Hula Hooping Vector Penguin Animated in Adobe After Effects
by Casey Lundberg
I'm excited to share my first experience creating an animation and using Adobe After Effects. I wanted to create a fun, family friendly animation that would make someone's day brighter and remind them of the simple things in life. This project began with the thought of a cute animal hula hooping on stage.
Originally the animal was going to be an alligator but due to time constraints, I decided to create a penguin, because penguins' cartoon anatomy is a lot less complex, which means I wouldn't have to make as many changes to the original vector after importing the design into After Effects, allowing me more time to dedicate to learning After Effects.
After creating my assets, I decided to enlarge the penguin's eyes based on a friend's feedback to make the character appear more cartoon-like. Near the end of the project, I was having trouble with seamlessly looping the keyframes in After Effects. After watching a ton of tutorials on YouTube and researching for hours on multiple forums, my husband was able to help me figure that out by suggesting I simply add the original keyframe to the end of the loop.
What a smartie! Oh well, I'll never forget how to seamlessly loop keyframes from now on, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I had a fun time working on this project and really enjoyed sharing it with family and friends.
This project was completed using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects.
Pre-Production: sketching storyboard and animating sketches in After Effects.
Pre-Production: creating assets in Illustrator.
I created two separate files in Adobe Illustrator and imported them into Adobe After Effects as separate compositions.
Production: animating vector assets in After Effects.
In After Effects, I synchronized the keyframes and loops for both the top and bottom torso in addition to the hula hoop's position and rotation.
