I wanted to animate my artwork with the end aim of having something eye catching and functional for Instagram stories. My only method of creating motion work for the last 8 years was the animation function in Photoshop and while it’s very handy for producing ambient pieces, to have multiple elements in motion would be unwieldy, at least in my experience with the program. Since using After Effects I’ve found it so liberating and vastly useful. Treating my artwork as one asset within a larger moving system was the first step and I’d wing it from there.
Collected below are my first efforts at animating artwork, shapes and type. If you watch the Bruno Fernandes piece I layered my drawing time lapse over the actual end portrait so you can see it forming as it slides into place. This use of all my assets when making artwork helps give another layer of interest to viewers.
I feel Instagram story posts are the most exciting place for animation and illustration as they give it the full stage in addition to quick reactions from viewers. These pieces are trying to build on the approach from the previous video above, you can see the same hallmarks; blur, chromatic aberration and noise. They all combine to render an analog effect which is quite rewarding when applied over my high res artwork but it’s lacking any reasoning for why I’ve done it bar ‘it looks cool’. If I can start developing more thoughtful motion layouts I think the end results will have much more impact.
Below is my Raumdeuter piece which is the most in depth motion work I’ve done so far. It references the players name, sponsor, nickname, playing style and can be formatted for multiple social platforms.
I drew this in Procreate with a monoline brush. This fixed width approach mimics vector line work and clicks with my motion work. I then tweaked the shadows in Photoshop and exported to After Effects.
Here’s a screen grab of the final piece.