This digital illustration was for an assignment for Illu 321 (Animated Illustration). It is an editorial illustration for an article about the changing landscape of digital content. This illustration was always intended to be animated so planning for the animation was critical to the developmental process.
The first step was to select a storyboard for further development. Storyboards and thumbnails often yield interesting concepts that don’t get used. Therefore they are worth keeping around in case another opportunity to use one of them arises. This is just selection of some of the many storyboards created for this project.
The next step was to further develop the selected storyboard, then create the illustration. The illustration was created in Adobe Photoshop CC 2019. This initial version on a blue background has composition balance issues that were resolved after the first revision.
This final version of the illustration has improved balance as well as being on an entirely white frame which would allow it to blend seamlessly into a web page article design or printed publication design. It also has room for type which could be animated as well. The Photoshop file contained just two layers, a linework layer and a color layer. Typically when preparing an assets file to be animated in Adobe After Effects there are numerous layers, however this animation was completed entirely in Photoshop Timeline as a frame by frame animation.
All movement in this illustration was completed using Adobe Photoshop Timeline, because it allows for frame by frame animation. Frame by frame was necessary due to the complexity of the moving and changing forms. Notice how the animated principle of Squash and Stretch is applied the dollar bill. The bill is stretched out of proportion by the rapid acceleration of the arm pulling it back into the TV. This creates the effect of a motion blur in the full speed animation.
This is the final animation.