Responsive: Do It In Ten - Transition: Idea Generation

This months Do It In Ten theme is Transition and I wanted to use this opportunity to practice animating transitions and improve upon my timing and pacing, as I feel that I still struggle with these principles of animation slightly and would like to become more confident with them.

Because the term was so broad, I felt that I could keep the idea simple and focus more on developing my skills as an animator. 

Before I can move on to actually animating though I need an idea. Like I said I wanted to keep it simple and easy, as I wanted to focus on developing my skills, however, I didn't want it to be too easy that I didn't challenge myself in some way. So I started with a mind map of ideas to see what ideas I could come up with that related to the theme of the brief. 

Mind Map

Although I wanted to keep it simple and focus more on developing my skills, I explored a few ideas that weren't so simple just in case I came up with something else that I also wanted to explore. However, in the end I focused on exploring the idea of metamorphism. I want to create a shape that I can morph over the 10 seconds I had into different shapes. I feel that this will allow me to develop without getting too distracted by the subject I am animating. However, to make it a little more challenging for myself I also want to try and make the shapes link and 'morph' fluidly, as this will make the animation much more interesting and help me to develop my skills further.

Idea Development

With this in mind, I decided to focus upon light and dark, as I felt that this would be the easiest to create recognisable symbols for as well as providing me with numerous shapes to choose from. So I did a small amount of research into opposing symbols that represented light and dark and I found that the most common ones were the Yin and Yang symbol, the sun and moon, the king and queen and not so commonly, the alchemical sun and moon and the alchemical ouroboros and fire drake.

Symbol Research

Having a quick look over what I had found, I decided that it would be best to stick to things that were more commonly known, this led me to focus on only 3 symbols, yin and yang, king and queen, and sun and moon. Given that I only have 10 seconds of animation time, I feel that 3 symbols will be appropriate for the animation and give me plenty of time to animate the transitions in between.

Chosen Symbols

I feel that I have a good starting ground to begin working from and I feel that this time around I won't feel rushed or under pressure, as I have given myself a much less ambitious idea with more time to complete it, unlike the last time I attempted to complete a similar Do It In Ten brief.