I completed a quick project for animating vectors imported from Adobe Illustrator into Adobe After Effects. I honestly had a lot of fun learning these things, even though it is very frustrating for a beginner. But you have to start somewhere.

I decided to go for a skateboarding cat animation for the project.

The draft is the storyboard of what I had in mind at first. The idea became a little more simple further down the road as you will see, as I didn't realize physics would be so involved within animation with after effects.

These were simple assets and asset ideas made for the character and skateboard. The skateboard was a lot more fleshed out as I had struggles with animating a cat I liked.

Here is the first main draft of the animation for "skate cat". The background was really simple and more of a placeholder. As well as something to experiment with. The cat merely glides across the screen in a loop while bits of him barely move with the motion.

In this second draft nothing really has changed except for experimenting with puppet pin on the cats tail to make a more natural movement versus using the rotation on the object.

In the final I changed the background to something a little more interesting or different than a sun and some clouds in a plain grassy field. Though due to time constraints I wasn't able to make it as dynamic as I would have liked.

The cat is fairly the same, but as been outlined and moves slightly different. The tail has been moved to a more natural spot for the speed he is going and has retained a puppet pin.

Animation is really difficult and time consuming. Especially for a student with a lot on their plate. But it is really fun once things get flowing, and even when things are frustrating, they become rewarding when the problem is solved. I hope to be able to implement animation in my career at some point, and if not, I'd like to also do it for myself.