The document provides a summary of the production process for each day that Leah Ellis worked on animating a project. On the first day, she started with basic line art and coloring in Photoshop using a tutorial. She struggled to animate words changing size in Photoshop and had to use AfterEffects instead. Later, she improved an explosion scene using layered color splashes. Scanner issues prevented work but were later resolved. Progress was made adding mouth movements and finishing scenes. Technical issues delayed work but time was used to improve character designs. Voice recording sessions captured effects. Crowd animation was created but movement needs refinement.

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
Today I was creating the first scene with the snake and the
one reaction shot to the narrator. The first thing I realised
when I started was that I had used the wrong colours which
meant that I had to redo about 3 scenes that I had drawn and
coloured, taking a long while to redo it all, but essential.
The only other scene I did today was also taking a while as it
required me to draw out another couple stages and scan
them in. This was easy enough though so it was quite
satisfying and calming for me. Along with designing the
backgrounds for these scenes, this is one of my favourite
things to do for this. I realised that I had no mouth animation
in my other scenes, so this was the scene that I needed to
add some moth movements to. I did this by making it so that
the blue rabbit says ”yes” after landing.

7. Process
Today was to continue creating more scenes, consisting of
the fight scenes which did not go well at first as I found it
difficult to make the movement seem more natural for
both parties involved. The main problem here was with
the fox as I had forgotten how I had planned to do it at
first and so hadn’t planned out and designed as many
frames as I needed, leading to some last minute designs
that I feel may have worked acceptably as it is only
designed to be one small scene to give a basic impression
of what may be in the full show somewhere mixed in with
a lot of other fight actions. Another thing that I feel may
have been done wrong is that the line art in the snake
scene is a lot thicker than all other scenes. Looking back
now, I do not feel that this is the way I should have done it
so I feel I will need to change this tomorrow, although that
means redoing it all.
I tried to draw out my front facing rabbit for the
next scene, and I am not sure how exactly that has
worked, so I will attempt a few more goes at that
tomorrow from possibly the same, or slightly
different reference images as well.

8. Process
Today was hard to complete too much work
as my tablet driver had an update that I did
not realise until 2nd lesson after I had already
restarted my computer once to get it to
work. This delayed my work a lot as I was
restarting my computer a few times so that it
would work again. This did give me time to
try t draw out and create the bunny shape
that I wanted though so I made a couple
more designs to scan in and trace over. I
think this one has worked much better than
the one yesterday as that was more of a
rushed one and this one I took my time with
as I should to make it the best possible
design.
I then had to create my crowd which is a
simple copy and paste design which I simply
needed to change the colour each time for,
this made is easy but time consuming to
create as many as I wish to have.

9. Process
Today I decided to spend most of my time with my
voice actor getting sounds and voices recorded as it
is not often that we can have time with her. She is a
busy person, and our timetables do not match at all
so it was best to do it when we could. We got many
clips, that some are a few minutes long of
continuous sound effects for me to pick and choose
from. We decided it would be best to have too much
than too little in terms of amount of sounds as it
would be extremely difficult to have the time when
our schedules match again.
I then decided to spend what time I had left to try
animating the creation I made yesterday, which I am
unsure about and think that more time may be
needed to try to make it look much more natural as
they all flock to the super bun. This is because, I had
not had a clear idea of how they would move until I
had created them all, and with them as still
characters, I feel it may be best to do it in a way that
you cannot tell whether or not their feet are
moving, and possibly even do it where they are not
appearing to fly up to her, and do it in more of a
stack or a mound, possibly like a just huddle.

10. Process