Animating on Paper

Hello folks!! Welcome to my first ever blog post ^^

I don't really have a grasp on what I'm doing yet, so bear with me ok!!

To begin with, this is the animation I've been working on for the past two weeks. I wanted to share my process and reflect a little.

This is the first animation I've ever done on paper, and it was definitely daunting. My professor had me check out a lighbox for the semester, so I'd have constant access to it in my dorm. For those who maybe aren't familiar with what a lightbox is, it's a drawing surface that backlights your drawings, creating an onion-skin effect when the different drawings are layered. The paper was hole punched with a special press to fit onto the pegs. It's just printer paper.

The actual process of animating wasn't too bad. It took some time to figure out if I wanted to animate straight ahead, or do keyframes. For most of it I did end up using keyframes, animating straight ahead can be a bit nerve wracking. Keyframing on the lightbox wasn't easy though, that took some practice too. But once I figured out what I wanted to animate and how to best go about it, the process became a lot smoother. I decided to animate Yosuke and Jiraya, because they were characters I'm already familiar with drawing and that greatly sped up the process.

In the end, I'm super happy with how it turned out! There's definitely some parts where the pacing needs to be fixed, and some frames are off-model, but I'm so tired I can't be bothered to fix it. Considering this is my first on-paper animation, I'm very proud of it!!

Anyways, that's all I had planned to write about. Thanks for tuning in!

I hope y'all have a wonderful rest of your day,

Much love, Nort