Analogue Gif

 First Gif

I decided I would get cracking with my first Gif. I practiced by trying to draw this dude with my Wacom but decided that I preferred the aesthetic for him in coloured pencil. I found it quite hard making it seem like the same person for him through this method.

I started off by getting my friend to dress up in blue clothing and then took loads of photos of him dancing to the song in his bedroom. I put a special mode on my camera that took 60 photos at 1 second intervals. This was very useful at getting images that would flow together especially with this guys dancing. I instructed him to wear blue casual clothes.

From all of these photos I started to fill a sketchbook.

I drew these, scanned them in, took away all the backgrounds on photoshop and then adjusted the brightness and contrast for each image. 

I found it difficult to see whether I had photoshopped all of the background out and thought everything was okay until I saw this in my window and then had to go back through everything and re delete stuff. The outlines of the figure dont look very tidy from the rubber tool but I didnt think it mattered too much because the background was white anyway. To say I hated photoshop I am suprised at how happy I am to use it now, I feel that I have a much better grasp on it and understand how useful it is!

This Gif was the guy moving at 0.1 seconds per frame and it is crazy fast and gives you a head ache! It is a lot smoother movements than the slower but it is just too fast. So I decided to use the 0.2 seconds per frame. t

When putting the Gif together I tried to get the head size to be the same and the feet to be in the correct place on the floor because part of what works is the different body language and heights of the moevments. I think it is really interesting when looking at different parts of the body and watching just the legs or the arms through the motions. I feel that there is a lot to take in but the dance moves are cool and it does work.

When chosing the order of the frames I drew some of them so that they fit and were all part of the move but I looked at getting in and out of the moves and which frames had the right arm or the right leg and would transition well into the next move.

I decided that I wanted my background to not be too complicated and to keep to the same colour palette because I felt that 3 tones was enough complexity. I also wanted the shapes in the background to reflect excitement and energy, to be playful and childish.

I created 3 different backgrounds of the same shapes so that I could flick between them in the background (as if there was a disco ball going off).

I enhanced these all of photoshop but couldnt figure out how to make the background white white because the colour range didnt work... so I kept it grey. The shadows make it look quite interesting. 

I also chose the one of him on his knees to be further prolonged for effect!

I had difficulty submitting this Gif. It was too large to submit via email even when it was on the smallest size because I guess there are too many layers. I had to bring it in on  a memory stick!