.

Although I feel that this program was created for entertainment, the program was also created to promote The Electricity Board's Heat Electric campaign. To be honest I don't know if the program was successful in promoting the Heat Electric campaign, as I never actually watched the adverts. However, I do feel that Creature Comforts was very successful in entertaining. I also feel that the program was used to inform people of the opinions of the British public, which I also feel it did quite well.

Overall, this is a good example of an animation that has more than one purpose and that successfully fulfills each of those purposes imaginatively and well.

Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit

Wallace and Gromit was originally a stop motion animation created by Nick Park, who then handed over the animation process to Aardman Studios, a British animation Studio primarily working in the filed of stop motion clay animation.

This clay animation is targeted at the family audience, with its funny, lovable characters and its funny little plots. I feel that the purpose of this animation is simply to entertain like most of the animations I have looked at so far...(sorry). I find that this is animation is successful because of the charming character style and the funny little dilemma's the characters have to deal with in each little episode.

Overall, I feel that this is another example of yet another successful animation.

Jim Batt's: I Have Your Heart

Jim Batt's I Have Your Heart is a beautiful stop motion animation that was created as a music video for Kim Boekbinder's song and was beautifully illustrated by Molly Crabapple. 

Unlike the previous animations I have looked at, this animation wasn't created soulfully for entertainment but more as a purpose to better portray the message of the song. I feel that it managed to do this very successfully with its charming characters and and very unique, quirky illustrations. I feel that the reason it is so successful is because of the combination of illustration, which I learnt in my most Context of Practice lecture is an extremely powerful form of communication, and the style of animation. 

Simply due to the story line of the animation and the way that the message is portrayed I feel that this animation is targeted at a teenage plus audience. Overall, I feel that this little stop motion music video is a very charming piece of animation that helps to coherently portray the message of the song. 

Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote

The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote is a funny little series that is a part of the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoon series.

This animation is obviously aimed at a child audience with its comedic characters, over exaggerated actions and impossible scenarios that the Coyote finds himself in. Although the animation is targeted at a child audience I fully believe that it can be enjoyed by everyone simply because it is made for pure entertainment, which I feel it achieves really well. The endless efforts from the Coyote to catch the bird for his supper is tirelessly funny. I feel that it is so successful because of its simplicity, but also because of the very imaginative, unrealistic scenarios that the Road Runner outs Coyote in. 

Overall, I feel that this is a really good example of a children's animation. I feel that it is also a really good example of an animation that uses the 12 principles of animation really well. 

Apply: Decision

A DECISION HAS BEEN MADE!

After drawing out my first two seconds of animation I have made a decision on which process, or should I say processes, I want to use. I feel that the best way to go about this is to plan each frame out by using the hand drawn process BUT don't put any detail into the character or background at this point simply have it as a shape with markings for where things go. IF I have enough time to then draw over each individual frame adding in backgrounds and so forth then I will. HOWEVER, if I find that I have manged my time poorly, then I will scan the frames into Photoshop and add the details digitally as this is a lot quicker and there's less need for repeating backgrounds and such.

BoJack Horseman

BoJack Horseman is a digitally animated TV series that follows the life of a washed up, has-been actor who happens to be a horse.

Unlike the other animations I have looked at so far, BoJack Horseman isn't created for a family or children audience. In fact I'd say the target audience is for young adults upwards due to its drug related content and other adult scenarios that it deals with. Although the series contains drug use and alcohol abuse I don't necessarily believe that it is trying to raise awareness for these issues but more it was created simply for entertainment. This is particularly the case with the characters, as they are a mixture of human and animal. Also the style of the animation isn't very detailed or extremely well drawn for that matter, which again suggests that the purpose was simply for entertainment. 

Overall, BoJack Horseman is a funny little animated series that gets straight to the point of its purpose, which is to entertain.  Although not brilliant it does provide for a nice little bit of harmless laughter.

Photoshop Induction Three: Timeline Animation

In Friday's Photoshop induction we looked at an alternative way to create an animation by using the video timeline feature. Unlike frame by frame animation, by using a video timeline it allows you to create an animation straight onto the computer digitally rather than having the hassle of scanning in and adjusting drawings. Now in theory you could do that using frame by frame animation on the computer however, it would cause a lot of hassle compared to how easy the video timeline feature is to use. Overall, I found the video timeline animation a lot easier to make as it was less time consuming than the frame by frame animation. Having said this however, I also really enjoy creating hand drawn, non digital animation just as much.

I feel that I will use both methods just as much as each other however this might change when I move through the next 3 years. I enjoy both techniques but I feel that the video timeline is a better way to animate digital animations as it gives you the freedom to create a background and animate over the top all in the same place.

After learning about how to use the video timeline feature, we were given a task, which involved creating an animation in which two or more of the elements were involved. I feel that this task went well for me however, I also feel that there are many improvements to be made including practice with a Wacom tablet.  

(The video might not work properly but it does on YouTube)

Now that I have a general understanding of Photoshop and its uses within animation I can begin to use it to its full potential to create animations.