Animated Robin Loop in 5 different styles.
For this short looping robin animation I wanted to practise character animation as well as experiment with a few different style options in After Effects.
Rough Keyframe Animation Guide
First I established the key poses in Adobe Animate, drawing frame by frame and adjusting until I was happy with the timing. I used this sketch as a guide for animating the various shapes and paths that made up the robin in After Effects.
Although most of the animation was achieved by transforming shapes and paths, I used Rubberhose to rig the legs. This useful tool speeds up the process of creating simple IK rigs in After Effects - meaning I could more efficiently and accurately animate the knee bends on the robin.
I wanted the flapping of the robin's wings to feel really fast and frantic, so I hand drew some smear frames to exaggerate their speed. In animation, smear frames are used to simulate motion blur. By depicting two wing poses on a single frame, the viewer receives more information about their movement, despite only having a limited number of frames to view.
