Responsive: LoopdeLoop - Animating my Loop

As I was happy with my idea, I thought it would just be best to begin working on it. I started out by designing the environment. I didn't want this to be too complicated as I was going to have to make it loop, so I opted for a simple ground like platform complete with grass.

Environment - Example of the Looping Background

I really liked the colour palette I had chosen for the environment and wanted to continue with the pastel colours with my cat. My favourite colour scheme out of the ones I had planned out in my sketchbook was black and white/grey, but when I came to test these colours on my environment, I felt that they didn't stand out enough and it made the aesthetic feel duller. Instead I decided to go for a ginger coloured cat as this complimented the environment well.

Testing Cat Colours Against The Background

Rather than draw the cat with a black outline which is what I usually do with animations of this nature, I decided to try a new style. This time I chose a slightly darker shade of orange to draw my cat in, so that when it was coloured, the outline of it didn't feel as 'harsh'. This style was also much more fitting to the rest of the environment, as nothing else had been drawn with a definite outline.

To draw the cat jumping, I had used a variety of reference videos I found on the internet. The first couple were videos of cats "failing their jumps", and for the second half of the loop when the cat lands on the new platform, I had referred to SlowMoGuys' video on a cat landing on its feet. I found this was very useful as I could easily pick out keyframes to recreate in my animation.

The Struggles of Getting my Animation to Loop 

(Yes I'm Aware There Was Likely to be a Better Way Than This, But it Worked For me so Shush)

Once I was happy with my jumping sequence, I imported the image sequence and photoshop components into after effects so I could make the animation loop correctly. I found it quite hard to get my components to line up perfectly, especially as there was no way for me to onion skin between the first and the last frame. I was also going about moving the camera between the two levels/platforms all wrong too; I had actually created a camera to follow the cat as it jumped down the hole, but this would mean the camera would snap to it's start location very obviously, which I didn't like. In the end I found it was easier to have the camera stationery and move the layers, as I could move them all at once.

I was happy with how the animation was looking/looping, but I felt that it was lacking something. I figured that the animation needed more of a narrative because as it stood the cat was just jumping down from platform to platform. I went back into photoshop and drew up a food bowl and some yarn, two objects that I thought the cat could jump towards. The addition of these items was quick and easy - I could get them to move in time with the ground they were sat on by parenting them to that layer - yet I think it greatly improved the piece, as it gave the cat a motive to jump.

Added Props

Now that I have my animation looping nicely and all my props and pieces in place, it's time for me to consider adding sound.