Animation themes were being published throughout the entire October. This project showcases the animation created based on the theme "Movement" of the 3rd day.
The first thing that came to mind when I heard the assignment was ballet. I spent 11 years in a ballet class, so this theme is very close to me.
The animation deadlines were tight - only three days to come up with an idea, draw, prepare the file, and animate. I decided to focus on the movements of a ballerina's hands, so I instantly thought of "Swan Lake," where the symbolic "wings" of the ballerinas are a central focus.
I gathered costume references and found videos of performances to accurately capture the hand movements.
When I started drawing the white swan, I remembered that this ballet also features the black swan - Odile. It seemed like a good idea to draw the same ballerina in different costumes, so that during editing, they could be swapped. Technically, this isn't difficult, but it would make the animation much interesting.
In Spine, I created one animation for the ballerina using a single bone system, after which I replaced the files of the white swan with those of the black swan (costume, parts of the face, and other details).
The animations of the ballerinas differed only in the movement of the skirts - due to different materials and weights, they required different physics.
Finally, all that was left was to assemble everything in After Effects and add effects (apologies for the redundancy).
Compositing is my favorite part of the job - I enjoy creating atmosphere and conveying mood in the scene!There wasn't anything super complicated in this project, I just needed to light up the ballerina as if she were truly on stage under spotlights.
My own preset with grain and dust helped me to make the image more cinematic.
For the transition between ballerinas, I decided to use a glitch effect.
Thanks for reading this far.
I hope you enjoyed!
yagozasha@gmail.com
