The Winter Bird
The Winter Bird from Susanne Eknes Selvarajah on Vimeo.
This was a piece I worked on on and off for a week. I wanted to gain an understanding of bird movement and create a winter ambiance that reminded me of my home city in Norway.
I roughed out the animation in Photoshop and then moved into Toon Boom Harmony. I rigged the branch in Harmony and animated the bird and snow by hand. After I had finished animating the different elements, I compiled them all into After Effects and colour corrected them. I also added some additional effects and camera moves to the piece.
I separated the background into three layers. This was done so I could apply a subtle parallax as the camera would move over to the right slightly.
I roughed out the animation in Photoshop and then moved into Toon Boom Harmony. I rigged the branch in Harmony and animated the bird and snow by hand. After I had finished animating the different elements, I compiled them all into After Effects and colour corrected them. I also added some additional effects and camera moves to the piece.
I separated the background into three layers. This was done so I could apply a subtle parallax as the camera would move over to the right slightly.
I wanted to learn how rigging works in ToonBoom Harmony. In addition, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could make an animation using both a 2D rig and hand drawn animation without making either one of the two stick out from each other. This is why I drew the bird by hand to understand the subtle yet determined movements a bird, in this instance a Great Tit, makes when turning their head. The snow was drawn frame by frame after I rigged the branch to figure out where I needed extra frames and where I could make do.