For this project, we were tasked with creating a creative example of an [adjective] [thing]. In fulfilling this request, I made use of a flipbook and a makeshift lightbox to create a sample flipbook, Adobe Illustrator to vectorize my work, and Adobe After Effects to assemble the final animation. 

The [adjective] [thing] that I decided to illustrate for this project was an Extra-Ordinary Magician, or for the less pun-inclined, a Clumsy Magician. I decided to go this route because I felt that having to illustrate a human figure doing showy card tricks would be an interesting challenge, but also because I feel as though stage magic lends itself to exaggeration and unique design decisions as well.

While researching the motion behind said traits, I tried to choose videos that effectively represented what I wanted to represent. Included is two reference videos of individuals shuffling cards (one of which a closeup, the other a more zoomed out shot) and a video of a man loosing his balance and dropping a number of objects.

In the process of working on my animation, I took care to pay careful attention to anticipation and staging, always keeping either the magician or their cards at the center of the composition and building up the important events of the animation prior to their taking place. I also wanted to make use of some squash-and-stretch in their movement, so I took some minor liberties in the shape of the hat when exaggerated actions occur in order to emphasize said moments, among other things.

For my storyboard, I wanted to create a small animation that would properly convey the core concepts behind the idea, namely a stereotypically arrogant magician displaying notable skill only for a minor error to cause the act to fall flat. I initially had two different concepts for said animation, one in which the buildup is considerably longer (and the punchline a bit more grounded), with the latter being much more spontaneous and made to loop rather seamlessly. After consultation, I decided on pursuing the latter idea, but I wanted to include both within this post for reference.

Due to some slight scheduling issues with the lightbox already owned by my parents prior to starting work on this project, I was left without a traditional lightbox setup with which to create my frame-by-frame flipbook. However, I wound up using an interesting makeshift solution to resolve said issue, combining a transparent tray, my phone light, and a couple folded sticky-notes to light up each frame and hold it in place. Included is an image of the resulting animation produced from the scan of the flipbook produced.

Above is the second iteration of my animation created for the project, an 8 second animation following much the same ideas as my initial flipbook and storyboard, just with some additional tweaks here and there. There is no color in this one, and critique revealed some issues with parsing the motions at their present speed, so I endeavored to address these concerns in the final iteration.

Included is my final animation for this project, a 10 second animation with slightly more in-between frames and color, as well as some (very) minor changes in linework here and there. I feel as though it is a marked improvement over my previous iterations and am quite happy with the way it turned out.