Leah Ellis reflects on her process of creating animated frames for a production. She started by drawing line art and scanning it to add color in Photoshop using a tutorial. She found animating changing word sizes in Photoshop difficult and had to use AfterEffects instead. Later, she improved an explosion scene by adding many colored splashes instead of just flying objects. She also continued using layer masks, which she found easier than drawing colors. On another day, her scanner broke so she had to hand draw images to scan later, but it was fixed before the images could be lost. She finished scenes of a character flying and watching a village from a distance to show his assassin personality.

1. Production Reflection
Leah Ellis

2. Process
Today I started making a basic first few frames on paper
and then scanned them in to go over in Photoshop and
add colour. I used a tutorial that I found on YouTube for
my experiments to go over the line art produced and
colour under the lines to fill it in. I used this same
technique for the words I was using for my fight scenes. I
feel this technique works amazingly well to do exactly
what you want it to, it can just be a little fiddly at first
before you’re used to it.
I was trying to animate the words changing size, which I
found in Photoshop to not be as easy as I first imagined.
This lead to needing to ask for help and going into
AfterEffects by Adobe to change it. Although I still find this
programme confusing and require assistance during use.

3. Process
Today I was trying to create the explosion of the
meteor impact and the scene after that where the
main character throws it.
I started with one idea of just making it seem like
everything was flying up around it, but was then
shown a better way that I could do it involving many
bright coloured splashes covering the screen to show
impact that I feel is a lot better.
I then went on and found I needed to keep doing the
layer mask technique as I did yesterday that seems, to
me, to be much easier than drawing in colours as I find
that harder than in black. Also, it gave me a base to
edit the arm position slightly between frames so that I
could more easily create my next position.

4. Process
Today I was unable to do a lot of work on
the computer as I required some images
to be scanned in, in order for me to add
them to my work, so I managed to do my
background.
Then the scanner broke so I was unable
to get the rest of my work done, which
lead to a lot of reference images up so
that I was able to hand draw them on
paper in order to be scanned in at a later
date. Around half way through last
lesson today the scanner was fixed,
which made me very happy as I was able
to scan them in before they had a chance
to be lost or damaged, even though I
keep them in a folder in my bag to keep
them nice.

5. Process
Today I was finishing the scene that I could not
yesterday, with the main character flying. I also
managed to complete my voice over scene
animations to the standards I am happy with at the
moment, although I know I will need to edit it
together with the other scenes a little better once I
actually put them together. The first scene with the
fox villain in, may also be complete to this stage as I
have managed to animate the clouds and make it
look almost as if he is watching the village in
complete stillness, as a trained assassin would – in
my eyes. This shows a little of his personality I feel,
as it shows he would like to attack the whole village
after just a little bit of a watching, planning to use
brute strength. I am happy with how it went as it
gets through more scenes and I feel it is making
good progress.

6. Process