Christmas Countdown Day 21/25 – Mrs. Claus

Mrs. Claus
Click here to see the Mrs. Claus rock.
Paint/draw along with me!
Creative prompts for Christmas countdown #Christmas #creative #advent

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Have you visited my online shop? Prints of my seascapes are available on watercolor paper or canvas, in many sizes including the new “mini” canvas 11″ x 14″ at shop.eileenmckenna.com. Take a peek! The perfect gift for beach lovers.

Creating an Animation from your Illustration

I’ve been animating my illustrations lately and thought I’d share how I do it. My technique is similar to stop motion – I save an image for each point of movement in the animation. Then I put the images together in iMovie. When the time between frames (or images) is the right speed, it appears as if the illustration moves.

Here are the three animations I created recently – click each image to see the animated movie on Instagram.
Click here to see the animation https://instagram.com/p/Bcx4w_gnIAP/
Flickering candle animation #animation
Elf flipping animation

Steps to animating your illustration:

  1. Create your illustration. It is easier if the animated part is created separately from the non-moving part. For my reindeer animation – the reindeer is a separate illustration from the lights. The same is true for the elf. The background with the present is one illustration and the elf at the various stages of flipping are separate illustrations.
  2. Create the frames for your animation. Save a separate jpg file for each frame. I use Adobe Photoshop to put the illustrations together and to create the animated element. For the reindeer it was the lights lighting up in different ways. For the candle it was the flame moving and changing shape slightly. For the elf it was the elf in different positions, in different places. See my frames below.
  3. Upload the jpgs into iMovie. Place the jpgs in the order you want them to be viewed. Adjust the time between the frames so the animation looks fluid. Make sure “fit to frame” is selected so each frame doesn’t zoom in and out.
  4. Select “Share to file” to save your movie as an mp4 file to post.

Some of the reindeer jpgs:
In the image to the left only the blue lights are “on.” The one in the middle all the lights are on. On the right only the red lights are on.

Some of the Candle jpgs:
In each image the flame is slightly modified. I wanted it to appear that the candle was flickering.

The Elf jpgs:

Let me know if you give it a try!

 

Want a dose of creative inspiration? Sign up for my newsletter “My Creative Collection” by clicking here. Learn more here.

Have you visited my online shop? Prints of my seascapes are available on watercolor paper or canvas, in many sizes including the new “mini” canvas 11″ x 14″ at shop.eileenmckenna.com. Take a peek! The perfect gift for beach lovers.

Christmas Countdown Day 18/25 – Elf

Elf flipping animationClick here to see the elf flip.
Paint/draw along with me!
Creative prompts for Christmas countdown #Christmas #creative #advent

Want a dose of creative inspiration? Sign up for my newsletter “My Creative Collection” by clicking here. Learn more here.

Have you visited my online shop? Prints of my seascapes are available on watercolor paper or canvas, in many sizes including the new “mini” canvas 11″ x 14″ at shop.eileenmckenna.com. Take a peek! The perfect gift for beach lovers.

Stop Motion Animation – See the tire “swing” :)

treeswing
Click here to see the swinging tire swing!
I’ve been wanting to create an animation for a while now. I see a lot of them on Instagram. But everytime I come up with a concept – it’s way too complicated. Especially since I wasn’t sure how to go about it, how to animate my illustration – video? animated gif? an app? which app?

The other day on a whim, I painted a tree and thought it could use something else. A quote? A tire swing! I realized I could start simple. My stop motion animation would be of the tire swinging. The background doesn’t change. The tire swing would be the only moving component, so I drew it separately.

But how to make it work? I figured it out using the process of elimation – video too shaky, one app wouldn’t allow me to upload my own pics, animated gifs don’t play on Instagram (I don’t think ), another app left a huge watermark across my animation, etc.

I was ready to give up! I decided to try one more thing and try iMovie on my Mac – which I don’t know well. At first it didn’t seem like it would work. How do I upload my pics? But after some modifications, finally success! My tire swing was swinging! 🙂

A simple thing, but it feels like a milestone. I made my illustration move! Haven’t seen it yet? Click here! I’m already thinking of the next animation. Stay tuned!