Sketchbook Goldfish

This is my first attempt at traditional hand-drawn animation. While there are many things I would change upon reflection, I have outlined below the steps I took in creating this 3 second clip.

First, I experimented with different characters to determine the style and ease of production of the keyframes. I determined the simple red and orange goldfish would be the easiest to illustrate.

I then used watercolor to paint 18 frames, 9 frames of the fish moving quickly with fins at its sides and 9 frames of the fish moving more slowly with fins extended.

To export each fish as a separate png image, I first opened the scan in Photoshop and used the quick selection tool to select each fish. I then copied and pasted the selected fish into a separated Photoshop file, removed the background, and used the eraser tool to clean up the selections.

Each Photoshop file, now each containing one fish, was then exported as a png.

The two sequences each got their own folder (Fast and Slow), each with 9 pngs. I then opened After Effects and imported the pngs as image sequences.

I then adjusted the frame rate to what I though looked best, with the fast fish sequence with a higher frame rate than slow movement.