So as part of my personal development I want to focus a bit more on character work. One idea of mine was to create a simple looped GIF for social media and what better than the Easter bunny. I had this idea back in March so I had some time to work on it.
I started off with some basic sketches and story boarding. Which...for some reason have gone missing so here is a shot of some other story boards
After that I needed to create my character in After Effects. Why After Effects? After some study the bunny design only needed basic shapes (eclipse mostly) so no need to over complicate it in Illustrator. I also have more control over how the shapes move and animate in After Effects.
Getting out my trusted 'The Animators Survival Kit' by world renowned animator Richard Williams and studied jumps.
I started with the foot as a line shape and adding a eclipse shape for the leg, later adding a body and then duplicating the foot and leg for the second leg. I then misspelled 'Bunny' as 'Bubby' on the project files and thus the name stuck.
This was a little slow for my liking but a decent start it definitely needed refining as I progressed. Things like moving keyframes for delay and follow through. At this point I also started adding Null controls for various different parts of the body.
Next was to add the head and tail. The tail was interesting as I expected to have some follow through but for some reason it didn't seem to look right. He started to look like he had Hemorrhoid's.
So went back a step and removed the animation and just parented it to the body. he head was simply a eclipse shape with some squash and stretch animation.
This was followed by the arms. This is where I started to bring in some follow through. And got some weird looks on the train trying to imitate a bunny jump to get the right timings and animations down. I knew this was going to change as I was going to add a basket, which will add weight to the arms. The arms again was a path shape. At this stage I also started refining and changing how the foot was looking and adding some delay and a bit more bend.
Next the ears. This was something that required some extra time as these would add character and some believe ability the the character. Again these were shapes in after effects but in 2 parts the main part of the ear and the folded over tip.
Bending was added, stretching and follow through. What I really learnt about this part is the importance of planning and research. I would have liked to have the ear straighten completely and be more bendy, as I am sure there is a better way to do this.
I am very happy with the bounce the ears have at the end.
Next the face. This was done in a separate composition and added on top and parented to the head. I created a blink with shapes over the eyes which were controlled by sliders.
The whiskers where path shapes which gave me more control. I particularly like the follow through at the end.
I tweaked with the timings more moving the key frames a frame or two ahead or behind as well as speed the jump up a bit more in
places.
Finally was the add the scene and the basket. As I said earlier I would have to change the animation for the hands to simulate weight. I then added some bushes to the scene. Thou I feel these are still too fast compared to the character so will be something to focus on next time. Below is the full GIF sequence.
There are certainly some areas I would change. But I learned a few things that I will be able to take on in other projects. I think next will be to add more character and feelings to it.
Well hopefully this is useful and interesting. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn. Time for a cookie.
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