You may think that with all of my planning and organization, I just jumped straight into animating. Well, you're wrong. Unfortunately, it did not work out so smoothly. Life got busy. I was juggling freelance work, teaching, client work, and life in general. But there was one thing that I did not anticipate: Burnout. Yup! With all that work I was keeping up with, I became exhausted and I took a break from animating when I hadn't even started yet. I was sad about it but I realized I was overwhelmed with all that was going on at the time.
I didn't start back working on this project until Dec 6th. According to my schedule, I should've finished all my animations plus clean-up and now working on lighting/composition. However, all I had was a layout of my characters in the scene. No animation. I started to feel the pressure a little. It's hard to explain it all in writing. Hopefully, I'll be able to explain it further in my YouTube channel. I realized that time was running out. If I don't put in the work to get this done I will not be able to sleep at night knowing their was unfinished work on my computer. So, I dedicated hours almost everyday after my day job to work on the animation. I had to take the simple route. If you know animation you know that it can be 15, 24, 30, or even 60 frames per second. A frame is one picture or drawing. If an animation is 3 seconds at 15 frames a second, that would mean there would be 45 frames or 45 drawings. Having 2 and half weeks left to animate, clean up, and composite means I would have to animate at the most convenient frames per second. I decided 12 frames a second would be the best option for me.
After establishing what frame rate I was doing, it was just drawing in the frames. I animated in 4s for the most part but in some areas it was in 2s.
I enjoyed animating. I really did. I thought the process went smoothly for me. Once I knew exactly what I was doing, it just flowed into my hand really well. Thank God for that!
Lighting and compositing also came pretty easily in my opinion. I think it was because I was almost finished. It was all in the details during this phase. Little by little, I completed everything. I managed to finish the full animation project on Dec 22, 2021. Just in time for Christmas Eve!
If you've gotten this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read. This is something different rather than just posting it on the internet with no explanation. I've been working on this animation for approximately a month and half and I am proud of what I have accomplished. To see my full Christmas animation project please go to my YouTube channel (Chrystal Moe Art).
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4myeUf-TFx0&ab_channel=ChrystalMoeArt
Hope you enjoy! And Merry Christmas!
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