I love being an animator - It's a major part of my identity and I don't animate enough at my day job. To keep my skills sharp, I began accepting part-time freelance work. I learned when working full time, raising a family, and trying to be a good husband/friend, it's really important to be selective of the projects I take on.
Towards the end of May 2021, Co-Founder and Illustrator Ben Brick from The Good Kids in Bismarck ND asked about animating a logo for a grip & lighting rental company. I am a sucker for awesome art and instantly fell in love with Ben's illustrative style.
Towards the end of May 2021, Co-Founder and Illustrator Ben Brick from The Good Kids in Bismarck ND asked about animating a logo for a grip & lighting rental company. I am a sucker for awesome art and instantly fell in love with Ben's illustrative style.
With enough time, will power, and coffee - I'm an ok illustrator. There's no way I could have instilled as much personality and flare as what Ben was able to in just a few weeks. He created all of the elements inside of Adobe Illustrator with an artboard that was roughly 6000+ pixels wide. That's a big scene to illustrate!
When I took possession of the art files, I found I really enjoyed the scene. So much so that I wanted to give this project some extra love and attention. One major goal for the project was for the van to feel like it's flying down the road on it's way to a shoot. During my first attempt, I made the van fly across the scene, slow down, and accelerate again. Unfortunately, this gave the van a feeling as if it was breaking down. Not Ideal.
This client provides grip and rental services to large scale clients - the last thing we wanted was to make them feel as if they're unreliable because their vans are broken. Yikes.
When I took possession of the art files, I found I really enjoyed the scene. So much so that I wanted to give this project some extra love and attention. One major goal for the project was for the van to feel like it's flying down the road on it's way to a shoot. During my first attempt, I made the van fly across the scene, slow down, and accelerate again. Unfortunately, this gave the van a feeling as if it was breaking down. Not Ideal.
This client provides grip and rental services to large scale clients - the last thing we wanted was to make them feel as if they're unreliable because their vans are broken. Yikes.
Version 01 was simply the wrong idea and I needed to start from scratch. After a phone call with Ben, we made a list of everything we both disliked about the video and created a game plan to propel our little project to a more polished finished product. Time for version 02.
For this version, I started with rigging the van with Joysticks & Sliders and utilized extra shapes so I could rotate the van in a way that appeared to be faux 3D. I also added an aggressive but tight wiggle expression on the Y POS of the joystick controller. This simulated road vibrations in the van.
Additionally, I used the taper & wave effects on a stroke to provide the van with a dust trail. Now our van looks like it's flying to the location of an important shoot!
For this version, I started with rigging the van with Joysticks & Sliders and utilized extra shapes so I could rotate the van in a way that appeared to be faux 3D. I also added an aggressive but tight wiggle expression on the Y POS of the joystick controller. This simulated road vibrations in the van.
Additionally, I used the taper & wave effects on a stroke to provide the van with a dust trail. Now our van looks like it's flying to the location of an important shoot!
The van's animation was much better, so it was time to add some supporting animations. The palm trees move at different speeds from foreground, mid-scene, and background to sell the idea of camera parallax, giving the scene depth.
I'm also a huge advocate for following as many of the 12 principals of animation as possible, so I added some squash and stretch, anticipation, easing, arcs, and some secondary animation. For a more polished composite feel, I place low low opacity reflections to the windows and a window shine to help sell the realism.
The logo transition at the end of the video was an especially tricky piece to create. In order to pull it off, I had to create a few smear frames, tapered strokes, blurs, and most importantly - bang my head against the desk repeatedly. In the end, it was worth it because I'm excited with how the final version came out.
I'm also a huge advocate for following as many of the 12 principals of animation as possible, so I added some squash and stretch, anticipation, easing, arcs, and some secondary animation. For a more polished composite feel, I place low low opacity reflections to the windows and a window shine to help sell the realism.
The logo transition at the end of the video was an especially tricky piece to create. In order to pull it off, I had to create a few smear frames, tapered strokes, blurs, and most importantly - bang my head against the desk repeatedly. In the end, it was worth it because I'm excited with how the final version came out.
