A quick reflection on the Adobe programmes for animation! It’s important to note for me that learning these through online means was really difficult. I didn’t feel I could fully engage with the lessons through an online lecture when it wasn’t a ‘draw along’ type.

In the AE lecture, it was mainly focused on the basics, learning how the programme worked, things that can be used for animating specifically. I found the basics of animation pretty easy to grasp quickly early on in the session, and went on to do my own research alongside into effects and techniques I felt would help with my personal practise. For example, I know that I love a good texture overlay, or noise overlay, so I looked into how to add these in AE. In my searching I also found various tutorial videos that explained things really concisely. I spoke to Gabi after the lecture (she’s super familiar with AE!) and she recommended me Ben Marriot‘s channel, which I will certainly be binge watching over the break.

I can’t see myself personally using AE in the ways we were shown in the lecture; that very unnatural style, but I want to look into it more because I’m a huge fan of studios such as Animade, who I know utilise it often.

Animate CC however……I really can see myself loving this one! It feels like the perfect in-between of natural drawing and super clean vector-based animation work. The workflow felt really natural to me, and Christina was brilliant at explaining the tools we needed. She mentioned that it’s especially useful for clean-up work, and I could see myself using it for colour definitely. Lines wise, I think TVPaint may still be my go-to, because the range of texture brushes are just so much nicer.

I tried a combination of motion tweening and traditional frame by frame animation for the ‘mouse mouse’, and that double combo movement really worked in this context I feel. I can see that I was on a time limit, as there are some touch ups needed, but overall I’m happy with what I learnt from the process.

After the second Animate CC lecture I wanted to push it further and try more! I took my liquid-esque animation and transformed it into this zen fish pond. I wanted to focus on flow, colour and texture, and it feels like the first close to finished piece of animation I have completed so far. The layers system feels really familiar to me due to being used to Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign previously, so I really enjoyed this one.